March 31, 2003
- Cingular Wireless and Robby Gordon race on behalf of Special Olympics athletes at Talladega: Sporting a Special Olympics Team USA paint scheme on his race car, Robby Gordon will drive Richard Childress Racing’s (RCR) #31 Cingular Wireless Chevy for a good cause on April 6 at Talladega Superspeedway. To launch Cingular’s fourth year of supporting Special Olympics, Cingular will donate $100 to the organization for every lap completed, and an additional $1,000 for each lap that Gordon leads in the Aaron’s 499. If Gordon wins the race, Cingular will donate $100,000 to Special Olympics. The promotion will help to support Special Olympics Team USA athletes who will compete at the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Dublin, Ireland, June 21-29. The games will showcase the athletic skills, courage and dignity of 7,500 athletes with mental retardation from more than 150 countries around the world. Five Special Olympics Alabama athletes will be the VIP guests of Cingular Wireless and Gordon at Talladega. Gordon has invited them to pit row to cheer him on from the sidelines in his specially painted No. 31 race car with a Special Olympics Team USA logo splashed across the car. Special Olympics athletes attending are: Elizabeth Bronold, Dothan, Ala.; Michael Crunkelton, Huntsville, Ala.; Brandi Deese, Dothan, Ala.; Joseph Gann, Prattville, Ala. and Dossie King, Montgomery, Ala. Cingular Wireless, an official partner of Special Olympics USA and an official sponsor of Special Olympics Team USA, has raised more than $28.1 million for the organization over the past three years. Cingular’s fundraising effort is the largest partnership in Special Olympics history. “This is one of Cingular’s many initiatives for Special Olympics. As an athlete, Robby knows all too well how much training, hard work and determination goes into competition,” said Marc Lefar, Cingular’s chief marketing officer. “Cingular is confident Robby will end up in Victory Lane, allowing us to successfully launch our 2003 Special Olympics fundraising efforts, and to help Special Olympics Team USA athletes train and participate in the 2003 World Games.”
“Cingular and I both believe in the mission of Special Olympics,” said Gordon. “Realizing that my success at the Talledega Superspeedway next week can have a direct impact on the organization and can benefit Special Olympics athletes gives me more incentive than ever to win.” Visit Special Olympics online at www.specialolympics.org.(RCR)(3-31-2003)
- TV Rating Down: Fox’s broadcast of Sunday’s Samsung/RadioShack 500 from Texas Motor Speedway earned a 5.8 rating and 12 share in overnight Nielsen figures, according to today’s Sports Business Daily. The Winston Cup race trailed two NCAA basketball tournament games on CBS and tied with a third one among all weekend sports events on television. This year’s race also lagged well behind last year’s final figures of 7.0/18.(Winston Cup Scene Daily Newsletter – free)(3-31-2003)
- #12 40lbs to light….out of water: Ryan Newman’s winning car at Texas was 40 pounds light during post-race inspection, and NASCAR officials couldn’t figure out why. Turns out that two radiator hose clamps broke during the race, and the radiator had run dry. Crew chief Matt Borland estimated that Newman could have run five more laps at best. So, after the team put the fluids back into the #12 and filled it with gas, the car was within the accepted weight range.(Sporting News)(3-31-2003)
- Stewart’s Primary Car Disallowed and Impounded, has to go to a backup:
NASCAR impounded the primary #20 [Home Depot] Chevy presented for inspection by Tony Stewart’s team Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway, forcing the team to switch to a backup before it started practice. The confiscated car was rolled to a prominent position beside the NASCAR transporter and roped off. NASCAR officials did not allow the team to put a cover over the car, and the orange race car was drawing a lot of attention.
