Happy Monday everyone.

Today In Nascar History

January 5, 1931: Happy birthday, Robert Duvall, who made his NASCAR debut in Days of Thunder in 1990 as Tom Cruise's crew chief, Harry Hogge.

Number of the Day

We are counting down the days until the 51st running of the 2009 season-opening Daytona 500 on February 15. Each day we are highlighting a number that corresponds to the countdown number:

41: Victories for the No. 99 car in 871 Cup races. Carl Edwards has won the last 16, including nine in 2008. Before Edwards, Jeff Burton won 17 times in the 99 for Jack Roush. The other eight victories came from Curtis Turner (1956), Shorty Rollins (1958), three by Paul Goldsmith (1966), Richard Brickhouse (1969) and two by Charlie Glotzbach (1970). The victories by Rollins and Brickhouse were the only ones in their careers. Brickhouse's came in the first Cup race at Talladega.

41 Days and counting to the Daytona 500

Bits and Pieces

Bodine, Lucas wins Bobsled Challenge: Boris Said is no longer king of the mountain. Todd Bodine and Morgan Lucas have taken his place. Bodine laid down a fast first run, then held on to edge Joe Gibbs Racing phenom Joey Logano on Sunday and capture the first race at the fourth annual Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge. Lucas beat Bodine in the spectacular second race. Said, who had won all but one of the first six races since the unique event's inception, finished sixth in the first race and was eliminated in the second. Geoff Bodine started the Bobsled Challenge in an effort to raise funds for the U.S. men's and women's bobsled teams. It features NASCAR and NHRA drivers piloting specially made bobsleds, with members of the New York State Army National Guard serving as brakemen. Todd Bodine, with brakeman Patrick Furman, of nearby Plattsburgh, N.Y., was the only driver to break 50 seconds on both runs of the first race down the difficult Mount Van Hoevenberg track. That left his older brother scratching his head. Bodine and Furman finished with a combined time of 1 minute, 39.18 seconds to beat Logano by 0.40 seconds. Still, Logano again proved he's a quick study. He struggled in his inaugural appearance a year ago. NASCAR Nationwide driver Larry Gunselman's second run was the fastest of the race but left him in third, just 0.02 behind Loga# Lucas, who competes in NHRA's top fuel class, was fourth, followed by Funny Car driver Jeg Coughlin Jr., road racers Said and Eric Curran, and NASCAR Whelen series star Brian Loftin. The bottom four sleds were eliminated after the first run, which left ASA driver Danny Bagwell, top fuel drivers JR Todd and Bob Vandergriff, and Whelen racing series champion Philip Morris watching. The second race was an elimination contest featuring four drivers from NHRA and four from NASCAR. Lucas edged Todd to earn the NHRA berth in the final run against Bodine, who remained the class of the field in eliminating Geoff Bodine, Said, and Loga# For the finale, U.S. coaches Brian Shimer and Bill Tavares acted as brakemen because Lucas and Todd Bodine were piloting Bo-Dyn bobsleds used by the U.S. team. And that provided a dramatic finish.
Lucas and Tavares went first, and the speeds increased substantially in the sleeker sleds. Lucas finished nearly 2 seconds faster than in any of his previous runs, and he was lucky to finish. He nearly flipped in one of the final turns before steering hard to prevent it as Tavares' head whipped sideways, scraping the ice-covered wall. Not to be outdone, Todd Bodine continued his mastery of the tricky layout, posting even faster splits than Lucas as he rocketed toward the bottom. But after building a lead of a quarter second, Bodine wasn't as lucky entering the same turn that had nearly derailed Lucas -- his shiny red sled flipped to give Lucas the triumph.(ESPN/AP)

Montoya to run Daytona 24 for Ganassi: Defending Grand-Am Rolex 24 At Daytona winners Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) announced today a two-car effort for the Rolex Sports Car Series¡¯ 47th running of the prestigious Rolex 24 At Daytona, featuring six drivers representing some of the best talent the motor racing world has to offer. Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas will unite to form the driver lineup in the #01 TELMEX/Target Daytona Prototype, while Team Target IndyCar pilots Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti join Alex Lloyd in the #02 Target/TELMEX Daytona Prototype. Last year, the team became the first in history to win three consecutive overall titles in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. The CGRFS roster will look to add to the record book this year with an impressive group of international racing champions representing three Indianapolis 500 titles (Montoya-2000, Franchitti-2007 and Dixon-2008), five open wheel championships (Montoya-1999, Dixon-2003/2008, Lloyd-2007 and Franchitti-2007), three Daytona Prototype championships (Pruett-2004/2006 and Pruett/Rojas-2007) and five former Rolex 24 winners.(Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates PR)

