December 21, 2011
By Chuck Abrams
So much for Silly Season. I will officially call this Crazy Season.
Kurt Busch is gone from Penske Racing and now the big rumor, as reported on Sirius, is that Petty Motorsports is interested in bringing him on in place of A.J. Allmendinger in the No. 43 car. As well as Alllmendinger did this year and considering he was one of the best drivers in the latter half of the season, his sponsor Best Buy is not so sure he is the guy and have left the team for the No. 17 car of Matt Kenseth. And Petty is interested enough in bringing on a known champion that can still win while in the prime of his career.
Petty is interested enough and desperate enough to retain its sponsor that it is potentially willing to overlook, or at least willing to take a big risk, to bring on a driver with as much baggage as Kurt Busch brings. But in the end even that wasn't enough for Best Buy to stay at Petty Motorsports.
That rumor started last week and has yet to come to fruition. Nor has David Ragan ascended to the 22 car for Penske, as was oft rumored last week as well. But they have a crew chief for the No. 22 in the form of Todd Gordon.
Then to top it all off – so far – Greg Zipadelli finally has rejoined with his former driver Tony Stewart: not a rumor, this is fact. Zippy will become competition director for Stewart Haas Racing. There is now some serious talent in place over at SHR. This bodes well for Stewart and Ryan Newman as well as Danica Patrick in the third car for 2012 and beyond.
So has the off season been crazy enough for ya?
It ain’t over yet folks. The No. 22 still needs a driver and Kurt Busch is still looking for a ride. There are a lot of desperate folks on the hot seat and I wouldn’t be surprised at anything right now.
Another thing that doesn’t surprise me is that NASCAR is making more moves to put an end to the tandem restrictor plate racing. Love it or hate it as a fan, NASCAR is looking to put an end to the tandem racing that has become the best way to navigate restrictor plate tracks.
They are proving the teams with a larger restrictor plate that will give them more power and throttle response – supposedly. To counter that, they are limiting the size of the radiator from five gallons to two and shrinking the overflow can to 50% of current capacity.
NASCAR will also mandate softer springs and a smaller spoiler.
To say the least, this should be interesting.
NASCAR is not taking steps to lower the height of the rear bumper or soften the bumper to eliminate the matched bumpers and bump drafting. Sooner or later they may have to do something along these lines, in my opinion.
I think the rest of these changes are mere band-aids to a problem that was created with the new car design. We’ll see just how this works when the cars take to the track at Daytona. And we may not even know exactly what hand has been dealt until we get some actual racing, not testing.
It is safe to say that NASCAR has the ability to change things right up until the start of the race if they don’t like what they see in early testing.
Lemme know your thoughts.
Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up.
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