hearing that Steve Park could be replaced as the driver of the #1 Pennzoil Chevy before the races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, sources have Jason Keller as the possible replacement driver. Keller is slated to driver the #81 DEI car at Checiagoland in July. AND The LTN HOUR radio show reports that Kurt Busch, driver of the #97 Rubbermaid/Sharpie Roush Racing Ford will drive the #1 DEI Chevy in 2004. However, last reports I have are that he is signed with Roush thru 2006.(4-21-2003) UPDATE: Steve Park’s comments after winning the pole at California on Friday: “Hopefully, this will quiet some critics a little bit,” said Park, whose lap bumped Bill Elliott’s Dodge to the outside of Row 1 for the Winston Cup season’s 10th race. “We’re fixing to start winning races.” Park, who now has three poles to go along with two career Cup victories, turned defiant as he said he remains confident that he can get the job done with his team. “All the hogwash I have to read that the press puts out there, I have broad shoulders,” said Park, whose best 2003 finish has been a 10th at Las Vegas. “Dish it out because I can take it all. When I am in victory lane winning races, everybody who’s had bad things to say about this race team is going to bite their tongues. I don’t race to finish 20th, I race to win. If I don’t have the confidence in my team to win, then I need to go somewhere else. But I do have confidence in (crew chief) Tony Gibson, all of the new people we’ve hired, our engine shop, the whole team that we have, that we can do stuff like this. We can win poles and win races and we’re not going to stop this year until we do that. That will quiet all of the critics that we have.” Ty Norris, executive vice president for motorsports at DEI, said he and Park sat down about three weeks ago to discuss the team’s slow start in 2003. “I said, ‘You’re reading a lot of things, but let’s focus about what happens inside these walls,'” Norris said. “‘Let’s come together as a group, believe in each other, pull for each other and help each other. When that happens, no matter what anybody says outside these walls, we’re not going to concern ourselves with it.'”( ThatsRacin.com ) On top of that, the team’s Pennzoil sponsorship is up in the air. Ty Norris, who runs DEI for owner Teresa Earnhardt, says last month’s negotiations with sponsor Pennzoil in Texas were more of a learning experience than anything, because Shell’s buyout of the company has resulted in a major corporate shakeup, and only one of the men involved in the original sponsorship negotiations with the late Dale Earnhardt is still around. How the company’s new executives might view stock car racing as a marketing machine is unclear.( Winston Salem Journal )(4-26-2003) AND also hearing that Park recently made a new TV commercial for Food Lion featuring him and six other NASCAR drivers. Park is also featured on boxes of Milk-bone with his dog.(4-26-2003)