Mears to run Rolex 24 for Childress team: The driver lineup for the Childress-Howard Motorsports entry in the 2009 Rolex 24 at Daytona has earned victories in the Rolex 24, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Sprint Cup Series and the IndyCar Series. The talented driver quartet for the #2 CHM Pontiac Crawford Daytona Prototype is headed by three-time Rolex 24 overall winner Andy Wallace (1990, ¡¯97, ¡¯99). Sprint Cup Series driver and 2006 Rolex 24 overall winner #07-Casey Mears, IndyCar Series star and 2006 Rolex 24 competitor Danica Patrick and veteran sports car racer Rob Finlay will all see significant time behind the wheel. Only five drivers have won more Rolex 24 overall titles than the three earned by Wallace. His trophy case also includes trophies from the 24 Hours of Le Mans (1988), the 12 Hours of Sebring (1992, ¡¯93) and the Petit Le Mans (1999). Mears was a co-driver for the winning team that earned the overall victory in the 2006 Rolex 24, becoming the first full-time Sprint Cup Series driver to do so. He was named in August 2008 as the driver of Richard Childress Racing¡¯s #07 Jack Daniel¡¯s Chevrolet team for the 2009 Sprint Cup Series season.(Childress-Howard Motorsports PR)

¡®Smoke¡¯ Rises from Fiesta Bowl Parade

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., ¨C No passing. That was the only rule Tony Stewart had to abide by in Saturday¡¯s 38th Annual Fort McDowell Fiesta Bowl Parade presented by Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. Thankfully, the two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion sat far enough away from the steering wheel of a Chevrolet Corvette that he couldn¡¯t break the one rule just days into the New Year.

Instead, the driver better known as ¡°Smoke¡± sat atop the trunk of the Corvette convertible waving to the crowd along the 1.9-mile parade route, dutifully fulfilling one of his primary duties as grand marshal of this year¡¯s Fiesta Bowl, which features a Monday night match-up between the Big Ten¡¯s Ohio State and the Big 12¡¯s University of Texas.
¡°That was like driver introductions at Indianapolis times 10,¡± said Stewart, referring to the ritual of riding in the back of a pickup truck around the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway before racing 42 other drivers for 400 miles. ¡°This is a huge event and I¡¯m just honored to be a part of it. It¡¯s pretty cool to sort of venture outside our box a little bit and take in a game of this magnitude. With the racing season being what it is, getting away to see a college football game is kind of tough. When the Fiesta Bowl Committee called and asked if I was interested in being their grand marshal, I said, ¡®As long as I get a ticket and a field pass to the game, I¡¯m in.¡±

Stewart got that and then some. Announcing his presence in the parade were two brightly painted red No. 14 Chevrolet Impalas. One was emblazoned with Office Depot and the other with Old Spice, his co-primary sponsors for the 2009 racing season ¨C Stewart¡¯s first as a driver/owner with Stewart-Haas Racing, his new home after spending over a decade with Joe Gibbs Racing.

¡°Being grand marshal was also a great opportunity for our race team,¡± said Stewart, who is already an accomplished team owner in the U.S. Auto Club (USAC) and the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, where his teams have won nine championships ¨C seven in USAC and two in the World of Outlaws. ¡°It¡¯s not everyday that we¡¯re able to crossover into other sporting events, so to be able to do that and bring my team and sponsors a little extra exposure was a no-brainer. Plus, we¡¯re going to be back out here in April at Phoenix International Raceway, and hopefully the time we spend here in January brings a few more people out to the race track in April.¡±

Stewart¡¯s ties to the Phoenix area are strong. The 1-mile oval in Avondale is where Stewart¡¯s racing career truly began.

It was February 1993 at Phoenix International Raceway¡¯s famed Copper World Classic where the season-opening race for the USAC Silver Crown division was held. In Stewart¡¯s first ever race at the desert mile, he qualified second to Davey Hamilton ¨C a former IRL IndyCar Series veteran ¨C and led 31 of the 50 laps before finishing second to Mike Bliss ¨C the 2003 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion. The $3,500 payday for his second-place effort made eight-hour days at $5 an hour at the Columbus, Ind., machine shop where Stewart worked seem unnecessary. Packing the rest of the 1993 season with Silver Crown, Sprint and Midget races across the nation, Stewart¡¯s quick ascent up the racing ladder began. In all, Stewart has scored 11 driving championships in 29 years of racing, a tally that includes four USAC titles, one IndyCar Series crown and his two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships.

¡°Anytime I come out to the Phoenix area, it¡¯s like a homecoming,¡± Stewart said. ¡°It¡¯s a place where I feel comfortable. I started racing there in ¡®93 when I ran a Silver Crown car, and since then I¡¯ve run USAC Midgets, Indy cars, Supermodifieds, NASCAR Nationwide Series cars, and of course, Sprint Cup cars. So, I¡¯ve logged a bunch of laps there. To think that it all kind of started at Phoenix, I guess you could say it¡¯s the place where my career came full-circle.¡±

Serving as grand marshal of the Fiesta Bowl has helped solidify that feeling, for the Texas/Ohio State pairing provides Stewart the opportunity to further enhance his relationships with his new partners at Stewart-Haas Racing.

