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CUP: Saturday Dover Notebook
Written by: Tom Jensen   
06/01/2007
Dover, Del.
 


Junior: Ginn- or Gibbs-bound? (LAT Photo) » More Photos

JUNIOR SPEAKS Depending on who one believes in the NASCAR Nextel Cup garage, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is headed either to Ginn Racing with sponsorship from Budweiser or Joe Gibbs Racing with backing from credit card giant Visa. Either way, expect an announcement next month. "We're trying not to comment too much on how things are going or what's going on until we can really have something to say, but I can tell you that things are positive," Earnhardt said after qualifying on Friday. "I've just been overwhelmed with the personalities that I've met, with the owners and the individuals working at each company. There are certainly a lot of great people out there with good morals and good values and with great attitudes about the sport and about what they want to accomplish. It makes me feel good about where the sport's going to be in the next 5-10 years with some of these individuals I've met."

Earnhardt also said that he'd visited a number of other teams and while he was impressed with what he saw, he also got some validation that his current team, Dale Earnhardt, Inc., can be competitive with the biggest outfits in the sport. And he delivered the frankest assessment yet on his fractious relationship with stepmother and soon-to-be-former-boss Teresa Earnhardt. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary or didn't see any golden eggs laying around," Earnhardt said of his shop visits.

"But there were basically, you know, I was surprised at how on par in some places DEI really is. … I never really felt like me and Tony, Jr. (crew chief Eury) had any trouble competing and being competitive at DEI. The reasons why I left were truly personal and not competition related. But you look at these other teams that win more races and there's an obvious difference between the two companies or three or four companies."

One reason that the field has been narrowed down so much is that Earnhardt remains committed to Chevrolets, which eliminates more than half the field of potential suitors. "I want to continue driving Chevrolets. That spells it out pretty good for a lot of people," he said. "Chevrolet has been good to me. They have complimented my Busch Series program. They have supported me and complimented me in my career. And just for a couple of extra bucks, I wouldn't want to go drive for another manufacturer. I don't have those relationships with those other manufacturers although I am sure there are great people working there."
Toyota teams continue to be on the move up following Vickers' top-five at Lowe's last week. (LAT Photo) » More Photos

BOUNCING BACK The Toyota teams had many reasons to smile this week, following Brian Vickers' fifth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600, the best result to date for the first-year Toyota Nextel Cup effort. Vickers had a good enough car to win in that race, but was slowed by a power-steering failure after leading 76 laps.

And at Dover International Speedway this week, five of the seven Camrys entered made the race, despite all of them having to qualify on speed. Even Michael Waltrip, who'd had 11 consecutive DNQ's, got into the field for the Autism Speaks 400.

The improved results aren't enough to declare that Toyota has fully arrived, said Andy Graves, senior manager for Toyota Racing Development USA, the automaker's competition arm here in the United States. But there's no question spirits are up with the Toyota teams.

"It's always a great shot in the arm for everyone
involved, from the sponsors to the guys building the cars, the guys working on the cars and also at Toyota and at our engine shop," Graves said Saturday at Dover. "It's the best medicine you can have to get everyone motivated, without a doubt. We just have to keep our heads down. And it's been a very humbling and rough start to the season. I think in the long run, it's allowing us to build a foundation for our program and build it strong and build it right instead of coming out of the box with some mirage and not really take the proper steps to build a foundation for the long term. And that's what we're here for. It's a 100-year plan."

DIRT DREAMS The biggest race this week in terms of size, purse, etc. is Sunday's Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Raceway. But in terms of buzz, the real big dog is next Wednesday night's Third Annual Prelude to the Dream at Eldora Speedway, Tony Stewart's famous and fast dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio. The 25-driver field reads like a multidisciplinary who's who of motorsports featuring everybody from 75-year-old Alabama Gang legend Red Farmer to drag racers Ron Capps and Cruz Pedregron to five NASCAR Nextel Cup Series champions.

One driver thrilled to be invited is team owner Ray Evernham, himself a former local short-track star from New Jersey before an injury derailed his driving career. "Just to be able to play around with these guys, I don't care if I get to run one lap just as long as I get to be in the picture," said Evernham. "When you think about being on the track with Tony, with Kasey (Kahne), with Jeff Gordon, guys I've been really close with – heck, Montoya, Harvick and all these guys who are going to be there, Bobby Labonte, Bill Elliott, Elliott Sadler. Just to be invited to be part of that when you're not a driver, it means a lot to me and I really appreciate Tony inviting me."

Evernham, however, does have one concern: The level of preparation from some of his rivals. "I heard some guys went out and bought their own cars," said Evernham, who will drive a car he will see for the first time when he gets to the track. "And there's been more testing for this race than there was the Daytona 500. I'm liable to be at a little bit of a disadvantage, but I'm going for fun and just to be part of it."

PUMPED UP Kasey Kahne hasn't had the kind of season he's hoped for so far in 2007, but he was all smiles at Dover International Raceway after qualifying fourth for Sunday's Autism Speaks 400. "The cool thing about it is things can change so quickly," Kahne said prior to Nextel Cup practice Saturday morning at Dover. "You just keep working. Yesterday we qualified fourth. I felt like we were back to old times. Everything was good – practice, qualifying, the Busch car. Things can change so fast and you can feel confident and good whether you're 30th in points or fifth, you can feel good and your team really fast."

SPEED SHOT The Nextel Cup Series, obviously, is NASCAR's biggest, richest and most prestigious series. This week at Dover International Raceway it was also the slowest. Ryan Newman the pole for the Autism Speaks 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup race with a qualifying lap of 152.925 miles per hour. That was 2.5 miles per hour slower than Mike Skinner's pole speed for the AAA Insurance 200 Craftsman Truck Series race and slower than Denny Hamlin's 153.564 mph Busch pole speed.