January 27, 2009
By Loren Dorrell
Well, here we are, just three weeks or so from another Daytona 500; twenty days until the roar of thunder and the smell of high octane fuel will wake us from the doldrums of winter and prove yet again that (to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin) NASCAR is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
O.K., so old Ben said "beer", but, hey: unless you're from some Twilight Zone county that's still dry, you can get beer anytime; for NASCAR fans, there is no happier time than when the first green flag of the season falls, signaling an end to the gray and dreary days of football, basketball and hockey, and the beginning of a bright, new year of bump-drafting, slingshot passes, smoking tires and thirteen-second pit-stops.
That first green flag brings back to fond memory the joyous sounds of spring: "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!", "Boogity, boogity, boogity - let's go racin', boys!", the scream of fresh Goodyears, the roar of the crowd, the @$#&*XXX between driver and crew chief, and the dulcet tones of shearing sheet-metal. Ah, memories.
To look down on the field of forty-three and be reassured by familiar faces and familiar numbers........?
Wait just an egg-suckin' minute! Who's THAT in the 8? Bobby Labonte drives for WHO? Since when does Petty have a car in the Shootout? Whoa, when did Montoya get teamed with Truex, Jr?
For the average Joe like me, silly-season is bad enough. Now I've got to sort out Merger Madness as well? Right, well, here we go; and to keep it simple I'll focus on just those I'm reasonably sure I can get right.
The Good: Evernham Motorsports partners with George Gillett and becomes GEM. Not so good for Ray perhaps, but it does allow him the time to live the life of a country gentleman and put some smarts into race broadcasting. It even seems to liven up the team's competition a little.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, Petty Enterprises moves the ranch closer to Charlotte in hopes of...err...more hopes, and doesn’t do to well. The King partners with Boston Ventures, but it doesn't solve much. Then someone gets the bright idea for a merger between GEM and Petty, and boooinng! It's a stock car miracle, Virginia!
Just when it looked like the lights were about to fade on the Pettys, out came the sun and a new company was born: Richard Petty Motorsports. The new team has experience (Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler), the potential (Reed Sorenson and A.J. Allmen-dinger) and best of all, gets to keep the famous 43 on the race track - Petty blue and all - PLUS they get a slot in the Bud Shootout for the first time - ever.
Oh, and for those of you who believe in omens and portents and such, the new team's initials are - wait for it - RPM. Too cool? I’m thinking a Petty car makes it to victory lane this year, and maybe more than once.
The Bad: What used to be Dale Earnhardt Incorporated has been sliding downhill faster than molasses on a hot tin roof. Teresa Earnhardt, who was supposed to be the keeper of the flame, has let DEI’s light flicker to about the candlepower of a 3 year-old’s birthday cake.
Loosing Dale Jr. in 2007 was just the start: Budweiser fled for Kasey Kahne, the U.S. Army jumped over to Tony Stewart’s new operation, Paul Menard took himself (and the family money) to Yates Racing, and their one remaining marquee driver, Mark Martin, followed Dale Jr. to Hendrick. Suddenly, they had two drivers (Martin Truex, Jr. and Aric Almirola), four cars and not enough sponsorship to go around.
For awhile, it looked like the “new” DEI (referred to as TEI by some I know) would only have one full-time team – Truex’s number 1 – running for the Cup, with Almirola and the 8 slipping in here and there. Then fate – disguised as Chip Ganassi – stepped in. Chip’s team (the full name is addressed later) offered Queen Teresa a deal she couldn’t refuse: let’s put our crippled teams together and see if we can build one healthy one. She said yes (duuuh), Dodge gave their blessing (Chip had to switch to Chevy) and now they have four cars (the 1, 8, 41 and 42) three drivers (Chip brought Juan Pablo Montoya to the mix) and while they’re still shy a driver – and a sponsor – word is they’ll have all four in the Daytona 500. Big, fat, hairy deal.
The new hybrid called Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing or EGR (sounds like a smog valve or something) still won’t be much to shout about. Truex and Montoya may get a win or two and maybe a couple of poles (big deal, they still might not make the 2010 Shootout), but no-one from this bunch is likely to have their say at the podium when the 2009 Awards Banquet rolls around.
Just plain Ugly: See “Bad” above. Hands down, this one has to win the Michael Waltrip “Ugliest Way to List Everybody-Who-Owns-a-Piece-of-This-Mess” award from the Academy of Stupid Ways to Name a Race Team; I mean, come on: Earnhardt-Ganssi Racing with Felix Sabates?
Why insult the fans any further?
We all hate the way DEI has been subverted into a barely pronounceable shadow of its former self, so why not just call a spade a spade and name the thing, oh , I don’t know, maybe Teresa’s New Toy Motorsports. ‘Cause let’s face it Chip and Felix, unless you give Queen Teresa a brain transfusion, that’s just what this money pit is likely to become; unless you buy her out now and send her packing to Bermuda or someplace warm and cozy where she can’t screw it up.
You may notice that I haven’t said anything about Roush-Fenway or any of the myriad cooperatives floating around NASCAR (Yates and HOF, Hendrick and Jr Motorsports, just to name two), or anything about the games of musical drivers and/or manufacturers that have been going on lately.
I don’t have the time to hit every story around the track, and still keep my writing commitments here and at Stock Car Racing Online (a little gratuitous self-promotion) and maybe a third column to be announced (ditto), so I have concentrated this diatribe on what have arguably been two of the most iconic teams in NASCAR history.
And like many of you out there, while I wish only the best for both, it may take more than mere prayers to keep both of their names in the sport; it may also require some serious divine intervention. Let’s hope He can squeeze it in before it’s too late.
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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