Gilliland and TRG Motorsports Ready for Home Track

Monday June 15, 2009

Gilliland Second at Infineon Last Year

Mooresville, North Carolina (June 15, 2009) – David Gilliland and TRG Motorsports are ready for the Toyota SaveMart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. The track is the home circuit for TRG Motorsports and driver David Gilliland returns to the site of his best NASCAR finish to date, second place last year.

TRG’s corporate offices are headquartered just over the hill in Turn Three a few miles away from the track in Petaluma. Team principals Kevin and Debra Buckler live in Marin, County so this is very much a home event for the entire team.

Gilliland, of Riverside, California, is looking forward to racing the 10-turn, 1.99 mile undulating road course located in the heart of wine country. Last year he qualified 32nd and was able to improve the car and finish second.

“I can’t wait for this weekend,” Gilliland said. “Last year with qualifying on Friday, we fought being loose with the car. On Saturday in the final practice we got the car really good and were third in practice. That gave us a lot of confidence going into the race. We took our time and got to the front. We played the fuel mileage game right, half-way through the race we got into the top five and stayed there and made a run at the end. I have won there in two other series and ran second last year in the Cup race. I’m going to Infineon with a lot of confidence. It is a lot of fun for me to go there, I really enjoy it.”

The team tested at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) with TRG veteran sports car driver Andy Lally.

“The car drove well at VIR. VIR is not Infineon, but we were able to test brakes and made some changes that will make us that much closer when we unload on Friday. We came back and changed the car and we feel we have a better car as a result of the test. The TRG sports car ace, Andy Lally, was there as well and definitely added value to the test.”

Crew chief Richard “Slugger” Labbe will have to be on his game with strategy, fuel mileage and track position.

“At any road race, strategy and fuel mileage play a big role. We will work very hard on making sure we are maximizing the fuel mileage. You also need a good handling car of course. In road racing there are so many opportunities to make mistakes. You have to have a car with brakes on it at the end and four fenders to be in a position to win at the end.”

Car setup is key to having a good day on a road course.

“The car has to be balanced everywhere. You have to be able to get off of Turn Seven and Turn 11. Getting off of those corners in low gear is a challenge. We have to get forward traction off those corners to make the run the down the straights.”

Double wide restarts will play a factor in the race this weekend.

“It will work fine as long as you are on the inside. If you are on the outside it will be a challenge. Almost every Cup race at Infineon there is an accident on the first lap in Turn Two it just gets so tight. Even though you are on the outside going across the line, which should put you on the inside into Turn Two, I would prefer the inside. It is all part of having the four fenders on the car at the end.”

Kevin Buckler, TRG Motorsports team principal, is excited to be running at his home track. He will also be a key element in strategy with his years of driving road courses as a driver.

“It will be great to compete with our new NASCAR team in front of our home town crowd,” Buckler said. “We have been planning for this weekend for most of the year. We will have an event pretty much every night leading up to the race and a large contingent of supporters at the top of Turn Two. David is really excited to come back here and try to improve one more position from his best ever NASCAR finish. The team has witnessed a ground swell of support from local businesses and we are proud to be the home town team. We have tested the road course car and we are very confident in our driver and our approach to the weekend. I can’t wait! We will have our brain trust of road racing veterans to help in any way they can so we can have the best day possible. My career as a driver for TRG was launched with a big upset win here in 1995. Let’s see if we can try to do the same with our NASCAR program.”

Gilliland will also be in the No. 89 car of the Camping World West Series on Saturday driving for Daryl Wong. The last time Gilliland drove the 89 was at Phoenix where he put it on the pole.

The SaveMart 350 from Infineon Raceway will be televised live on TNT starting at 4:30 p.m. ET.
The team would like to thank the Fairfield in Vacaville for their support.

TRG Motorsports is based in Mooresville, North Carolina. Currently the team fields a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series entry as well as a Camping World Truck Series effort and an ARCA RE/MAX Series team. The Racer’s Group was founded in 1993 and has been competing at the top level of sports car racing. TRG’s Porsche sports car program is run out of the company’s headquarters in Petaluma, California. The team has the most wins of any team in the Grand-Am Rolex Series with 28, including the 2005 and 2006 Rolex Series GT championship trophy to go along with wins in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona (three) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

For more information please contact Kyle Chura at (248) 821-0468 or chura@aol.com. Detailed team info can be viewed at www.trgmotorsports.com and www.theracersgroup.com.

The Death Knell for Two NASCAR Series?