¡°I own a race track in Ohio, but a few of our sponsors have some really strong ties to Texas,¡± said Stewart, who owns Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. ¡°So, I¡¯m going to take a page from the Fiesta Bowl¡¯s playbook and say that I just want to see a really good game.¡±

Sporting News¡¯ 60 Most Beautiful People

No. 41, Kristy Labonte Garrett

Erik Spanberg/scenedaily.com

In 60 years of NASCAR racing, the sport has been filled with colorful characters. This year, Sporting News decided to craft a list of the sport's 60 Most Beautiful People.

The selections were made as a result of nominations sent in by readers and NASCAR fans to the Sporting News' publications and Web sites.

The list was finalized and published in a special edition, which is now available on newsstands and at the online store at streetandsmiths.com. SceneDaily is running the list, with one person from the top 60 to be featured each day.

Today's installment features No. 41, Kristy Labonte Garrett.

By the time Kristy Labonte Garrett reached high school, going to a NASCAR race had lost much of its allure.

Living in a private motor coach on the weekends, the waiting and monotony built up as the long season rolled by. Her dad, retired two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Terry Labonte, lived on a steady diet of FOX News and The Weather Channel. On race weekends, he typically turned in by 9 p.m.

¡°I would try to stay quiet,¡± she says. ¡°Your parents, you love ¡®em, but after a while it¡¯s not what you want to do every weekend.¡±

Still, there are some perks. Every year, Kristy and other drivers¡¯ kids enjoyed the Florida beaches while their dads tuned up for the Daytona 500. And growing up in High Point, N.C., her friends included Kyle Petty¡¯s children as well as NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Brian Vickers.
Having friends who understood the busy lifestyle of NASCAR made things easier, she says.

This year, Kristy, 25, got married and moved to Fort Worth, Texas. She worked for her uncle, current NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Bobby Labonte, in racing for a couple of years before moving to Texas. Now she works as an event planner, with no motorsports connections.

She isn¡¯t closing the door on NASCAR, but it¡¯s not in her immediate plans, either.

¡°It¡¯s what I grew up with and it¡¯s all I¡¯ve known my entire life, so I¡¯m enjoying doing something completely different,¡± she says. ¡°I had great parents. They kept us humble. They weren¡¯t flashy at all.¡±

Petty cash, not enough

by Darrell Waltrip/foxsports.com

You know folks, every business has a little drawer where they keep a little bit of cash for incidentals like a C.O.D. delivery or the yard guy needing something or someone needs to go to the store, or an unexpected problem that creeps up, things like that. It's called your petty cash drawer.

Therein lies the problem for Richard Petty and Petty Enterprises as there are no more small problems in NASCAR when it comes to finances. I think about Richard and his brother Maurice, cousin Dale Inman and Petty Enterprises through the years. They were the flagship of our sport and Richard is the king of our sport and has been ever since I started in the 1970s. They were the ones we all looked up to. They were the ones we always set our goal to beat. They always won races and champions. They were the benchmark for all of us.

But our sport has changed so dramatically over the years, especially these last 10 to 15 years. From my own experience, it was only 12 years ago when I had Western Auto as my sponsor and I was able to hold my own pretty well ¡ª but then the price of poker shot through the roof. It was like a $5 million primary sponsorship had to be $10 million overnight. I was like the Pettys in that I had no other outside source of income and the clouds rolled in to make the future pretty bleak for me as an owner.

What racing gives you, you take in. What racing gives you, well that's what you spend. Along the way you get a sponsor and with a family-run operation you pay the expenses and take a salary out. The sponsor money helps cover all that plus naturally allows you to field the car week in and week out.

Things really began changing for the Pettys when they realized they couldn't operate out of Level Cross, N.C. anymore. So they decided to move to Charlotte and that was an expensive move. It takes a lot of money to simply turn the lights on in one of those new 150,000 to 200,000 sq. ft. shops, which is absolutely ridiculous ¡ª especially if you are a relatively small operation.

So you have a shop that's big and expensive. You then have to fill it up with people and people are expensive. With an organization that becomes that big then you need leadership and yup, you guessed it, leadership is expensive. Then to keep your sponsor happy you have to have a good driver and they don't come cheap either. Bobby Labonte was an expensive driver ¡ª he is a past champion and had won races. He earned the right to command a big salary.

So the expenses Petty Enterprises were facing far outreached the sponsors they had even with General Mills. But when General Mills left to go to Richard Childress Racing that really left them holding the bag. Unfortunately it was an empty bag. That's when things really got tough and Richard had to bring in Boston Ventures. Sure they wanted the race team, but they really wanted to gain control of the Richard Petty Driving Experience, which is Richard's driving school that allows fans to get behind the wheel of stock car. I have always been told it was a cash cow for Richard. In fact, that's what held up the deal with Boston Ventures because Richard didn't want to give up control of the driving school but he finally had to.

Folks I have said it from Day 1 when these investment companies started coming into our sport, that I didn't think it was a very good idea. They aren't racers and they don't truly understand our sport and what it takes to run a race team. I just didn't think it was going to pan out and now, unfortunately with the economy the way it is, it hasn't panned out well at all.

