Mike Mulhern

Sunday May 4th 2008

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Clint Bowyer Wins Richmond?! In a Wild, Wild Finish to What looked like a Denny Hamlin Runaway

Clint Bowyer celebrates an unexpected Richmond 400 victory Saturday night with a big burnout in Gil Martin’s Chevy
(Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern

RICHMOND, Va.
Denny Hamlin had the car beat but got beat by a flat tire late.
And Kyle Busch may be the best racer in NASCAR, but he’s clearly not the most popular, and Saturday night he wound up in a controversial finish with stock car racing’s most popular – Dale Earnhardt Jr. – in an innocent mistake, but one that certainly won’t set well with Junior Nation.
The Busch-Earnhardt crash opened the door for Clint Bowyer to pull off a totally unexpected victory in the Crown Royal 400. “The fastest car doesn’t always win, and we weren’t the fastest car, but you have to be there to take advantage,” Bowyer said. “Richard (Childress, his car owner) kept saying ‘It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen,’ and it did.
“Those guys were really going at it. I told the cops who were escorting me in here that they ought to over there escorting Kyle.”
“He won by being there,” Childress said, beaming about Bowyer. “Clint just drove his butt off up through the field.”
“A lot of people may say we backed into that win, but we started 31st and had to charge up there, and we had to be there to capitalize on the opportunity, and Clint did, and we did,” crew chief Gil Martin said. “Things happen.”

Clint Bowyer was the last man standing in Saturday’s Richmond 400 bruiser
(Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

The race was terribly boring for most of the night, Hamlin was so much better than everyone else.
However a slow-leaking flat tire in the final minutes doomed Hamlin after a dominating performance for nearly 3-1/2 hours. Hamlin led 366 laps of the scheduled 400, which went 10 laps overtime.
Hamlin’s tire finally blew with 10 laps to go, with 16 cars still on the lead lap. Hamlin stopped his car on the track, forcing NASCAR to throw a yellow; NASCAR responded by penalizing Hamlin two laps. Was that a move to give Busch, his teammate, then running second to Earnhardt, a shot at the win, or was it just that Hamlin couldn’t turn the wheel with that flat tire?
Whichever, on the restart with five to go, the race was between Earnhardt and Busch…with Earnhardt fighting to snap the longest drought of his NASCAR career, now longer than two years.
And in those final moments it was classic Saturday night short-track racing under the lights – and Busch wound up a villain after a collision with Earnhardt during a feisty battle for the win in the final miles, a collision that did not set well with the sellout crowd. 
“We just took advantage of that misfortune at the end,” Bowyer said after his second career win on the Sprint Cup tour.

