Former Cowboys quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach plan to become owners of a NASCAR Winston Cup team in time for the 2004 season, Aikman confirmed Thursday. Aikman, 36, retired after the Cowboys released him following the 2000 season. He led the Cowboys to three Super Bowl championships and was voted to the Pro Bowl six times. Aikman now is the lead color analyst for NFL broadcasts on the Fox network. He has been a regular visitor to Texas Motor Speedway since the facility opened in 1997, and has attended most of the NASCAR events at the track. Staubach, 60, was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. He led the Cowboys to two Super Bowl titles and made the Pro Bowl six times. He won the Heisman Trophy while playing at Navy in 1963. Staubach now is the CEO of The Staubach Company, a diversified commercial real estate company headquartered in Dallas. Both Aikman and Staubach are discussing their plans with Winston Cup team owner Joe Gibbs, a former rival when Gibbs was the coach of the Washington Redskins. Gibbs will advise Aikman and Staubach on how to go about the process of starting a NASCAR team.( Dallas Morning News – need to register to read)(1-16-2003) UPDATE: Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach quarterbacked the same NFL team. Now they’re part owners of the same team – planning to enter a car in NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series in 2004. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks are partners in Hall of Fame Racing, which will be directed by former Trans-Am driver Bill Saunders, who will act as managing partner. “Roger and I have discussed this for a while, and all the pieces just came together. We’re not naive going into this thing. We recognize it will be a real challenge,” Aikman said in a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press. So far, Aikman said, the team has no shop, no equipment, no employees other than the three owners, no driver and no sponsor. The latter will be a priority, the three-time Super Bowl winner added. Aikman said Joe Gibbs, former coach of the Washington Redskins and now owner of Joe Gibbs Racing, which won Winston Cup championships in 2000 and 2002, has helped get the team off the ground. He also said it’s premature to be talking about a driver. The team will be headquartered in Dallas while maintaining a race shop in Charlotte, N.C., where most of the Winston Cup teams are based.( ThatsRacin.com/AP ) UPDATE 2: The partners plan to tackle the Winston Cup schedule in February 2004 beginning with the season-opening Daytona 500 — NASCAR’s Super Bowl — and a single-car team. A two-car team is planned for 2005 for an organization that will be headquartered in Dallas but operate out of the NASCAR hub of Charlotte, N.C. Hall of Fame Racing will spend this season hiring a director of racing operations, pursuing primary and associate sponsorships, courting manufacturers and compiling a list of prospective drivers and crewmen. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who pulled out of a deal that would have seen him buy into the Cup team owned by Andy Petree in August, is not involved in this venture. The partners have not decided if they will buy an existing Cup team, merge with one or start from scratch — as Gibbs did.( Fort Worth Star Telegram )(1-17-2003)