The bottom line for those folks is ROI ¡ª return on investment. They are interested in making money. When they spend $1, they want to get $1.50 back. Richard Petty and the Petty name is golden in our sport, however you can only push that so far. So now Kyle Petty is gone from the family business and they have turned to Gillette to absorb them or merge. Ironically Gillette looks to be in almost the same financial boat. This racing thing and the amount of daily and weekly cash it takes to run them is probably turning out to be a lot bigger than these outside investors ever imagined.

Folks, the cold hard facts are these race teams require cash and a lot of it. They aren't cash cows. They burn through cash quickly. You literally have to pay as you go. They take money week in and week out. I just think it's hard for these outside investment companies to understand that when they first come into our sport. When the cars are parked in the shops during the winter months, they really burn up a lot of cash. The winter months are brutal to race teams as they still have a lot of expense and overhead and not a lot of income. So you can see where they can become a problem in a hurry.

So there sits George Gillett with a big organization and expensive drivers. AJ Allmendinger did a great job driving that No. 10 car for them in the last handful of races for 2008. AJ's a hungry young kid. In a lot of ways he reminds me of Carl Edwards a few years ago, who would basically drive for nothing. So I think the writing was pretty clear on the wall with an expensive driver in Sadler and a young aggressive and much less expensive driver in Allmendinger. So that became a huge savings to the Gillett bottom line.

Racing is no different than any other business right now in this economy. The strong are going to survive and unfortunately the weak aren't. Trust me, I know. I have lived this nightmare. When Western Auto pulled out at the end of 1997, I was facing bankruptcy, auction or shutting the team down and laying everyone off. I was blessed. I was able to sell my team. Although it broke my heart do it, it was the lesser of the two other evils because I didn't have to go through bankruptcy or watch it go to auction. Selling your team is what a lot of these owners are facing now 12 years later.

The point to all this is that teams are all struggling right now. Without major sponsors none can survive. Naturally if you have top of the line drivers and top of the line sponsorships you will be fine. But if you are a mediocre team and don't have a lot of good sponsors then you are going to find yourself in the midst of financial crisis. Look no further than what has happened to Bill Davis when he lost Caterpillar, or Hall of Fame Racing or a number of teams in the Nationwide and Truck series. Again, I lived this ¡ª when the sponsor goes, so goes the team.

Gordon says developing COT was fortuitous move

by Reid Spencer, Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service, Special to FOXSports.com

Whether through happenstance or through foresight bordering on prescience, NASCAR's development of the Car of Tomorrow was a brilliant move, says four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon.

Gordon's view has nothing to do with the way the car drives. In truth, he'd probably prefer a car without bump stops in the front suspension, one that turns more easily through the corners at the high-banked tracks that make up the bulk of the Cup schedule.

With United States automakers struggling to survive, however, Gordon sees the introduction of the new racecar as a step toward decreasing the sport's dependence on manufacturers. In fact, if push comes to shove, Gordon says NASCAR racing could survive with no support from the manufacturers, echoing remarks made by NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France at Phoenix in November.

"I really credit NASCAR right now, because right now we have a series that CAN operate without the manufacturers," said Gordon, who has driven the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in all 545 of his Cup appearances. "We don't want to, but they could. This sport could survive without 'em."

Other than minor cosmetic differences, there is little -- other than the nameplate and the engine -- to differentiate the models that compete in Cup racing (Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Ford Fusion, Dodge Charger and Toyota Camry) from one another.

In building a safer car and removing any competitive advantage that might be derived from distinctive design elements of one particular brand -- a logical extension of the move to common templates in 2003 -- NASCAR out of necessity sacrificed some of the individuality of the cars fans see on the track on Sunday afternoons.

U.S. automakers already have announced plans to diminish their support of motorsports programs. If economic necessity were to force manufacturers to withdraw from competition altogether, Gordon says racing would go on.

"I hate to even say that, because I know they don't want to hear that, and I don't want to see it," Gordon said. "I'd never want to see that. Where they do play a crucial role is in our engine program and in the technology and in the parts and pieces.

"What NASCAR did, I don't think they were looking to the future; I think that they were just thinking competition. But right now, if we relied on the manufacturers more so -- I'm nervous now, but I can speak, I think, for (team owner) Rick (Hendrick), and we'd be very, very nervous, because that would be a huge amount of our income and the stability of the teams."

Driver Tony Stewart, on the other hand, doesn't think carmakers will abandon stock car racing.

"I'm not sure tennis or golf sells cars, but when you build cars and people race cars, that's how the sport was built," Stewart said.

Clint Bowyer is another driver who thinks manufacturer participation is crucial to the sport's survival.

"If we lose the manufacturers, you won't have to worry about racing," Bowyer said. "We'll be walking."

Driver Review

Casey Mears

Amy Henderson ¡¤ Frontstretch.com

2008 Ride: No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
2008 Primary Sponsors: Kellogg¡¯s / CARQUEST / Cheez-It
2008 Owner: Rick Hendrick
2008 Crew Chief: Alan Gustafson

Stats: 36 Races, 0 Wins, 1 Top 5, 6 Top 10s, 5 DNFs, 20th in points.
Best Finish: 5th (Infineon ¨C June).
Average Finish: 22.1.

