It’s not usual for NASCAR owners to use alternate drivers for the road courses, so it shouldn’t be a big deal that Bill Davis Racing is replacing Jeremy Mayfield for the Sonoman race this weekend, with Butch Leitzinger, a road course expert from the American Le Mans Series. However, Mayfield has been struggling in Cup cars for the last 5 years, without question. And it was only a year ago when he was involved in a controversy with Ray Evernham, alleging that Evernham wasn’t giving his Cup team enough attention, because Evernham was focusing too much on Erin Crocker, a developmental driver at the time. Mayfield was subsequently released from Evernham Motorsports, and then signed with Bill Davis Racing. Mayfield did have his... [Read more]

The Kyle Busch lottery will start to heat up as NASCAR heads into the Chase because teams will need to make a decison to give their build shops enough time to start on his new cars for 2008. So where is Busch headed? Yates, Evernham, Childress, Ganassi, Ginn, Waltrip, and DEI are all interested in talking with him, and they’ve all said that they’re interested because he has excellent driving skills. Unfortunately, save for Ganassi, none of the other owners listed have the moxie to keep the reins on Busch, and his behavior would continue to spiral out of control. Jack Rousch, who had Busch under contract when he was 16, said he’s “not interested in revisiting the relationship”. Gee, ya think Rousch knows something... [Read more]

Okay,I’ll admit I have a negative bias towards New Hampshire Speedway, from a spectator perspective. Similar to Pocono, New Hampshire just doesn’t provide very good racing from a sittin-on-your-couch perspective. There’s been a couple of good races over the years, but they’re the exception, not the rule. The primary problem is that it’s a virtual flat track. I’d like to see Bob Bahre, owner of the speedway, add some banking to the track, and because it’s only a 1-mile track, I think it would be unique enough to create some excellent racing. The now-defunct Pikes Peak International Speedway, in Colorado Springs, was a 1-mile d-shaped oval, and while the Cup guys never ran there, but Busch drivers at the... [Read more]

Okay, I’m being a bit facetious with that title, but two things of interest happened today: Ford won a race finally, and Hendrick Motorsports didn’t win a race. Carl Edwards did in fact win the race and he’s been long overdue to visit victory lane, and he drove like a man possesed today. I thought this was going to be a two-man race between the 48 and 24, but it didn’t pan out that way. This really doesn’t surprise me because Dodge’s and Ford’s have been srong here for many years, and maybe the Hendrick Motorsports good luck charm has run its course. Actually, there was one more suprise today and that was the good run Michael Waltrip put together. I don’t see this as a ray of hope unfortunately.... [Read more]

Next year at this time, I wonder how Dale Jr. will be doing with his new team. He’s going to have his own personal expectations driving him, but you can bet that Rick Hendrick will be applying his own type of pressure, just to keep Dale Jr. focused. Can Dale Jr. win in short order next year, or will he struggle with the new team? You can bet that this off-season will be plenty busy for Dale Jr. and his new team. They’re going to have work at not only building new cars, but doing some off-season testing as well. Dale Jr. will be using Hendrick horsepower, which will help him tremendously, but his biggest adjustment will probably be with the chassis and crew chief. I do think he’ll win by mid-season, at least once. More interestingly,... [Read more]