April 16, 2007
- Overnight TV Ratings Up for Texas: The FOX broadcast of the Samsung 500 held Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway generated a 5.4 overnight national television rating according to Nielsen Media Research, making the Nextel Cup Series race the highest-rated sporting event of the weekend. The Samsung 500 easily outdistanced Sunday’s key NBA match-up between the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs, which garnered a 2.9 rating on ABC and ranked second for the weekend in the overnights. Saturday’s regional Major League Baseball on FOX was third with a 2.6 overnight rating. The 5.4 rating is a 13% increase from last year’s Samsung 500 overnight rating, which also was broadcast by FOX. The strong rating came despite the Samsung 500, which aired from 2-6pm/et, competing in the same time slots against key games for the NBA and the National Hockey League playoffs. The 5.4 already matches the final rating of last year’s Samsung 500, which is an extremely promising sign as NASCAR ratings traditionally see a modest to substantial gain from the overnights to the final ratings.(TMS PR), last years overnight was a 4.8 with the final a 5.4, for more on TV Ratings, see my 2007 TV Ratings page and chart.(4-16-2007)
- Why did Dale Jr. get in the #5 car after he was out of the race? For much of the day, it looked like the first two-time Texas titlist would be Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the #8 Budweiser team, as they led 96 laps, and repeatedly opened leads of three seconds or more before a strange incident ended any chance of victory. On lap 252, while running second, Dale Jr. was behind the lapped car of Tony Stewart rounding turn four when the aptly-nicknamed “Smoke” spun out, creating a giant wall of thick tire smoke. As Dale Jr. slowed down in the midst of the murky mess, #5-Kyle Busch, who was running third, slammed hard into the Bud car from behind. Despite the damage, the Bud crew went to work on the red #8 machine, making repairs and keeping Dale Jr. on the lead lap despite multiple pit stops under the caution flag. The race ended for the Bud car on lap 288 when the engine imploded, resulting in a 36th-place finish.
However, Dale Jr’s day was not done, as a crewmember from Kyle Busch’s crew interrupted Dale Jr’s media session to ask if Driver #8 would step into the #5 car (the car that had smashed into his ownonly 30 minutes before) to finish the race after Busch had left the premises. Soon, Dale Jr. was being strapped into the Hendrick Motorsports car, and he completed the final 10 laps of the race, improving Busch’s finishing position one spot ahead of Hendrick teammate #48-Jimmie Johnson. At the conclusion of the afternoon, Dale Jr. found his own car in 36th, and – for the first time ever – had driven a car other than the #8 Budweiser machine in a Nextel Cup event. Dale Jr. dropped to 18th place in the Nextel Cup standings, but is only 43 points out of the top-12.
Dale Jr. was soon pulled from the media swarm to climb into the #5 car. After the race, the media throng again clamored for comments. What did the car drive like?: “Like it was wrecked.” Why would you get in another car? “Because they asked me. I have some friends on that team – and I’ll always jump at a chance to climb into someone else’s car to see what it’s like. They used to do that all the time back in the day. You’d have relief drivers getting into someone’s car almost every week, so it was kinda like a step back into NASCAR history or something. Old school! It was cool.”(fingerprintinc/Budweiser PR)(4-16-2007) - Hall of Fame Racing still wants 2nd car sponsor: Troy Aikman, co-owner of #96 Hall of Fame Racing, said his team continues to seek sponsorship to add a second Nextel Cup team. “We would very much like to have multiple cars,” Aikman said. “We understand that’s the best way for us to be able to compete and the level we’d like to. It’s the best way for us to operate the team more efficiently economically.” Aikman said he doesn’t know when they’d need sponsorship in place to run the second car in 2008. He said they were able to compete in the 2006 Daytona 500 after Texas Instruments came in six months earlier. “The sooner the better,” Aikman said. “But I do think we have the infrastructure in place and, of course, with our alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, that allows us to move things quicker than what some other single-car teams could once they got a second car.”(Dallas Morning News)(4-16-2007)
- Commercial Breakdown of the Samsung 500:
Total number of commercials: 122
Total number of companies or entities advertised: 67
Total number of brief promos of products/services during the race broadcast: 35
Start time to record race/commercial periods: 2:00pm
. End time to record race/commercial periods: 5:48pm
Total minutes: 228
Minutes of race broadcast: 168 min. 30 sec.
