Yesterday Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama joined the chorus of southern Senators and other Republican congressional members who are not behind a bailout for the U.S. automotive industry. Why? Toyota, Mercedes, Hyundai, and other foreign auto makers have concentrated their U.S. factories in the lower-wage southern states. It must be frustrating for NASCAR to watch their Southern Republican politicians, a group coddled by NASCAR for many years, so directly support a policy position that will affectively destroy the domestic US auto industry and have a profound impact on NASCAR.
The winds of change are blowing in American motorsport in many, many ways.
NASCAR’s leadership has always been respected for making good business decisions and all their moves seemed to always be the right ones – who could argue with near constant growth of sponsors, venues, TV numbers, and fans. But the 2009 NASCAR season might just test the true business acumen of those at the helm of the NASCAR ship because, for the first time in many years, the stars are not aligned in NASCAR’s favor. The sport had already, though recently, stopped growing and, in the coming months, there is a good chance that multiple pieces of the US financial system that directly affect NASCAR’s bottom line are all going to unwind at the same time. The “everything we touch turns to gold” days are over and with such limited choices the best way forward might just be the only way forward.
Johnson is the equivalent of the halfcourt Spurs, the serve-and-volley, rally-be-damned Sampras and the trapping, skating-in-open-ice-is-sin Devs. Style counts. And Jimmie Johnson doesn’t have any.
Jeff Gordon had not yet supplanted Dale Earnhardt Sr. as NASCAR’s most dominant driver—but according to Dale Earnhardt Jr., his dad must have already known something. “I was running late models up at North Wilkesboro and he introduced me to Jeff, in 1994,” Junior remembered while he and other Chase participants met with the media in New York Wednesday. “And if my dad introduced me to somebody—he only did that probably 10 times in my life…he was a busy guy, thinking about his race cars, and what he was doing with his life—and for him to take a minute to introduce me to someone, it must have been really important.”
Gordon knows one race can change everything.
“We need to get out from underneath that cloud and get more positive things surrounding us,” Gordon said. “And the only way we’re going to do that is to perform. Even if we come out of New Hampshire, just like Clint [Bowyer] last year, that was the whole story. ‘Oh, my gosh where did this guy come from?’ And that’s all anybody wanted to talk about. Things can turn around that fast. We recognize that. And the way our season had gone, that has to be our focus.”
NHRA
The Matco Tools and Caterpillar teams will continue to operate from the team’s Brownsburg, Ind. race shop in the heart of NHRA drag racing near Indianapolis.
CIA Stock Photo, Inc.
NASCAR drivers are being encouraged to show their emotions and not be too concerned about offending the companies behind their lucrative sponsorship deals, the head of the racing body said.
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“If they approve a single engine, that would be the last straw. It would be time to start thinking about retirement,” Alonso said.
New York Stock Exchange
“It (winning three straight championships) is starting to sink in some,” said Johnson, who joins Cale Yarborough as the only NASCAR drivers to ever win three consecutive titles. “I probably won’t realize just how special this run’s been until I retire one day.
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“2009 for Durango will be the 25th anniversary. It is an important achievement which we will start to celebrate having, for the first time, a Formula 1 world champion as official driver,” said team manager Ivone Pinton.
