Image details: LifeLock 400 served by picapp.com

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Along with celebrating America’s independence, since it just so happens to have fallen on a Friday this year, that means you’re also treated to a “special” edition of “Loose in Turn Three”. Along with me as always are Bruce Simmons from “Bruce’s Bits & Pieces”, and, of course, Charlie Turner from “On Pit Row”.

Earlier this week, Chip Ganassi announced that due to sponsorship woes, he was being forced to cease operations on his no. 40 operation, laying off 71 employees in the process and also putting NASCAR rookie, Dario Franchitti, out of a ride for the remainder of the season.

Ganassi has been fortunate to maintain sponsorship on all of his cars to this point in 2008, but there have been several other teams that have struggled with similar situations all season long. Yates Racing is perhaps the most publicized of these stories, running the no. 28 car of Travis Kvapil without a primary sponsor for most of the year, and the no. 38 of David Gilliland’s contract with freecreditreport.com is only for a limited number of races. BAM Racing also had to shut down operations earlier in the year, Bill Davis Racing shoved Jacques Villeneuve out of the series before he ever even got started, and Michael Waltrip Racing is known to have troubles on the horizon.

Q: With the recent folding of Chip Ganassi’s #40 operation due to lack of sponsorship, is this a trend we can continue to expect in NASCAR with other teams that have struggled with sponsorship … teams like Yates Racing? 

TZ: I think it is. The economy’s really turned everything upside down, even in NASCAR. Many of NASCAR’s long-term sponsors are starting to see a substantial decrease in profits, which means that they’ve got to start cutting down on their budget in areas like professional sports. Then, on top of that, you’ve got some of the top-tier teams such as Childress and Gibbs with plans on expanding their organizations with an additional car, and before ya know it, there’s just not enough water in the kiddie pool anymore.

Bruce:  If the team isn’t performing, the hood sponsor isn’t getting it’s $10 mil of advertising exposure, so yea, we just may see other teams lose sponsors.  BAM was trying something interesting with their sponsor packages but then they jumped manufacturers and then suddenly took a break.  I guess the sponsor program wasn’t the hit they were hoping it to be.

Charlie:  Every indication is that other teams are on the brink of closing shop. Ganassi is one of the organizations that you would think to be stable. Chip may have just missed on a hunch that in Dario he could catch the Montoya lightning again. Regardless they failed with that car.  I have a feeling that Yates will survive, but Waltrip could shrink by a car.

Franchitti has stated that he’d like to remain in NASCAR, and Chip Ganassi has since offered Dario the full-time seat in his Nationwide Series entry. No decisions have been made as to what they’ll do from here, but sources indicate that the two plan to meet and discuss Dario’s future going forward.

the Rest of the Discussion:
- Do You Think Kurt Busch Giving up his car points to Hornish hurt the team overall? (Bruce’s Bits & Pieces)

- What will become of Dale Earnhardt Inc? (On Pit Row)

Image details: The Dan Lowry 400 Practice served by picapp.com

Richard Childress Racing has announced that their brand new number 33 team - not scheduled to go full-time until the 2009 season - will be fielded in the running of the Coca Cola 600 two weeks from now at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, and that NASCAR veteran driver, Ken Schrader, will attempt to qualify the car for the event.

Schrader was left without a full-time ride when, earlier in the season, BAM Racing announced that they would be taking a sabattical from the sport until the Fall due to sponsorship woes. Since then, Schrader ran the no. 70 Chevrolet for Haas CNC Racing to a 42nd place finish at Talladega, and failed to qualify the no. 40 Dodge for Chip Ganassi Racing two weeks ago at Richmond.

Schrader has run in four races this year, with a season-best finish of 21st back in March at Las Vegas and currently sits 47th in points. In his 44 career starts at Lowe’s, he has accumulated a win, 6 top-five’s, and 13 top-ten finishes. The most recent top-ten finish in Schrader’s career was a 7th place finish in the Fall of 2006 at Richmond.

One has to wonder if: a) There could be a potential matchup between Schrader and RCR for Childress’ fourth team in 2009, and b) Schrader can piece together some decent runs with solid equipment beneath him.