High Point: Mears is underrated as a road course driver ¡ª never quite considered a top road racer ¡ª but like fellow Bakersfield, CA native Kevin Harvick, he¡¯s quietly good at right turns. Mears¡¯ fifth place run at Sonoma in June was his best finish of the year, outperforming best friend, teammate, and eventual champion Jimmie Johnson as well as new teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Mears is also strong at tiny, quirky Martinsville, where he posted finishes of seventh and sixth in ¡¯08. That his best finishes of the season came on two of the most difficult racetracks to master hints that Mears has more ability than his overall disappointing season would suggest at first glance.

Low Point: Late in the going in the Daytona 500, Mears had the strongest Hendrick Motorsports machine and was running smoothly in the middle lane with just six laps remaining in the season opener. He was well clear on the outside, and making a move up there looked as though it could propel him to the front of the field when it counted the most. Unfortunately, Mears¡¯ spotter waited to clear his driver¡­and waited, and waited, for nearly half a lap. When he finally told Mears to move to the outside lane, another car had moved up too close ¨C and what might have been a race-winning pass turned into a race-ending crash. Mears might have done well to look for a new spotter at that point ¨C at least twice more in the season, Mears was cleared when he shouldn¡¯t have been, resulting in wrecks each time.

Summary: After a year in the former No. 25, Mears took over the drivers¡¯ seat at the No. 5 car for HMS, replacing Kyle Busch. In doing so, he slid into a team that made the Chase in 2007, but didn¡¯t get the job done in 2008. And while you can¡¯t put all the blame for his team¡¯s performance on Mears (many key players and some equipment was shuffled to Dale Earnhardt, Jr.¡¯s new car), much of the responsibility does lie with the driver; and after a drop to 20th in the season-ending point standings, Mears was let go in favor of Mark Martin for the 2009 season.

This year was Mears¡¯ fourth straight with a new team, and you have to wonder how negative an effect this has had on the Californian. After a 2007 season in which he showed real promise, 2008 was one disappointment after another. After his Daytona wreck, Mears became the victim of a soaked Auto Club Speedway ¡ª the first to wreck on a surface that nobody had any business racing on in the first place. Five races in, Mears had three finishes of 35th or worse and was simply struggling to hold his team within the Top 35 in owner points. While a Top 10 at Martinsville stopped the bleeding temporarily, things never improved to the point he would become a serious contender for the Chase over the Spring and Summer.

While most of the season was forgettable, Mears did have some bright spots, mostly on tracks of a mile or less where he showed that he knows how to wheel a car. But in a sport where consistency brings glory, this driver never found a rhythm.

2008 Team Ranking: 4th. Mears was the only Hendrick Motorsports driver not to make the Chase in 2008, and the one to have his team cherry-picked to build HMS¡¯ other crews as a result.

Off Track News: Mears became a father for the first time in 2008 when he and girlfriend Trisha Grablander welcomed daughter Samantha Mae into the world.

2009 Outlook: Mears will be with his fifth new team in a row in 2009; but this time, the pressure is turned up a notch. Signed during the Silly Season craze this Fall, Mears will get into the No. 07 Jack Daniel¡¯s Chevrolet at Richard Childress Racing this season. The move joins him with a team that put three cars in the Chase for the second straight year in 2008; the No. 07 finished no lower than fifth in the standings during that same time period with former driver Clint Bowyer.

So, Mears once again takes the reins of a team which made the playoffs ¨C but this time, the entire team remains intact with proven equipment. That was not the case in 2008, when Mears took over the No. 5 but lost cars and several key crew members to teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr. That means the bar is set high for him in the RCR camp; but should Mears clear it, he could be sitting pretty-pretty enough to make the Chase and the trip to New York. And if he limbos under the bar? There won¡¯t be many excuses left.

All in all, Mears desperately needs the chance to gel with a team. He needs to perform at a high enough standard to keep him with the No. 07 for more than one season; so while a Chase berth shouldn¡¯t be the ultimate indicator, consistency and a Top 15 points finish should be. That¡¯s a goal Mears has shown he can meet, and if the stars align, look for 2009 to be the start of better things for one of NASCAR¡¯s most likable drivers.

2006 Frontstretch.com Grade: C+.
2007 Grade: B-.
2008 Grade: D.

Driver Review

Paul Menard

Phil Allaway ¡¤ Frontstretch.com

2008 Ride: No. 15 DEI Chevrolet
2008 Primary Sponsor: Menards
2008 Owner: Teresa Earnhardt
2008 Crew Chief: Doug Randolph

Stats: 36 Races, 0 Wins, 1 Top 5, 1 Top 10, 1 Pole, 26th in points.
Best Finish: 2nd (Talladega ¨C Fall).
Average Finish: 25.4.