While presented for inspection prior to the first practice for Sunday’s Samsung/RadioShack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR officials found that the #20 Home Depot Chevrolet did not conform to the specified templates mandated by NASCAR.. The issue arose at the rear of the car, specifically the area encompassing the greenhouse and decklid. As a result, NASCAR impounded the car, forcing the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing Team to pull the backup car from the transporter and use it for the rest of the race weekend.. The car now being used by the #20 team for the Samsung/RadioShack 500 is Chassis No. 75. It is a brand new chassis.. A car from the Joe Gibbs Racing facility in Huntersville, NC, is currently en route to Texas Motor Speedway to be used in the event another backup is needed.
See my #20 Team News and Links page for all the news and statements by Tony Stewart, Greg Zipadelli and Mike Helton.(3-28/29-2003)
from NASCAR.com: #20 [and #18] team owner Joe Gibbs said on Saturday that his team was embarrassed after NASCAR impounded Tony Stewart’s #20 Chevrolet, and vowed to find out what went wrong. See full story at NASCAR.com – Gibbs apologizes, seeks answers in impropriety(3-29-2003)
Car gone the impounded #20 Home Depot Chevy has been loaded up on a NASCAR hauler and is on the way to NASCAR’s R&D facitily near Charlotte. NC.(XM Satellite- NASCAR Radio – Subscription Required)(3-29-2003)
Gibbs Comments: “The first thing I want to say is that we believe in equal cars for the teams and let the teams make the difference. That’s what NASCAR is trying to do and we support that. We want that. So, for us to be in this situation is something that we don’t. First of all, I want to apologize to NASCAR. I want to apologize to Home Depot. This is our fault. We’re trying to go back through a process of figuring out how it happened. Obviously, we’ve got fast race cars. All our other cars fit the templates. This one – there is kind of an unusual set of circumstances in our construction process here and we’re trying go back and figure out exactly what happened. This thing is our fault. There is no excuse, so we apologize to everybody and we’re going try to figure out a way now to add a process and make sure that it never happens again. That’s generally our feeling.”
see full story at the Joe Gibbs Racing site.(3-30-2003)
UPDATE: Garage sources overheard a heated discussion early Sunday between NASCAR president Mike Helton and team owner Joe Gibbs, who lost Tony Stewart’s primary car during Friday inspection at Texas because it did not fit the “X” measurement from the corners of the rear deck up to the corners of the roof. Maybe Gibbs discovered a NASCAR official’s list of options for the impounded car: giving part of it back, giving none of it back or using it as a test car on the SAFER wall barrier in Nebraska. Fellow Chevrolet teams insist the “X” measurement, which was implemented just before the start of the season, was NASCAR’s way of minimizing an advantage the No. 20 car apparently gained over others in the offseason through creative body work.(Sporting News)(3-31-2003)
- NASCAR Sponsor Summit Postponed: NASCAR says concerns stemming from the war with Iraq have led it to postpone a sponsor summit that was scheduled to start yesterday and run through Wednesday in Naples, FL, according to today’s Sports Business Daily. NASCAR had expected about 175 attendees for the event, which the sanctioning body now hopes to hold in the fall.(Winston Cup Scene Daily Newsletter – free)(3-31-2003)
- Driver’s Don’t Like New Caution Lights: The warning-light system that Texas Motor Speedway imbedded in its asphalt to warn drivers of cautions failed its first test Sunday. Some drivers said the lights are impossible to see in bright sunlight. “With a cloud cover, you can see them, but I didn’t even know they were on today,” rookie Jamie McMurray said. “For the Indy Racing League guys, especially at night, I hope it works for them. I think at night with those guys doing 230 mph around here, I think I’d want it to look like a runway out there,” Jeff Gordon said. “During the day . . . I hope they didn’t spend a lot on it. I never even saw them.”(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)(3-31-2003)