Clint Bowyer Stuns Everyone!
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Busch, who wound up second, and takes over the Sprint Cup championship lead, was apologetic about his incident; Earnhardt was dejected.
“I was up under Dale, and Junior and I raced hard into three,” Busch said. “It looked like he came down a little bit. But it was just good hard racing.
“I apologized to those guys.
“Everyone is driving around the track scared to death of wrecking Dale Earnhardt Jr. But to say I took a win away from him, well, that’s hard to say that. I hate it happened; we just didn’t give each other enough room getting into three. I didn’t think my car got loose; we just bumped, and when I corrected, he was gone.
“I probably could have gone down a little lower, and he could probably have gone up a little bit.”
Earnhardt: “I haven’t seen the replay, but Tony (Eury) Jr. (his crew chief) said it looked like Kyle got loose under me. And that happens.
“I wasn’t good on the bottom, so I moved up. And Kyle was good on the bottom.
“He got a great run on me off one and two but gave me plenty of room. So it wasn’t intentional, because he could have just run me into the fence off two.
“I’ve done that before. It happens when you get loose under somebody.
“We’d raced each other earlier and had no problems.
“The worst part about it is I’ve prided myself all season on running good. And I’ve been working for a win. And I ran hard and got wrecked. Had a top-three car and should have finished in the top-three.
“I was going for the win….just ended up on the hook.
“Whether it was fair or not, he’s going to need some extra security, we all are.”
Earnhardt of course is the man who was hired by car owner Rick Hendrick to replace Busch this season. And that has been a bone of contention, under the surface. But Busch has won seven NASCAR events this season with his new team owners, the Gibbs, while Earnhardt is still winless with Hendrick.
Whether any of that was at play last night, probably not. But Busch did point out two run-ins last fall with Earnhardt: “Last year we got wrecked twice, and that took us out of the championship.”
After the race, one of Earnhardt’s crewmen – the same crew that worked for Busch last season – confronted Busch on TV. “That he came down to confront me and ask ‘why did you did it?’ that was simple insane,” Busch said.
“It’s just an unfortunate situation: It’s unfortunate he didn’t get a win, and it’s unfortunate that I have to put up with it.”
That was not the night’s only controversy. Michael Waltrip was parked by NASCAR late in the race after he ran into Casey Mears.
The race was marred by 11 cautions, for 62 laps
Carl Edwards, who finished seventh, said he was surprised he managed to recover from an early crash: “It ended up a lot better than I thought it was going to.  That wreck on the backstraight was terrible.
That 11-car accident, on lap 231, not only left Edwards with a damaged car but also Jimmie Johnson, who swept both events here last season at Richmond International Raceway but who had little punch in this 400.
“I think we had a car that could compete for the win,” Edwards said, “but to come back from that to finish seventh was great.
“The reason it was so wild is the tire is real slippery.  It’s real hard to drive, first of all, and everyone is so competitive, and all the cars are so close that’s it’s just really, really ultra-competitive. 
“It’s fun…it just makes the room for error virtually nil.
“I had to really, really focus.  To me, that’s a really fun way to race.  I like the new car (he’s won three times this season already).  The harder the tires, the better….but with that are going to come wrecks, because it’s just a little harder to drive.”
In the day’s news:
—There has been no official word from either side, but it is becoming increasingly likely that Tony Stewart will indeed leave car owners Joe and J. D. Gibbs at the end of this season, to start up his own team, under the Rick Hendrick Chevrolet umbrella, possibly with Bass Pro Shops as his sponsor. If Stewart does depart, that would leave the Gibbs looking for a new driver. Joey Logano’s chances of getting the nod? Sunday’s Carolina 500 at Rockingham Speedway could offer clues. Logano is to start from the pole, and he could lap the field.
—Target, according to sources, may be reconsidering its NASCAR sponsorship. Target has been sponsoring Dodge owner Chip Ganassi for several years, though still without a major win.

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Richard Childress’ crew and crew chief Gil Martin high-five Clint Bowyer’s Richmond 400 win
(Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)

As their NASCAR winless strings run on, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. get a little testy……

Jeff Gordon didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega
(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern

RICHMOND, Va.
So, on a warm, sunny, lazy Saturday afternoon, with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR winless streak reaching the two-year mark – his last tour win was here in the spring of 2006, as he is so painfully aware – what’s the state of things over in Rick Hendrick’s Chevy camp?
Joe Gibb’s Toyota men are hot, and Richard Childress’ Chevy men have been very consistent, though not leading a lot of laps. But the Hendrick bunch, well, just hours before Saturday night’s 400 some of the talk was about last Sunday’s flap between teammates Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon, two of the sport’s biggest stars and both dry this season.
“Yeah, we had a little disagreement on the track,” Gordon says. “He and I have talked about it, and it’s really a non-issue.
“You’re going to make decisions that sometimes work with your teammates and sometimes not. The decision I made and the decision he made just didn’t blend together.
“Yeah, I was mad about it at the time, but it’s a non-issue now. I love working with him on the track, drafting with him, and having him as a teammate. Trust me—if you guys made as big of a deal out of how upset we all got at different things at Talladega, it would fill up your whole column.
“Everybody is making a much bigger deal out of this because it’s Junior and me
“We just had a good sit-down and understanding about going forward and how we’re going to be drafting and working together on the track.”
Perhaps the fact that both were still looking for that first win….

Dale Earnhardt Jr. makes peace with teammate Jeff Gordon during Nashville testing
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Earnhardt’s view: “The exact instance that he had a problem was 25 to go, and that I should have helped him.
“But I felt like the person he went with, or decided to get behind and help, was not the best choice. If I was him, I would have dumped him. 
“From where I was, I felt I was making the wiser choice.
“But, uh, it would have done us a lot of good to have sat down before the race—at any point this year—to discuss our choices in restrictor-plate racing and what we believe to be fair, what we believe to be right, and what we believe to be wrong…so everybody has a better understanding of what to expect from each other.
“That’s just something we’ll have to learn together as teammates.
“Restrictor-plate racing is difficult because you want to help your teammates but you want to win a race too. 
“Had we won the week before and weren’t trying to end the streak of losses I would have been probably a whole lot more apt to work with him and give up a little bit more. I would have been willing to sacrifice more to help him. 