For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

On the eve of the spring pilgrimage to Michigan International Speedway, a link is gleaned from the chaff of Twitter Tweets. Reports are surfacing that one of the car manufacturers investing heavily in NASCAR, General Motors, will be cutting back sponsorship, and both the NASCAR Nationwide Series, and Camping World Truck Series will feel the greatest pinch. From the article by Reid Spencer, it appears that it will impact the larger teams, such as Kevin Harvick, Inc., Rusty Wallace, Inc., and JR Motorsports. If true, GM will not be supporting any teams except at the Cup level.

Full details should be revealed on Friday, in an article written by Michael Smith, of Sports Business Journal. From Spencer's article "As Smith points out, support from manufacturers typically comes in the forms of engines, parts and cash. In most cases, factory support goes to larger, more substantial organizations, while smaller teams receive little assistance, if any?"

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

There have been many complaints over the last few years that the NASCAR Cup drivers/teams are taking over the two lower series. While some will say that the upper tier drivers "raise the competition level" and 'bring bigger crowds,' it is true that the cars from Cup mega-teams have dominated both series. Swimming upstream are the teams that are independently owned, unaffiliated with the big teams, who don't have access to the biggest, best and latest gizmo that costs money and yet gives a competitive advantage.

The smaller teams have received very little in the way of resources. Left out of the mainstream of technology, the little guys have watched the purses erode and the competition get overwhelmingly hard. Working at a grass roots level, they are scrabbling to stay in a sport they live, eat, drink, and breath. They dreamed of getting as big as a Hendrick, Roush or Gibbs organization but cannot see their way to climb past the first hurdles, money and support.

The best of sponsorship deals in the lower series will not even cover the C-post on a Cup car. Bobby Hamilton, Jr, today on Sirius "The Morning Drive" lamented that if they get a chance at a sponsor, that sponsor wants a Cup driver in a Nationwide car. No problem? Sure. except the sponsor is not paying enough to compensate that Cup driver!

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.

Consequently, regular watchers of the Nationwide and Camping World Truck series, over the years, have seen an erosion of the "little guy." The worst example came last weekend. The Truck race had 33 starters (not a full field) with 10 being start-and-park entries. The Nationwide race had 43 entries, with 11 out of the race by Lap 80. (There were some accidents in here, so all were not S&P cars.)

As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.

An immediate thought is that the races may become more competitive without the big teams, and that those grassroots teams may be able to make inroads into the standings. Yet, some of those big teams bring in fans of those big name drivers and with their loss ...who is left to watch?

If the big teams decide to abandon the two lower tier series, where does that leave the teams that run exclusively in the lower series? And where will it leave the Cup teams, especially those that are struggling against the tide of the big team wealth. Hopefully, not washed out to sea.

Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne

NASCAR Media all A-Twitter!

I am finding it increasingly more interesting to follow the NASCAR media in the last few weeks. As an 'older generation' fan, and most certainly an older generation 'blogger.' I find that I am not on the same side of many of the bloggers and even some of the media who write about NASCAR.

But what the heck! This is the new age, and I have just as much right to express an opinion as anyone. As an observer, I found the recent Kyle Busch 'Guitar Gate' event to be an astounding mass of misinformation!

I recently discovered Twitter, and Lo! The media is all a-twitter!!!! The media was Aghast at the Smash of the Axe! (So was I!) Immediately after the guitar smash, I sent a 'tweet' to the Gibbs media representative who reports during the race. (Yes, I sent my displeasure, and I am sure many other Tweeps did the same! ) Within minutes, there was a steady stream of "Sam Bass loved it" and "The Sponsors Loved It!" I could see the spin happening! In fact, the spin happened for several hours into the next day.

Monday morning, listening to Sirius Radio's The Morning Drive, I heard NASCAR writer Nate Ryan as a guest host, declare the party line: "Sam approved of this a year in advance." After Sam came on the air on the later broadcast, Sirius Speedway, we found the whole story, as Sam did not know about the future trophy destruction at any time before the event. When it happened, Sam was stunned, heartbroken, and disheartened. He declared that Kyle told him LATER that he did not mean disrespect, but Sam was still upset. Sam, for those of you who have yet to meet him, is a humble and private man. He will do anything to help anyone, but even he said that the smashed guitar was not replaceable, it was one of a kind.

At that point, the Twittering Media was responding with..."What?!! Sam was not happy!!!???" Until Sam appeared on a few select shows, no one had asked Sam Bass how he felt, and no one asked the venue operator, and no one asked Federated Auto Parts. RESEARCH is important!