Lowe’s Motor Speedway President, Humpy Wheeler, asked … and, now he has received. The NASCAR sanctioning body announced last Tuesday that they have added an open testing session at Lowe’s for all Sprint Cup Series drivers on May 5-6, just twelve days prior to the running of the annual All-Star Race, and twenty days before the Coca-Cola 600 – both of which are also at Lowe’s.

Why the change of heart all the sudden by NASCAR? The quick and simple answer – and, many believe this to be true – would be that NASCAR officials became overloaded with complaints from around the garage area from drivers requesting – sometimes demanding – more seat time in these new cars to figure out how to make the cars more competitive with one another. So, basically NASCAR caved … but, that’s the simple answer.

The more complex answer is that ratings have fluctuated week-to-week, sometimes high and sometimes low, but one thing has been consistent … everytime we’ve visited a mile-and-a-half track this year, the feedback has been overwhelmingly negative. That said, the schedule currently holds 17 more races on intermediate tracks, and the last thing that NASCAR wants is for these races to continue to bore their fans. Forget about whether or not Carl Edwards wins every single one of them, the bottom line is that if the cars cannot pass one another on the track, then people will quickly find themselves turning the channel on their television sets, and that is something that NASCAR just cannot afford.

Sprint Cup Series stars Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle do not believe that more testing is the solution to NASCAR’s current car situation. Kahne feels that the problem lies with the front end constantly sliding around, and Biffle says that the car’s shortcomings on the intermediate tracks lie with its size and shape, thus causing more of an issue with the aerodynamics. The majority of the garage, however – including defending series champion, Jimmie Johnson – feel as though more testing a definitely a step in the right direction for solving some of these issues.

In Other News:
- BAM Racing has recently announced that it is very likely that the team will not return to Sprint Cup Series competition until sometime in the Fall due to sponsorship issues. Team owner, Beth Morgenthau, stated that a deal that they had previously put in place to keep them in competition throughout the 2008 season was reduced to only a fraction of the season, and it now looks like that fraction will take place later this year. In the interim, Ken Schrader – driver of the no. 49 Bam (now) Toyota – will fill the empty seat in the no. 70 Chevrolet for Haas CNC Racing next week at Talladega.

- The NASCAR Nationwide Series will hit the road in Mexico City this weekend for the annual running of the Corona Mexico 200 presented by Banamex. The race will include seven full-time Sprint Cup Series drivers, to include: Kyle Busch, Sam Hornish Jr, David Reutimann, Patrick Carpentier, David Ragan, and Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards – whom are currently first and second in the Nationwide points standings.

With quite a bit to look forward to heading into Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race in Phoenix, Arizona, the dynamic duo over at Hendrick Motorsports were still able to take time out of their schedules to contribute to some good causes.

Following Thursday night’s qualifying session, defending Cup Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, endorsed NASCAR’s Camping World West race, labeled the “Jimmie Johnson Foundation 150”, in support of – obviously – the Jimmie Johnson Foundation. Johnson’s wife, Chandra, served as the Grand Marshall for the race while Jimmie himself drove the pace car.

Four-time Series champion, Jeff Gordon, connected with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for more than the 200th time since he first became a member in 1995. He granted a 15-year-old sickly child named Joshua from New York his lifelong wish of meeting Gordon, who spent a few hours of his day getting to know him. Joshua also got to watch the weekend’s events from a suit, courtesy of Gordon. The Jeff Gordon Foundation reportedly makes rather hefty annual donations to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

In Other News:
- Veteran driver, Ken Schrader, hasn’t raced in the Sprint Cup Series since finishing 37th at Martinsville – largely due to a lack of sponsorship on the hood of his no. 49 BAM Racing Toyota Camry. That hasn’t stopped the wily Missourian from racing altogether, though. Schrader competed in the ARCA / Re-Max Series’ Kentuckiana Ford Dealers 200 at Salem Speedway in Indiana on Sunday. Schrader finished runner-up to eventual race winner, Justin Allgaier, who made the pass on Schrader with just 36 laps left. Ken has won eight ARCA races since 2000.

Well, the Sprint Cup Series returns to action this week, and what do ya know – seemingly overnight stories start surfacing once again. Funny how that works, eh? So, it’s been a little while, but I’ve decided to bring back your Saturday Morning Quick Fix, but this time with a slightly different format. Rather than trying to inform you of all the news in the NASCAR world by providing links to each of the story, this time ‘round I’m simply going to brush up on a few of the select storylines from this week. So, let’s get to it!