Hendrick teammates Jimmie Johnson (left) and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
(Photo Credit: Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“But when the green flag dropped in that race I didn’t want anything but the wind, and I was going to do whatever it took.
“I don’t know how it would have played out if I would have helped him. We definitely wouldn’t have been in the situation we were in, to get in all that action (the big crash) at the end, and end up having to struggle for 10th. 
“But I got a little hot on how things were going for me…and I should have been a little more patient. 
“But, I don’t know, sometimes patience doesn’t get what you want either. 
“We’re good now.  We talked about it at Nashville testing. We sat down, and I said ‘Look, man, I got nothing but respect for you. I’m the first guy here ready to cooperate. I’m the last guy wanting to make any problems or cause any issues.’
“But I’m determined, and when I go out there I race hard.
“He could see that, and he can see that when he’s on the track with me. 
“The one thing he wanted to make sure he understood was that I didn’t have a spot in my mind to spite him or to show him up in any way. 
“To be competitive with Jeff, after all the years he’s been at Hendrick, that would be foolish. That would be pretty immature.
“There’s a positive competitiveness you can have at most teams…but that wouldn’t be very productive.
“Jeff was behind Ryan Newman, and I was pushing him, and we were running down the front straight with a good head of steam on the outside. David Ragan was in the inside line, about the second car; he saw us coming and pulled up in front of us to see if we would push him. But we were going about 10 mph faster.
“So Ryan went in the middle. I expected Jeff to go to the middle, and I already went there. It was a split-second decision.
“My instinct was to steer the car to the left and follow Ryan, when he made the move. I just expected Jeff to be right in the middle of that, in between us two…and Jeff didn’t do it.  He went with David, who was the slower car. 
“I definitely wasn’t wanting to do that because I felt I would be the third guy in line on the outside of a three-wide pack—and that guy never gets a good position out of that deal.
“But after I moved in, I couldn’t lift and let Jeff try to get the spot. We were running too fast, and guys were coming.
“That’s going to happen again and again and again, with everybody. All kinds of friends I’ve got, there will be times when we don’t do things that make each other happy. 
“If it’s a move on a restrictor-plate track, where you feel somebody dumped you, you can get over that. 
“We’ll try to do a better job of working together next time to win the race. We have a better opportunity to win as teammates working together than we do separately, and we should take that opportunity next time.
“I like racing Tony (Stewart), so it’s hard for him and me not to get into racing each other when we should probably keep helping each other. The only chance we’ll have—because I’ve got a bulls-eye….Jimmie Johnson too, Jeff, Casey (Mears). And the entire company has a bulls-eye on it: everybody’s out to get you, everybody’s out to beat you.”

Jeff Burton, the NASCAR Sprint Cup series points leader heading into Saturday night’s Richmond 400.
(Photo Credit: Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

So why isn’t Hendrick hot this spring? The way Johnson and Gordon blew down the stretch last fall, no one else had a chance. Johnson even won four straight.
“It’s the car-of-tomorrow,” Johnson says simply. “If you look at a lot of my victories last year, at the start of the season they were on the 1-1/2-mile and two-mile tracks, with the old-style car. And we’ve been working hard to understand what this new car needs on the big tracks. 
“My teammates have gotten off to a little better start than I did. Then I came on at Texas and ran well.
“I think our short-track program has been on par. At Bristol I was more competitive than I have ever been. At Martinsville, Jeff and I were up front and very competitive.
“We’re just trying to develop the bigger track stuff.”
“We’ve got to start putting more consistent runs together, and getting ourselves further up in the points,” Gordon says.
“You’ve got to walk before you can run, and I’ve always said when you’re consistently top-five and leading laps, the wins are going to come. We just haven’t been doing that. That’s why we testing twice in Nashville, and we’re looking forward to the test in Charlotte because we’ve got some things to work on.
“One of the things we are being challenged with right now is Goodyear has changed the tires just about everywhere we have gone this year, except for Martinsville. So all the setups we had last year, you can just throw them out the window; they don’t seem to work.
“Not to mention that the other teams have stepped up…and we are trying to step up along with them.
“What comes along with that are challenges—sometimes you hit the setup, sometimes you mess. Right now we are definitely a little off our game…because we are coming back to tracks we have had success at—but not everything is the same.
“It is pretty confusing to us.
“I know how great our organization is, and our teams. And I have confidence in myself. But when you show up at the track and cars are doing things you aren’t used to, it throws you for a loop.
“We spent three or four days testing in Nashville the last two weeks and felt we really had some big gains…and showed up here and it didn’t feel anything like that.
“We aren’t there yet; we still have work to do. It is as much me as it is our cars and setups.
“Sometimes you have to learn how to drive different setups. I went through this many times in my career. I probably go back to, like, 2000 and 2005: both years we really were searching for speed, and everybody was transitioning to different setups. We tried them, and they didn’t work for me. 
“A little bit of it was my driving style; some of it, just getting used to a different feel. That is one of the things we are dealing with right now.
“There are some major, big changes going on in setups.
“This car was created to simplify things—and in my mind all I have seen is things becoming more complicated.”

