“It doesn’t look like I’ll be back next season,” said the 23-year-old Blake Feese, of having his one-year contract renewed by the Hendrick Motorsports team for next year. Feese was among three drivers hired this year by Hendrick to participate in its development program, which affords young drivers an opportunity to gain experience in the Grand National series. “I’m still focused on making it in a NASCAR situation,” said Feese, who doesn’t figure to run anymore races for the Hendrick team this year. “I’m pursuing my options. I’ll see what happens. Things happen so rapidly in this sport.” Feese, who ran eight races this year with his best finish a 15th at Kentucky, is exploring possibilities in the Busch Series and the NASCAR Truck series. “The series doesn’t matter as much as the situation,” said Feese. “I want an opportunity to work with the same crew and test more. I don’t want to be in the car one week and then off for six or seven weeks. It’s been tough because in this situation I haven’t been able to race as much as I’d like. Since I was 10 years old, I’ve been racing almost every weekend and sometimes two or three nights a week. It’s hard to learn and develop and get better when you’re not racing and you’re not testing. It’s been frustrating and it’s hard to gain confidence when you have a year like we’ve had. What’s lacking is consistency and being able to run and test.” Feese also plans to run sprint cars when given the chance. “Sprint car races will always be my first love,” added Feese, who grew up driving the open cockpit machines. “But I’m doing this (NASCAR) because it’a hard to make a career out of sprint cars unless you own your own team. Plus, I want to do this to prove a lot people wrong, who said I couldn’t do it. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well. I don’t want to fail. I believe everything will fall into place for me. It just needs to fall a little faster.”(Pantagraph)(8-29-2005)
