Mast almost went to Childress: seems that Rick Mast came close to being Dale Earnhardt’s teammate. “A multiple championship owner came to me and said he was thinking about starting a third team, and he was real strong about it. He asked if I would be interested.”, Mast said. Mast refused to identify that owner other than to say he was “a top-three owner.” Winston Cup sources reported it was Richard Childress, who owns seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt’s #3 ride, and has Mike Skinner driving for his second, #31 team. Mast agreed to the #50 ride three weeks ago. Ricky Craven was in the Hicks car last season, but left for the #32 Cal Wells-owned Tide car. There have been reports that the Midwest Transit team doesn’t plan to run a full schedule, but Mast said Hicks’ “full intent, right now, is to run all of them” and the team recently landed an associate sponsorship from WorldBestBuy.com. There were off-season reports that Mast might go with longtime CART owner Chip Ganassi, making his debut with the #01 car in concert with Felix Sabates. But it never happened and Jason Leffler got the ride(Roanoke Times)(2-3-2001) (2-2-2001) Ground Hog Day