Juan Pablo Montoya and new crew chief Jimmy Elledge seem to be clicking
(Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK

Over in Jimmie Johnson’s corner of the Rick Hendrick camp, the two-time champ and crew chief Chad Knaus are still worried about getting their mid-sized track program on track, and they’re looking ahead at suddenly 200-mph Darlington, next weekend’s feature, and then the two weeks at Charlotte – once called ‘Jimmie’s House,’ because of his dominance there.
After such a hot 2007, Johnson and Knaus have struggled with the new winged car on NASCAR’s intermediate tracks.
“We had such a great base line last year we don’t want to talk ourselves into some stuff we thought would work well this year and not have it pan out,” Johnson says.  “We’re just trying to be smart.
“At times success really helps a team, and other times it will pinch you into a corner, and you’re afraid to make changes because it worked so well last year. Every year is such a new year, and during the season, from the spring race to the fall race, so much takes place.”
Two years without a tour win, now that’s tough for any superstar to take: “Especially with all this attention,” Johnson says. “It’s got to be tough, really tough. 
“When people ask you what’s your favorite part of the year, what’s the most important thing, my opinion it’s been that win. The first win of every year just does so much for the team, so much for the driver mentally.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to go multiple seasons….shoot a career for that matter.  Some guys have been putting in their time for a long, long time and don’t have a win.”
Last fall it was Johnson-versus-Gordon; this spring it’s Kyle Busch and the Gibbs guys.
“My own experience is it’s difficult to understand why I’m hot, and you don’t know how to hang on to it,” Johnson frets. “You don’t how or when to bring that up, and how to keep it there and maintain it. 
“Working with Kyle the last few years I know how talented a driver he is, regardless of what he’s driving. He can be in a go-kart, lawn mower, race car or whatever, and the guy is going to be fast. So I have a ton of respect for him.”

Mark Martin, on the front row for Saturday night’s Richmond 400—his 45th run at the track.
(Photo Credit: Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)

And, hey, what about Humpy Wheeler’s ‘Burnout Challenge’ during All-star week? That could be Johnson-versus-Busch, two of the tour’s best at those smoky celebrations.
What makes for a good burnout?
“I don’t want to give away my secrets because I think I have a pretty good burnout,” Johnson says cagey. “Brake is important. You need, on the cool-down lap, to make sure you get all the front brake in the car and as many gears as you can grab. The faster those rear tires are spinning, the better. 
“First gear, you’re all over the (rev-limiting) chip, and I’ve blown an engine messing around that way. So if you can get into second or third gear you’re going to have a lot of smoke.
“I thought the Jack Sprague burnout here was one of the coolest—where the rear tires were on fire.  I’ve tried that a couple of times, but I’ve actually blown the tires out….and then everyone is looking at you like ‘Why? because it does damage to the car, it rips the body apart and everything underneath it.
“So I’ve given up on trying to light them on fire.”