Minutes of commercials: 59 min. 30 sec.
See full report at CawsnJaws.com.(4-16-2007) - Siegel: DEI ‘working hard’ to meet Earnhardt Jr. deadline: With #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s sister and chief negotiator reiterating last week that the a new contract with Dale Earnhardt Inc. [DEI] needs to be completed in the next 45 days, Dale Earnhardt Inc. President Max Siegel says that’s a possibility. “We’ve been working hard with the goal to meet that deadline,” Siegel said Sunday before the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. “We have had really productive conversations. … We are looking at every single issue in great detail. We’ve got a great group of people, we have a great foundation. We’ve been running pretty good. We can always do better. What we’re doing is we’re looking to see how we can improve every area of competition. We’re addressing it right away. Things are happening to take it up a notch. I’ve never given any thought or much thought at all to anything other than having a healthy, long-term relationship with those guys, what I feel now that is different than when I got there, as we build a relationship, I think Kelley and Dale would make really, really great partners.”(SceneDaily.com)(4-16-2007)
- Biffle could be looking? #16-Greg Biffle’s future is up in the air after the decision of sponsor Ameriquest, a retail-mortgage company, to drop out of the sport at the end of the season. Biffle’s contract with car owner Jack Roush runs through the end of 2008, so Geoff Smith, the head of Roush Racing, said he wants to negotiate a new, longer term contract with Biffle, in order to get leverage to sign a new sponsor. However a possible complicating factor is NASCAR’s looming limit on the number of Nextel Cup teams that any one car owner can have. In 2009, Roush will have to cut his five-team roster to four. So which of Roush’s five drivers – Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray, or David Ragan – will have to move? If Smith can get Biffle to sign, that could put him in the driver’s seat for sponsorship with the top open man in the series.(Winston Salem Journal)(4-16-2007)
- Aikman can’t figure out NASCAR’s infractions: Troy Aikman [owner of #96-Tony Raines/Hall of Fame Racing] said the most surprising thing he’s learned since getting into NASCAR in 2006 is how series officials handle penalties. “I still haven’t been able to quite figure out how NASCAR decides on their degrees of punishment,” he said. “How those are handed down. I don’t want to use the word inconsistency.” Aikman cited his team’s first race from 2006, when it was docked 25 points and fined $25,000 for using an illegal carburetor in qualifying at the Daytona 500. At the same race, Jimmie Johnson’s team set up the car so it could change height during qualifying. No points were deducted, but the team lost its crew chief for four races. “I think for the most part,” Aikman said, “how things are handled and how punishment is given out [in the NFL] is pretty consistent from one case to the next, and I don’t know that is the case in NASCAR.”(Dallas Morning News)(4-16-2007)
- Dodge teams could be left scrambling: Dodge’s future in NASCAR could be on the line, with DaimlerChrysler’s proposed sale of its American division moving rapidly along and expected to be completed by the end of the month. What worries Dodge teams is the threat that whoever buys Chrysler may decide to liquidate its assets. (According to one report, General Motors may buy Chrysler’s Jeep operations.) If that were to happen, and if Dodge’s NASCAR teams are unable to continue, that could leave 11 stock-car teams and their five owners [Evernham, Petty, Ganassi, Penske, BAM] scrambling.(Winston Salem Journal)(4-16-2007)
- NASCAR Busch Series in Prime Time on ESPN2 From Phoenix: ESPN2 will have a live, primetime telecast of Friday night’s NASCAR Busch Series race from Phoenix International Raceway starting at 9 p.m. ET. The one-mile superspeedway will bring the Arizona desert alive for 200 laps of racing under the lights, with the race beginning just as darkness begins to fall in the Valley of the Sun. Jerry Punch will anchor ESPN2’s telecast from Phoenix, joined in the booth by Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree for analysis. Allen Bestwick, Dave Burns, Jamie Little and Vince Welch will serve as pit reporters. Erik Kuselias will host the telecast, while analyst Brad Daugherty will join Kuselias in the ESPN Pit Studio during the race, with analyst Tim Brewer at the ESPN Cutaway Car. ESPN2’s coverage will begin with the pre-race NASCAR Countdown show at 9 p.m. ET, with the race to start at 9:30 p.m.(ESPN PR)(4-16-2007)