High Point: Definitely the AMP Energy 500 at Talladega in October, where Menard scored a career best second place finish. Late in the race, all three DEI Chevrolets were lined up in the Top 5, ready to pounce on leader Tony Stewart. While Aric Almirola was eventually shuffled back in the No. 8 Chevrolet, Smith and Menard continued to apply the pressure as the white flag waved. Coming to the finish line, Menard actually gave the push Smith needed to pass Stewart illegally and reach the line first.

However, while the No. 01 car dipped below the yellow line, Menard stayed above it and was promoted to second following NASCAR¡¯s penalty against his rookie teammate. That race was not just the only Top 5 of Menard¡¯s season, but the only Top 10 of 2008, and his entire Sprint Cup career up to this point. Outside of Talladega, Menard¡¯s best finish was 11th in the June race at Michigan.

In addition, Menard won the pole for the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona and led 19 laps before finishing 15th.

Low Point: Menard¡¯s season was consistently mediocre, so it is relatively difficult to pick out one specific low point. The closest to a definitive low would have to be the August event at Pocono, where Menard finished 42nd after crashing with the No. 78 of Joe Nemechek. This was his worst finish of the season, and the only DNF the second-year driver had due to a wreck. Coming just one week after a 41st at Indianapolis, it became the midpoint of a five-race slump where Menard failed to finish higher than 24th.

Summary: Menard¡¯s sophomore season provided some slight improvement. After the struggles that marked the early part of his rookie campaign, 2008 brought continued steadiness for him that marked his second half of 2007. Increasing his number of Top 20 finishes from six to eight, Menard maintained the same low number of DNFs (two) and continued to race clean.

This pattern shows that Menard is slowly improving as a driver in the Sprint Cup Series, much like how other ¡°pay drivers¡± have improved their skills over a period of time at the highest levels of motorsports. A good example from Formula 1 here would be Pedro Diniz, who made it to Formula 1 in 1995 mainly because of his sponsorship money from Parmalat, a company best known here in the United States for lactose-free dairy products. After a year at terrible Forti-Corse, Diniz did a year at Ligier, then moved to Arrows for two seasons, then finished off at Sauber Petronas. By the time all was said and done, Diniz had scored a total of 10 points in F1 (using today¡¯s point system, it would be 38) and was generally accepted in the paddock.

Team Ranking: Highest ranked of the four DEI drivers in points (26th), Menard would still be behind either Martin or Almirola if either driver had run a full season. The No. 15 was the middle DEI car in owner points.

Off-Track News: Menard rarely makes news off the track, but he visited the set of CSI: Miami in late August prior to the Labor Day weekend race at Auto Club Speedway (Fontana, CA).

2009 Outlook: 2009 sees Menard leaving DEI (his old No. 15 ride was eliminated as a result of the DEI-CGRFS merger) to move to a new third team at Yates Racing, the No. 98. Menards, his father John¡¯s chain of home improvement warehouses, follows him to the new Yates program. In this situation, Paul will likely be expected to perform even more than he did at DEI. John Menard had what could be described as a ¡°cushy¡± relationship with ownership at his son¡¯s old team; however, this will not happen at Yates.

Compared to Menard¡¯s No. 15 ride at DEI last year, Yates looks to be little more than a lateral move. However, unlike Menard¡¯s teammates, his car is fully funded, so there will be less distractions for an organization that struggled for funding in 2008.

Menard¡¯s crew chief will be Larry Carter, who helped Jamie McMurray have a very strong finish this season. Carter is a race-winning crew chief in the Sprint Cup Series, both with McMurray and Kurt Busch; his winning experience should help Menard improve in the No. 98.

Being that this will be Menard¡¯s third year, I would expect some more improvement out of Paul. After his first two years at DEI, a good season for him would have approximately 10 Top 20 finishes and a couple of Top 10s. Such a season would likely result in a finish around 22nd in points; and if the chemistry is right, I think that result is clearly within the realm of possibility. However, if he regresses at all, calls for Menard to move aside for someone with more talent will emerge.

2006 Frontstretch.com Grade: N/A.
2007 Grade: C-.
2008 Grade: C.

Remembering Dale ¨C The Rivalries

JimMcCoy/bumpdrafts.com

Rivalries. No matter the sport, rivalries incite passion. In baseball, its the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Dodgers and Giants. The players may come and go, but the fight among fan bases live on and they won¡¯t let you forget. The Celtics and Lakers make for a great rivalry, as do the Raiders and Broncos in the NFL.

In NASCAR, rivalries were a part of the Earnhardt legend, and he had a lot of them. During his 20-some-odd years of Cup racing he traded paint with a veritable line-up of all-stars. Some go on.

¡°The Killer Vs. The Kid¡±- Jeff Gordon- When Gordon arrived on the scene late in 1992, old school fans didn¡¯t know what to make of ¡°The Rainbow Warrior.¡± Jeff Gordon was polished, practically raised to be a racer from the crib by step-father John Bickford. Articulate and image-conscious, the Pittsboro, Indiana native by way of Vallejo, California represented a polar opposite to the gritty, rough-hewn Earnhardt.