Denny Hamlin, Friday night’s NASCAR winner, practices his all-star burnouts after his first win at his hometown track.
(Photo Credit: Doug Benc/Getty Images)

The NASCAR world has a lot of new faces this season, though some of the new Indy-car guys may well pack it in and go back to the Indy-car world, give their lack of success here, plus the unification of that part of the racing world. But Patrick Carpentier, the Montreal/Las Vegas racer in his first months of this new career, at 36, looks like he’s going to be one who sticks it out. 
However it has been rough going. Just in making the show.
“In Phoenix I was trying too hard in qualifying and pushing really hard and missed a couple of corners and was lucky to make the race there,” the man with the 1,000-watt smile says. For Saturday night’s 400 he qualified fourth, surprising even himself. “So for the first time I won’t see the leaders coming by me so quickly,” Carpentier said.
“It’s tough being with these guys up front, but hopefully we get to stay there for a while in the race and enjoy it a little bit.
“Everything’s a challenge, from once you step in the race car until you step out.  To do one lap, and make the car do one lap, we seem to be able to do that not too bad. But to keep it up with these guys for 60 or 80 laps on the tires, that’s what’s hard.  These guys are so smooth, and they can keep the same pace for a long time.
“We didn’t have that in Indy-cars, because there you’ve got so much downforce on the car that the car is always the same lap after lap until you change tires. 
“But with these things, the tires go away, and you’ve got to be really smooth, and sometimes change lanes, use different lanes…and with traffic that’s been by far the toughest part to sticking with these guys for many, many laps.”
Making and staying the top-35 is crucial for new drivers like Carpentier, because not having a guaranteed starting spot changes the team’s entire weekend dynamic.
“We lost like 50 points at Talladega,” Carpentier says. “It took us like four races to get those 50 points closer to the top-35.  We were at 150, and now we’re back to 200.
“So we had a talk with the team this weekend. We said we’re going to have to go different ways about it. 
“Often we’ll qualify like 35th or 40th, and you get lapped very quickly.  These guys come by you within 15 or 20 laps. Then you lose a lap, and then if you try to race them normally everybody gets ticked off.”

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Patrick Carpentier has struggled in his NASCAR rookie spring, but he’s not the kind of guy to give up
(Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images)

Friday, May 02, 2008

Ford’s Jack Roush celebrates signing Carl Edwards to a new contract; Denny Hamlin wins 400 Pole

Jack Roush is pouring the champagne today after re-signing Carl Edwards to a new NASCAR contract
(Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern

RICHMOND, Va.
Carl Edwards, the NASCAR tour’s biggest winner this season, has just signed a contract renewal to continue driving the Sprint Cup series for Ford’s Jack Roush. So one of the biggest players in NASCAR’s free agency wars is retiring from that battlefield.
But that was about the only good news out of the Ford camp on the eve of Saturday night’s 400. Toyota’s Denny Hamlin (126.198 mph) edged Chevy’s Mark Martin (126.033 mph) for the pole for the event, billed as Crown Royal presents the Dan Lowry 400, as part of a fan promotion.
It was a long day of surprises: Like rookie Patrick Carpentier taking a spot in the second row for Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. start, just ahead of fellow Dodge driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who could be on a roll, with new crew chief Jimmy Elledge. And like still winless Jeff Gordon qualifying deep in the field, along with also winless teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr.
However Edwards’ move in NASCAR’s full-boring game of musical chairs was the day’s top story….well, that, and Texas’ Eddie Gossage offering Earnhardt $100,000 to run in his Saturday night June 7th Indy-car race.

Carl Edwards, with three wins already this season, will be back in Jack Roush’s Ford camp at least three more seasons
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Edwards, winner at California, Las Vegas and Texas, had been noncommittal about his contract renewal talks with Geoff Smith, head of Roush Racing, but Thursday night he agreed to undisclosed terms to keep running for Roush, who gave him his big break in the summer of 2004. The 28-year-old now has 10 tour wins, including three already this season, and he’s finished top-10 63 times in his 130 Cup starts. In 2005 he came within 35 points of winning the championship.
Edwards called his new deal with Roush “a great contract…a dream contract. “
“I’m sure there were offers everywhere, but I can’t imagine a guy wanting to leave Roush Racing with all the success he’s having right now,” teammate Jamie McMurray said.
Roush said he was battling two rival car owners for Edwards’ services. One of the men in the running for Edwards was apparently Chevy kingpin Rick Hendrick. The other was apparently Joe Gibbs, with backer Toyota; Joe and J. D. Gibbs and Toyota executives may well be resigned to the distinct possibility that Tony Stewart could be leaving their team at the end of this season and thus made a quick – and high-priced – run at Edwards to fill that seat. Whether that means the Gibbs and Toyota will now play hardball to keep Stewart or will look for another championship-caliber driver is unclear.

