March 29 – Today in Jayski’s NASCAR history

March 29, 2003

• • • Dale Earnhardt Plaza is now Kannapolis’ newest city park: Kannapolis, NC officially assumed ownership of the 1-acre tribute site in downtown Kannapolis last week. David Murdock, owner of Atlantic American Properties and Cannon Village, donated the land and the statue. The city originally had planned to lease the site from the company for $1 a year, said Jennifer Woodford, Kannapolis public information officer. Now, Kannapolis will have control over the maintenance and development of the area. “It’s a good step forward,” she said. Woodford said the city plans to begin landscaping and continue working on the wall and entrances that surround the statue. “We can’t thank Mr. Murdock enough for his support and his help,” said City Manager Mike Mahaney in a press release. “His contributions have helped to make our tribute a place that truly honors Dale Earnhardt and a place that our community can be proud of.”(Independent Tribune)(3-29-2003)
    • A Parcells hired by DEI: Jill Parcells, daughter of Cowboys coach Bill Parcells, recently was hired by Dale Earnhardt Inc., as director of operations for the Dale Earnhardt Tribute Concert. The concert, to benefit the Dale Earnhardt Foundation, is scheduled for June 28 at Daytona International Speedway, with Sheryl Crow, Alabama and Brooks & Dunn among the lead acts. Besides trying to move from New York to Mooresville, N.C., Jill Parcells, who worked for a sports marketing agency for 2 1/2 years out of college before spending almost eight years in the marketing department at Sports Illustrated, has spent the past month trying to learn the sport herself. She has read NASCAR for Dummies and watched every race on TV.(Fort Worth Star Telegram)(3-29-2003)
    • So What Happened to Craven? #32-Ricky Craven will start 38th here on Cal Wells III’s owner provisional points after posting no speed during qualifying. Craven took the #32 Tide Pontiac Grand Prix out after #30-Jeff Green’s run. But Craven backed off, claiming there was oil on the racetrack. In his post-qualifying comments, Green admitted his #30 AOL Chevy was carrying a little too much oil in its tank, and it affected his second lap. “I guess we blew some oil out and [it] got on our right rear tire up off [Turn] 4, going to the white flag,” Green said. “I smelled the smoke, so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go another lap.” NASCAR officials, however, said that Craven officially had taken the green flag and would not be allowed to make another attempt.(Fort Worth Star Telegram)(3-29-2003)
    • Ramblings – Texas: Joe Gibbs Racing experienced both ends of the spectrum today. First, Tony Stewart’s Home Depot Chevy was confiscated and impounded by NASCAR for further inspection back in Charlotte. Some little thing about not fitting the templates and the offset in the rear deck of the car….Then, Bobby Labonte went out and grabbed his second Bud pole of the season.
      Jimmie Johnson (4th) had his best qualifying run since he started on the outside pole at Atlanta last October.
      Kevin Harvick (8th) has his best starting spot since he lined up on the outside pole at Michigan last August.
      Terry Labonte (12th) has his best starting spot since he started 5th at Richmond last September.
      STREAKIN…..Ryan Newman has 5 Top-5 starts in a row.
      Now for a word on everybody’s favorite driver, Mr. Lead Lap. His 7th place finish last week at Bristol was his best since he was 7th at Homestead in November of 2000. He resides in 9th place in the points….a drastic improvement from last year at this time when he was 15th. He’s 56 points better than last year (725-669) and now has an average finish of 14.3. This is starting to look like the salad days of the mid-90s when he consistently finished in the Top-10 in the points (as high as 6th in 1996).(StockCarFans.Com)(3-29-2003)
    • Robby Gordon takes out an ad for Indy: The Buzz recently spotted an advertisement in Sports Business Journal in which Robby Gordon is looking for primary and associate sponsorship for the May 25 classic. In it, Gordon touts the unique challenges of running two races totalling 1,100 miles on the same day — and the advantages of sponsoring his effort. “Imagine the impact” is the headline of the ad, which hopefully is not an omen for Gordon, who has traditionally done well at Indianapolis. Gordon is planning to complete the Memorial Day weekend double again this year, running at the Brickyard in the morning, then flying to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway that night. There’s no price tag listed, but prospective sponsors will certainly need a hefty pocketbook. A typical IRL car and engine runs a minimum of $400,000 out of the box, not including spare parts, tires, fuel and a crew.(NASCAR.com Buzz)(3-29-2003)