- Kyle takes hardest hit: It’s no surprise Kyle Petty needed more time to recover after taking an 80-plus G-force hit that cracked two of his ribs at Bristol. According to some NASCAR officials, it was the hardest hit taken by a driver since data recorders were installed in the cars last year. Petty says he was extremely sore and credits the composite seat developed by owner Cal Wells and his driver, Ricky Craven, for lessening the blow.(Sporting News)(3-31-2003)
- Helton reviews restart policy Following a controversial call that resulted in a late-race black flag for Brian Vickers in Saturday’s O’Reilly 300 Busch Series race, NASCAR president Mike Helton reviewed the policy for passing on the restarts at the drivers’ meeting before Sunday’s Cup race. NASCAR said that even though Vickers hadn’t completely passed Chad Blount’s car to the left before the start-finish line on a Lap 179 restart in Saturday’s race, he was in the act of passing and therefore in violation of the rule. “The act of passing is in NASCAR’s judgment when it happened,” Helton said. “Yesterday we chose that it was the act of passing taking place, therefore we had the black flag. …All passing is to the right. And the act of passing is when NASCAR deems that momentum is taking place before the start-finish line.” NASCAR officials also answered several questions about the final restart on Lap 191 in Saturday’s race, which was a double-file restart. Restarts are single file with less than 10 laps to go in a race, but with 10 complete laps left they’re double-file. “There’s a line, and it’s 10 laps to go,” Helton said. “You got the one-to-go (signal) with 11 to go and you completed that lap and got the green. …It’s 10 laps to go.”(ThatsRacin.com) AND see my Story/Columns/Article Links page for many more stories and commentary on this.(3-31-2003)
- Hall of Fame Class of ’03: The International Motorsports Hall of Fame [at Talladega] Class of 2003 consists of three builders and two racers. A.J. Watson, Ray Fox and Briggs Cunningham earned their inclusion by fabricating top-notch race cars. Fellow inductees Emerson Fittipaldi and Mel Kenyon got their laurels behind the wheel. Jim Freeman, executive director of the Hall of Fame, said the 2003 class represents a wide spectrum of motorsports. “As has been the case in the past few years, we have an excellent cross-section of the world of auto racing within this class of inductees. We have drivers, crew chiefs, car builders, engine builders and designers represented from six major sanctioning bodies.” (see full story and bios at Alabama Live)(3-31-2003)
- Rumblings – Texas: Newman’s win in the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 was the first for a Dodge this season, and was worth $406,500 from the nice $6M+ in posted awards. He becomes our 7th different winner in seven races, and now has a victory that went the distance (his win at Loudon last year was rain-shortened to 207 laps from the 300 scheduled). We got treated to some more of NASCAR making up the rules on the fly this weekend. First, they destroy the chances (and the car) of Brian Vickers in yesterday’s Busch race, then today’s lead lap fiasco reared it’s ugly head. It’s pretty obvious the most useless part in NASCAR is the rule book. How can you give two drivers their laps back when all they passed was the second place car? We can’t say we didn’t know this was coming….this policy of the leader slowing down to let drivers back on the lead lap has gotten laughable. And, this idea of a “gentleman’s agreement” is a farce. It appears that NASCAR will decide who’s a gentleman and who isn’t…and I’ll bet the drivers aren’t in agreement, either.
Jerry Nadeau (4th) had his best finish since he was 4th at Atlanta in November of 2001.
Jeff Green (7th) had his best finish since he was 5th at Talladega last October.
Todd Bodine (11th) had his best finish since he was 5th at Richmond last September.
STREAKIN….Matt Kenseth has 6 Top-10’s in a row. Dale Earnhardt Jr has 4 Top-10’s in the last 5 races.
This Week’s Elevator….UP: Operator of the Week is Mark Martin (+27), followed by John Andretti (+24), Kurt Busch (+21), Ward Burton (+21), and Michael Waltrip (+20). DOWN: The Big Dropper was Elliott Sadler (-39), followed by Bill Elliott (-37), Bobby Labonte (-36), Joe Nemechek (-26), and Steve Park (-24). Some pretty wild swings on the down side this week.
#30-Jeff Green led today for the first time since Phoenix last November. #1-Steve Park led today for the first time since Richmond last September. We’ve now had 28 different leaders this season.(Stock Car Fans)(3-31-2003)
2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997