¡°The Intimidator¡± would mess with young Gordon¡¯s head. Earnhardt called Gordon the ¡°Wonder Boy¡± and made sure the ¡°24¡å had a rear view mirror full of the black #3. In the book Angel In Black, author Tom Gillispie shares the story of how Earnhardt said he was the first man to win at the Brickyard, though a year earlier Gordon won NASCAR¡¯s first race there. There was little doubt Earnhardt knew what he was dealing with in Gordon and like so many old timers do on the job with the rookie, they¡¯ll mess with the new guy to initiate him in a sense and make sure he¡¯s got the right stuff to stick. Gordon never backed down, winning his first championship in 1995, a year after Earnhardt won his last. At an awards banquet- Gordon messed with Dale by toasting him with milk. He got a smile out of ¡°The Intimidator¡¯ on that one.

The truth is, Gordon turned to Earnhardt for advice and the affection Dale had for Jeff seemed genuine. They were often business partners, and it got to a place where the rivalry only really existed among their fan bases. That rivalry is still alive in some ways. In 2007, Gordon was pelted with beer cans after a win at Talladega, a place where Earnhardt was virtually a king. To some of Dale¡¯s fans, it seemed a heresy that his son Dale Jr. would bolt DEI for the organization Gordon raced for. Some were upset enough to say they were through with Junior.

As for Gordon, one action said it all last year. When Gordon tied Earnhardt¡¯s mark of 76 career victories at Phoenix, he took a #3 flag and flew out his window on the victory lap. Gordon said, ¡°I really miss him out there.¡± ¡°To do something he did in this sport is pretty overwhelming.¡±

Pass In The Grass- Bill Elliott- Oddly enough, if any contemporary of Earnhardt¡¯s had a similar story to his own, it was Bill Elliott. ¡°Million Dollar Bill¡± wasn¡¯t always showered in money, coming from a humble start in Dawsonville, Georgia. While Elliott was in his prime in the mid-80¡¯s, Earnhardt was gaining his footing.

The North Carolinian always seemed to run like Hell, because he was afraid Hell was catching up with him. Earnhardt wanted to make sure he took advantage of very possible opportunity and he even make a few that weren¡¯t there- the 1987 All-Star race at Lowe¡¯s Motor Speedway.

The race simply known as ¡°The Winston¡± had a 10-lap trophy dash. As per usual, Earnhardt, a la Junior Johnson got the front as soon as he could, holding off Elliott, known for having fast cars in those days. Elliott tapped Earnhardt in retaliation for a collision the #9 had with Geoff Bodine he thought Earnhardt instigated. The tag got him loose,driving Dale into the infield. Earnhardt held on and shot past Elliott and maintained the lead- getting the win. Why did he make the move? The Man In Black, who actually drove the gold and blue Wranglers Chevy then said in classic stlye, ¡°There¡¯s more money in winning.¡± Elliott was none too pleased and took a shot at Earnhardt during the cool down lap.

In true Intimidator style, Earnhardt said he wasn¡¯t going to take that from Elliott. For his part, Elliott says that was no real pass.

The Not- So- Civil War- Geoff Bodine- Along with Elliott, Darrell Waltrip and Rusty Wallace, Geoff Bodine- an upstate New York native provided Earnhardt some of his greatest challenges in the 1980s. Like Gordon, the eldest racing Bodine brother had a little more polish and savor faire than the Wrangler poster boy.

You remember the movie Days Of Thunder where the NASCAR head played by future Senator Fred Thompson made Cole Trickle and Rowdy Yates go out to dinner? This rivalry inspired the scene. This feud got so nasty, NASCAR created a ¡°penalty box¡± to park a driver for being rough behind the wheel.

Though Bodine enjoyed a successful career with 18 wins, he never could quite match Earnhardt. Geoff did present a considerable amount of frustration though. Earnhardt once furiously told Bodine car owner Rick Hendrick ¡°Your boy has (screwed) with me 4 times, and 4 times he¡¯s lost. When do you reckon  he¡¯s gonna get the message?¡±

Cain And Abel- Rusty Wallace- Looking back, the problems these two had stemmed from the fact they were too darned much alike. Outspoken and no stranger to the use of the ¡°chrome horn¡±, Rusty Wallace angered his fair share of drivers and fans.

With 55 wins and a championship to his credit, Wallace could compete with Earnhardt in terms of accomplishment. They formed an off-track bond as well. In ESPN¡¯s Ultimate NASCAR series, a reflective Rusty tells of how his family visited Earnhardt in North Carolina and  how Dale taught Wallace¡¯s son Stephen about hunting.

Such affection was not on display in the Goody¡¯s 500 race in Bristol. That was Rusty¡¯s track- a place where Wallace won 9 times. The legendary short track is also known for producing a lot of contact and conflict. While duking it out with Wallace for a top 10 spot, Ironhead made contact with Wallace- spinning Rusty into the wall. Later that night, Earnhardt spun out Terry Labonte and he also traded paint with Lake Speed. After the race, the pair threw water bottles at each other- just like a couple of young boys. You can¡¯t help but think Earnhardt would have turned a water hose on Rusty had he had one handy.