-  After removing their hands from each other’s throats for a couple of weeks, the Toyota / Roush-Fenway Racing picked right back up this week when ESPN publicized comments that Jack Roush made earlier in the month in regards to Toyota winding up with a  missing Roush part. Jack has allegated that they had a sway bar go missing last September at Dover, and that it was later found with an unnamed Toyota team. Toyota personnel have stated that it the team in question did in fact wind up with the missing part, but that it was completely unintentional and immediately returned to Roush Racing. While Jack is contemplating seeking legal action against the team, NASCAR has stated that they will not get involved in the incident, citing that it’s a team squabble and that those types of things need to be sorted out amongst the teams. When ESPN asked Dale Earnhardt Jr. for his opinion on the matter, he stated that if it were intentional, then whoever took the part should have their hard card revoked, meaning that they wouldn’t be allowed in the garage. Jeff Gordon, on the other hand, felt that Roush was blowing the situation completely out of proportion and that these types of things happen all the time – sometimes intentional and sometimes not. Roush was infuriated that NASCAR refused to take action.

-  Gillett Evernham Motorsports announced that there would be a possibility that Elliott Sadler could not compete in this Sunday’s Goody’s Cool Orange 500 in Martinsville due to a lower-back injury he sustained during the Sprint Cup Series’ off-week. Details of how the injury occurred are a bit sketchy, but it’s believed to have resulted from Elliott’s daily routine on Wednesday afternoon, and later on it was aggravated further from a sporting activity of sorts. The team brought Dennis Setzer to the first Cup practice session on Friday morning, but it was Elliott who qualified the no. 19 McDonald’s Dodge Charger 25th. As of right now, all plans seem to indicate that Sadler will at the least attempt to make the start on Sunday, but Setzer will be on stand-by either way.

-  Robby Gordon was rather outspoken – like only Robby can do – back in January when the Dakar Rally was cancelled due to terrorist threats. He made some very outlandish statements insinuating that the threats and the deaths incurred by the French tourists were blown way out of proportion. Vanguard Integrity Professionals – Gordon’s scheduled sponsor for the Rally – was none too pleased with Robby’s comments, and have since severed all ties with Robby Gordon Motorsports. After making a public statement regarding the split, it has also been learned that Vanguard has filed a lawsuit for $1.5 million against Gordon in an effort to recoup all of the money they had given to Gordon prior to the scheduled event. Robby Gordon has responded by claiming that Vanguard has no legal rights to terminated the contract, and on March 5th a US District Court denied Vanguards motion for a restraining order to prohibit Gordon from using their logo in his NASCAR ventures.

-  NASCAR has denied Michael Waltrip Racing’s request to swap the owner points between the 00 and 88 teams. Before the season started, MWR announced that upon Dale Jarrett’s retirement after the first five points races that David Reutimann – then the driver of the 00 car – would replace him, and that the 00 seat would be filled by rookie Michael McDowell. Reutimann is currently 27th in points, while Jarrett ended the day in Bristol 34th in points, and a mere 16-points away from falling outside of the top-35. Due to NASCAR denying the team’s request, Reutimann now sits 34th in owner points, so the team could have a panic on their hands should something happen to go awry in Martinsville. NASCAR stated that this situation does not meet the criteria that they’re usually looking for when approached about a potential points swapping.

-  Starting with this weekend’s race in Martinsville, BAM Racing will begin equipping their no. 49 car driven by Ken Schrader with Bill Davis Racing’s Toyota-powered engines. The team is currently under contract with GEM to receive their engines from Gillett Evernham Motorsports, but GEM has since then granted them permission to pursue Toyotas. If qualifying is of any indication, then the move is paying off thus far as Schrader qualified 7th for Sunday’s race. He has currently qualified for only two of the five races run.

- Tony Stewart is attempting to prove that every split mili-second counts on the racetrack, which is why he’s spent the majority of the off-week looking into methods of how he can make his no. 20 Toyota Camry carry a lighter load, thus resulting in faster speeds. He started last Monday by getting his body waxed on live radio, and has followed it up this week by “getting his ears lowered” and chopping the mullet. This should officially end any rumors that Smoke was letting it grow out in preparation for a future sponsorship from “Locks of Love.”