Thoughts On The Coming Season

January 9, 2007

By Chuck Abrams

Chuck Abrams

It’s coming. This week starts the first test sessions with the Daytona 500 less than 40 days away.

That is only about 6 weeks folks.

If you have never been to a race yet -- and I don’t care if it is at a local race or a NASCAR sanctioned race – there is nothing like the roar of 800-horsepower engines and the smell of racing fuel and hot rubber.

And while that smell may raise the hair on the back of your neck and send you into a state of semi-euphoria, it also marks the beginning of a lot of changes in the upcoming Sprint Cup campaign.

DEI has a lot of new talent and also welcomes back crew chief Doug Richert. Richert will be Regan Smith’s new crew chief after a frustrating year at Red Bull Racing with Brian Vickers. Before that, he was at powerhouse Roush Racing teamed with Greg Biffle who has had several frustrating seasons. DEI starts the season with nearly an all-new lineup since Dale Earnhardt’s departure for Hendrick. Smith and Richert will team up on the Rookie of the Year race against the likes of Jacques Villeneuve, Sam Hornish, Jr., Patrick Carpenter and Dario Franchitti. Believe it or not, Smith will enter the season with more experience in stock cars than any of the other ROTY candidates. It also means that Smith and Richert will have a team behind supporting with more stock car chemistry as well. Paul Menard also returns to the 15 car and needs a good year to retain his ride -- in my opinion. But having your family business as your sponsor certainly helps him in that respect. While I may think he needs to do better to keep his seat, he may do just well enough to please daddy.

Martin Truex, r. returns to his DEI ride after his first Chase crusade ever. The big question is whether he can keep up the good work and take over as the new face of DEI. Mark Martin also returns to DEI in the 8 car and will share the ride with Aric Almirola. The split will be a reported 24/12 in favor of Martin, but that is in a 36-race season and we all know it is a 26-race season. Let’s also hope that DEI has the engine failure problem figured out.

Gillette Evernham will also be looking to redeem itself in 2008. Kasey Kahne was probably on second to Dale Jr. in TV commercial time, but he was even worse in the points than Dale. Kahne needs to step it up Big Time. Elliott Sadler left Yates for greener pastures at Evernham. Or so we all thought. Sadler never amounted to much last season and perhaps a year under the belt will position him better in 2008. He better hope so or he could be Silly Season fodder before you know it. Scott Riggs lost out with the whole Top 35 deal and is replaced by former open wheeler Carpentier who started only 3 races in the Busch series and had one pole, 1 top 5 and 1 top 10. Putting his personal controversy behind him can only help Ray Evernham focus more while in the garage and put his teams back in the hunt in ’08.

Toyota moves it flagship from Waltrip Racing to Joe Gibbs racing. With all three Gibbs teams in the top 35, Toyota is guaranteed more starts in 2008. Gibbs also presents Toyota the best chance it will have at a win in the foreseeable future. Red Bull is struggling as an organization, Bill Davis is underfunded (although his team led by Dave Blaney was one of the few bright spots for Toyota last year) and MWR returns with a mixed up lineup, new funding and big changes internally. After Jarrett retires in five races, Reutimann takes over the 44 with the 00 left open. Reportedly, Michael McDowell will take over the 00 but if MWR struggles like it did last year, look for them to hire a “veteran” such as Stremme. That is if they have sponsorship for the third car.

Australian V8 Supercar Champion Marcos Ambrose will drive for the Wood Brothers in an undetermined number (12?) of races right now. But I look for big things from Ambrose. He has all the tools, ran a successful Busch campaign last year and is well respected in the garage area. It would not surprise me to see him in the Chase within the next few years.

That’s a start on the year. Gotta go now, let me know your thoughts on all this.

Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up. Wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Feel free to send Chuck your thoughts on this and other race topics at Insider Racing News. The blog at www.turnleftracing.com is down now due to spammers. We will have that back up as soon as we can.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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