I woke up this morning with Sirius in my ear, and heard Nate Ryan continue with his philosophy. He and Mike Bagley decided that anyone who disagreed with their opinion would be discounted. I have to wonder, how would David Poole react? Encountered with evidence that what they had espoused the previous day was not true, they continue blindly in the same incorrect direction, picking apart any argument that did not agree with them. Indeed, Bagley went through a mass deletion of detractors on his Facebook page.

To take it to the other side of journalistic integrity, I had an encounter with an individual who writes for the blog compiler "The Bleacher Report" who made some statements about what he thinks should happen in a particular NASCAR ride. He had several facts wrong, and after several dialogues back and forth, where I, and others, presented facts, he finally gave up and deleted his blog. For someone who claims they are planning on a career in "Mass Communications" perhaps they should be prepared to RESEARCH and RESPOND with FACTS! If one has the courage of convictions, one should not need to delete the blog when overwhelmed with facts.

Hubris is not permanently attached, it can be pulled from your psyche to reveal humility and the desire to find out the truth.

Meandering among the Marbles! Pocono Weekend

Notes and Observations from Pocono Weekend

ESPN is up to their shenanigans from last year, by not starting the Nationwide Qualifying on time. This time, it was a regional baseball tourney. It would not have been so bad, if they had considered moving the qualifying to another channel. Even the watchers most ignorant of baseball will see that when the team is at the top of the 8th with one out, that the Qualifying will not be coming up soon, unlike the scroll at the bottom of the screen kept proclaiming. I gave up after 40 minutes, and went about my life. When ESPN takes over the Cup season, we will have more of the same.

A requirement of the contract to sing our Anthem for a NASCAR race is that it MUST be sung properly. This is not an audition for American Idol or America's Got Talent!

In pre-race, Kyle Busch told of his last Dover Nationwide race, where he was 'moved' out of the way by his team mate. He admitted that he had a tire going down, and then dropped a bombshell by saying he didn't tell anyone, because he wanted to drag out the start and hope there was a wreck behind him.

"I have no issues with Joey at all," Busch said Friday at Pocono Raceway. "I must have punctured a tire I because I felt it in the last two corners before the caution came out that the right-front was getting soft. I didn't call it over the radio because I didn't want to give everybody Christmas and say that I had a tire going down.

"If I could have jacked up the restart enough and caused a wreck then I would have been fine, I would have been golden — it was a green-white-checkered so I would have won the race. That didn't happen.

"I went off into turn one and Joey was going to follow me and that's why I was as high as I was because I wasn't expecting him to follow. He got in the back of me a little bit (but) it was no fault whatsoever of Joey." (From USA Today)

Rusty Wallace called him out for it, and Kyle deserved everything that Rusty said, and all that he didn't say. Brad Daugherty even called Kyle out for not stopping to talk to the media. If Joe Gibbs Racing and M&M's haven't listened to the fans comment on Kyle's behavior, perhaps they will hear the commentary from the booth, and act on it. It is one thing to be a polarizing player in the sport, it is another to try and deliberately wreck the field. And the worst part, is that he didn't wait to talk to the media, and left his young team mate, Joey Logano thinking that he was totally at fault for the messed up restart.

Kyle further stunned the fans by smashing his guitar in Victory Lane. Forty-eight hours later, there are mixed stories on how much of this was planned, and how much was spur-of-the-moment. Sam Bass admitted that the act stunned him, but that he and Kyle talked in VL, and Sam is OK with it since Kyle has ordered two replacements. It is indeed Kyle's trophy, and he can do what he wishes with it. However, combined with the above tire issue, the guitar smashing, the refusing to talk to the press, and the general attitude that whatever he does is ok do not endear him to me, or to many fans of the sport. He may think he is a rock star, but this is racing, not rock 'n' roll!

The new restart procedures did help to jazz up the middle of the race. The long green flag runs, however, were still there, and the restarts did not counter the boredom that ensues for the hours and hours of cars all strung out.

There has been a tremendous amount of time given to the trials and tribulations of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and the crew chief changes. There has been little discussion on the crew changes for Kevin Harvick. Both will take time for changes to make an impact. Hopefully, the fans of both drivers show patience.

John Daly's blog, The Daly Planet, spent the weekend dissecting the three races. Much talk in all three events centered on Start and Parks. I am sensitive to this subject, since one of my favorite drivers and teams recently had to resort to this practice. I do not like it, and I am sure the driver and crew don't like it either. But, the economy has hit, and hit hard, among the teams on the lower echelon of each series. It is a hard decision to make, but my team is picking their races, and hope to make a showing in markets that are important to them. Frankly, I don't see many cars standing in the wings that will be able to move up to full-time racing, to replace the start and park cars.

On the Michigan!