    • Waltrip suggests cutting air dam: Michael Waltrip believes racing would be better at all Winston Cup tracks, not just Texas, if the cars ran slower. And he’s got a radical idea about how NASCAR should move to accomplish that. “We can go in an cut the spoiler off or raise the front air dam and slow these cars down on the straightaways,” Waltrip said. “I believe that what should happen is that the front air dam should be raised 10 inches from where it is now, which is 3½ inches.(ThatsRacin.com)(3-29-2003)
    • Plans revealed for Texas motorsports hall: Plans were announced Friday for the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame to be located at Texas Motor Speedway. The hall will honor the best performers in Texas racing, including stock cars and other forms of auto racing. The initial class will be inducted in January. Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Johnny Rutherford, a Texas resident, entered the room in the cockpit of the restored car that Art Cross drove to a second-place finish at Indianapolis in 1953. “When I grew up, this was the type of car I dreamed of driving,” Rutherford said.(ThatsRacin.com/AP)(3-29-2003)
    • Nemechek wins at Texas: #87-Joe Nemechek started last and finished first in Saturday’s O’Reilly 300 Busch Series race, but for the second straight day that part of the story took a backseat to NASCAR’s version of justice at Texas Motor Speedway. One day after NASCAR took away Tony Stewart’s car after it failed inspection, Brian Vickers felt Saturday that he had a victory taken from him by a black flag for passing a car on the left illegally on a Lap 179 restart. “We had the race won today and it got taken away from us,” said Vickers, the 19-year-old driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet owned by Hendrick Motorsports. Vickers’ disappointment was compounded further a few laps later when, after accepting the punishment he didn’t think was deserved, he got caught up in an 11-car wreck going into Turn 1 that also wiped out several more cars seemingly destined for good finishes. One of those was Todd Bodine’s #92-Chevrolet, which had the lead on a restart following the red flag for that big wreck. Bodine’s car, however, had been clipped in the right rear by the spinning car of Mike Bliss in the wreck, however, and had a flat tire. When Bodine had to make a pit stop to fix that flat, Nemechek inherited the lead and pulled away after the green flew again on Lap 196. After Hermie Sadler got nudged into the wall on Lap 197, Nemechek got to make the final three laps under yellow to take his 14th career Busch series victory and his second this year. “You have to have luck on your side sometimes,” Nemechek said. “Last year here, thunderstorms were coming and going and we came in to pit and decided to take four tires. Jeff Purvis took two and won. You never know.” Nemechek had his own peril to avoid during his afternoon. He’d been forced to start at the rear of the field after changing engines Friday and gradually worked his way into contention when, on Lap 171, Bruce Bechtel bounced off the outside wall and then careened hard into the inside wall on the backstretch, hitting it so hard the temporary barrier cracked and had to be replaced under a red flag. Nemechek ran right through the debris flying from Bechtel’s car, suffering a flat tire that brought him in for a pit stop. That left Vickers, who led 87 laps in his Chevrolet, in the first position but sitting behind several cars on the end of the lead lap in front of him for the restart. Chad Blount was one of those cars, and when the green flew again Blount’s car got loose just in front of Vickers as the cars came toward the start-finish line. When Vickers dove inside to avoid hitting Blount in the rear, the nose of his car was even with the rear wheel well on Blount’s as they crossed the line. NASCAR rules prohibit cars from passing to the left – the inside – until after the start-finish line. Jim Hunter, NASCAR corporate vice president for communications, defended the call, saying there was room for Vickers to stay behind Blount’s car until they had reached the start-finish line. “They normally make really good calls, but I’m sorry, I am going to have to disagree with them,” said Vickers, who wound up 25th. “They really made a bad one. …Nobody’s perfect. We had the race won today and it got taken away from us. I guess that happens.” Scott Riggs, who’d crashed his primary car in practice before Thursday’s qualifying, found his way through the trouble to get second. Shane Hmiel had a career-best third-place finish with Bodine and Blount rounding out the top five. Bodine still leads the Busch Series standings, 104 ahead of Jason Keller, who ran out of gas at one point on his way to an 18th-place finish Saturday. Jamie McMurray, 14th on the day, is three points behind Keller in third.(ThatsRacin.com)
      See results at ThatsRacin.com, BGN Racing, MotorsportsOne or NASCAR.com.(3-29-2003)

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