- NAPA Sponsoring Canadian Busch Race and Reutimann: Stock-Car Montréal s.e.c. announced that the NAPA Auto Parts 200 will be the official name of the inaugural NASCAR Busch Series race on August 4 at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. During the press conference, it was also announced that David Reutimann will drive the #99 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota in the Montreal race.(Stock-Car Montréal PR)(4-16-2007)
- ESPN Phoenix Announce Booth To Reunite Three Old Friends: If the three people in the booth for ESPN2’s live coverage of Friday night’s NASCAR Busch Series race from Phoenix International Raceway sound as if they are very familiar with each other, there’s a good reason: they are. Jerry Punch, lead announcer, and analysts Andy Petree and Dale Jarrett are all originally from Newton, N.C. All graduated from Newton-Conover High School. More than 25 years ago, all worked together on a fledgling racing team. All have gone on to stellar accomplishments in their chosen professions. And now fate has brought them back together to call the action of a NASCAR race on television as they work together in the booth for the first time.(ESPN PR)(4-16-2007)
- Bowyer Back in Busch Race: After a near month-long hiatus from Busch Series action, Clint Bowyer returns to the seat of RCR’s #2 Chevy this weekend as Camping World debuts it sponsorship of the #2 entry.(RCR PR)(4-16-2007)
- Raines Back in the #33 at Phoenix: Tony Raines returns to Kevin Harvick Inc. #33 RoadLoans.com Chevy and the NASCAR Busch Series for the second time this season. His last start came back at Atlanta. (KHI PR)(4-16-2007)
- Where is…Ron Barfield? Former Series driver, Ron Barfield Jr. [71 career starts with 4 top-five and 17 top-ten finishes between the years of 1996 and 2001] along with co-owner Stuart Jackson and a strong supporting cast have been working feverishly for the past 17 months to rebuild Dillon Motor Speedway located in Dillon, SC. The co-owner of Dillon Motor Speedway was estatic with the attendance [3,500] and the racing at the track’s opening night [Saturday, April 14, 2007], the first time races have been run in Dillon since 1979. The icing on the cake Saturday was that Brandon McReynolds, son of Fox announcer Larry McReynolds, won his first race in the 27-car Allison Legacy Series.(myrtlebeachonline.com)(4-16-2007)
- Westerman Companies & Key Motorsports partner for four races: Westerman Companies, Inc. and Key Motorsports have agreed to partner in four Craftsman Truck Series races in 2007, beginning with the July 14th event at the Kentucky Speedway. Westerman Companies will also serve as the primary sponsor of the #40 Key Motorsports Chevy in the scheduled races at the O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis on July 27, the Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, TN on August 11 and the Martinsville Speedway in Virginia on October 20. Veteran driver and 2002 NCTS champion Mike Bliss will be behind the wheel of the #40 Westerman Companies Chevy for the Kentucky and Martinsville races. Team owner Curtis W. Key, Sr. will announce his driver selections for the Indianapolis and Nashville events later in the season.(Key Motorsports PR)(4-16-2007)
- RCR development driver McCreadie tests truck at Richmond: Tim McCreadie tested a Key Motorsports race truck at Richmond recently as part of his Richard Childress Racing Driver Development Program, and the test (a 2-day affair) was extremely successful. This test included direction from crew chief Barry Dodson to McCreadie, Key Motorsports equipment, RCR data and engine, RCR engineering support, and both Key Motorsports and RCR personnel. McCreadie is competing in a Busch West Series race in Phoenix next weekend, and following his performance there, RCR officials are expected to make a determination what they would next like to do with McCreadie, that includes the potential to run some selected races with Key Motorsports and the #40 primary truck during 2007. (Key Motorsports PR)(4-16-2007)
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