Beatdowns At Bristol- Terry Labonte- Most Texans are known for being loud and brash. But descended from a  Diana, Texas family, I can tell you the steady and quiet Terry Labonte represents a different kind of Texan- the kind like Nolan Ryan, who let their work or craftsmanship do the talking.

Things tended to get unusually racy between Labonte and Earnhardt at Bristol. At the same race listed above, Earnhardt put his bumper on Labonte on the final lap. In an interview with Dave Rodman of NASCAR.com, ¡°Texas Terry¡± said he stayed in the gas figuring that he had enough to beat Earnhardt if he stayed off the break. It was an ugly win as Labonte crossed the line sideways, but thankfully,  there are no style points in NASCAR.

A few years later, the two would go bumper to bumper again. Already frustrated over contact with Darrell Waltrip  just laps earlier, Labonte proceeded to rub with Earnhardt. #3 returned fire by making contact with Labonte, and this time the tactic got Earnhardt a win. He was lustily booed by the sell-out crowd, and Labonte speculates that even some of Earnhardt¡¯s own fans turned on him.

It was after this race, The Intimidator uttered the famous line, ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to wreck him, I just wanted to rattle his cage a little.¡± Labonte says he almost felt sorry for Earnhardt after the treatment he got.

Labonte and Earnhardt were quite familiar with each other. Both were in the same rookie class of 1979, and Terry was still racing when the ¡°Man In Black¡± died. Labonte was the anti- Earnhardt with his composed nature. While Labonte¡¯s 22 career wins pale in comparison to Earnhardt¡¯s- Terry¡¯s steady hand won him titles in 1984 and 1996.

Duking It Out With Ol¡¯ D.W.- Darrell Waltrip- This was perhaps the most famous of all the old Dale Earnhardt rivalries. Four years older than Dale, Darrell was coming into his own when Earnhardt came along. Waltrip¡¯s style also contrasted Earnhardt, but in a much different way. ¡°Jaws¡± was NASCAR¡¯s original smack-talker- the Kentucky native borrowing a page from another famous athlete from the bluegrass state, Muhammad Ali. D.W.s mouth for the most part ran faster than his cars- his funky ¡°Icky Shuffle¡± impersonation after his Daytona win in 1989 one example of his slightly hokey humor.

Understanding this rivalry helps you understand these two better. For both of them, their aggressiveness had everything to do with survival. After his driving cost another man a win, Earnhardt remarked ¡°(Screw) him, I need the money.¡± If you¡¯ve been there, you know why Dale did what he did. In those early years, not winning meant not getting paid, and with his responsibilities back home, The Intimidator felt he had no room for margin of error.

For D.W., it wasn¡¯t much different. He understood Earnhardt represented a genuine threat to his own success. No question, the driver who did so much to get in other racer¡¯s heads had someone on his own.

The most notable incident between these two came in 1986 at Richmond. Waltrip seemed to have things under control when the gold and blue Wrangler¡¯s Chevy came up on Waltrip. Earnhardt got into D.W. and took them both out. Waltrip swore up and down that Dale was trying to kill him. Of Earnhardt Waltrip once said, ¡°Fot the first time in racing, they¡¯ve found a way to put the hood behind the wheel.¡±

The fast-talking Waltrip loved needling Earnhardt, saying he didn¡¯t worry about the papers writing what he said about Earnhardt because Earnhardt couldn¡¯t read- a dig at the fact that Earnhardt never finished high school.

The two actually started out as friends when Dale was coming up, Earnhardt was begging for a chance to get into the race and Waltrip let the hardscrabble youngster borrow one of his cars- a move he must have regretted because ¡°Big E¡¯ brought back a car that looked a crushed beer can. It was only when Earnhardt got the Cup level, the turf war began.

A major twist, a catalyst for healing came in 1998. Dale Earnhardt was launching DEI and one of his drivers was young Steve Park. A bad wreck shelved Park, and Earnhardt turned to Waltrip, by then an aging shell of his former racing self, for help. Waltrip piloted the #1 car for 13 races. While he was already 6 years removed from the last of his 84 wins, Waltrip ran well for DEI, and in an interview for the movie Dale, D.W. says appreciated the time with Earnhardt to renew their friendship and heal old wounds.

In Conclusion- Dale Earnhardt was a good man, but sometimes a complicated creature. He wasn¡¯t by any means a mean spirited soul, but he often felt like he had to race rough to survive. While that approach meant a love-hate with drivers, fans and NASCAR officials, there can be no doubt these rivalries Dale Earnhardt was a part of provided fans with one of the more colorful periods NASCAR enjoyed.

(Photo of Earnhardt and Waltrip courtesy of Ted Van Pelt. You can find more of his photos at flickr.com)

(Thanks also to Tom Gillispie for sharing his collection of stories in the book Angel In Black)

(Thanks to CMT, Richard Childress and Teresa Earnhardt for their part in bringing fans the movie Dale)

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