So Joe and J. D. Gibbs might have been looking at a Carl Edwards-for-Tony Stewart switch?
(Tony Stewart, right, talking with crew chief Greg Zipadelli
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

“I signed my contract yesterday (Thursday), so I’m staying with Roush,” Edwards said Friday afternoon.
He called it “a great contract.  It’s a dream contract. “
“I looked at everything, and I talked to everybody, and for me the number one thing is looking into the future and saying ‘Where can I win the most races and have the most success?’
“ I was honored at the people who I got to speak with. I just feel personally this is where I want to be for the near future, and we got it done. 
“It’s good, I’m real happy about it.  It’s a huge relief. 
“It really wasn’t that painful.  Geoff Smith and I get along really well, and we just pretty much sat down, and he’s really easy for me to deal with.”
Well, Smith just Sunday was conceding the possibility of losing Edwards, so clearly the Tony Stewart debate triggered Roush’s winning offer.
“It took us about a week-and-a-half of going back and forth with just little things...and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world for the contract I got,” Edwards said.

Carl Edwards (left) is the stock car tour’s winningest driver this season, and he’ll be with Ford owner Jack Roush for a least three more seasons
(Photo credit: Autostock)

Roush himself was cool about it all, Edwards signing and fellow driver Greg Biffle announcing his intentions to stick with Roush and Ford too:
“We’ve certainly been challenged there by another team, and Carl heard that challenge and considered very carefully what was there for him, from a performance point of view and what the economic impact was of the offer we could make, as well as the competitive offers.
“I’m happy it came out favorably. But I was not thrilled to find out we were in that competition.
“He (Edwards) told me he was going to talk to two other teams before he made a deal with us. I’m not sure if he talked to both of the other teams or if he talked to more than two teams. 
“I know there was a specific economic competitive offer that we had to consider…and he had to consider our offer, and at the same time consider what his prospects were of winning—with our team and our technology and the association with Ford, and all the other things that weigh heavily on the performance capability of the car.
“I’m not presuming the deal with Greg is done because I haven’t been told that it is. But if he has the greatest interest in being here, because of what we’ve got to work with, then I’ll make the same effort for him that I did with Carl—to round up the absolute best offer we can make.”
Roush said he had hoped for a longer deal with Edwards than the three-year contract he said Edwards finally signed. Edwards is 28.
“Greg has expressed to me some interest in a longer term,” Roush said of the 38-year-old Biffle. “He and Geoff Smith and the folks in marketing said they initially were looking at a three-year term, but Greg indicated to me he was amenable to a longer term.
“Whether it’s still a three-year term that’s on the table, or whether it’s a five-year term, I’m not sure.
“To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been a lot of interaction between Greg’s lawyer and my guys in the last month. We sent them a proposal, and I don’t know that we’ve heard from them.”
Sponsorship is still up in the air, Roush said, for both Edwards and Biffle. That apparently means that UPS – which has been considering several teams for new sponsorship – may not be part of the Roush-Edwards deal. 
Biffle’s team, Roush said, “does not have a sponsor with enough commitment to run the whole program for the whole year, so we’re putting together a number of things.
“And I guess the same thing is true of Carl’s team: I don’t think we’ve got one sponsor that is going to make the commitment for the entire year. Aflac and Office Depot, and maybe one or two others, are buying for parts of the year and parts of the schedule.”

Edwards says he served as his own business agent in the negotiations: “If I was dealing with someone I didn’t trust, or that I felt I couldn’t air everything out with, then I’d probably have to have an agent.
“But dealing with Geoff from day one has been very easy. So it was really pretty simple.
“Besides, I feel I know what I need more than anyone else.  I know what I want to make me happy, and this is cool.”
Of course the possibility of losing one of its biggest stars to arch-rival Chevrolet probably played a significant role in Edwards’ sudden signing.
“I’m very excited about being involved with Ford too, because from what I understand about their corporate culture, they’re on their way up....and it’s going to be good here, so I want to be a part of that, I want to help out,” Edwards said.

Edwards, a championship contender clearly this season, and currently the lead driver of Roush’s five-some, says he likes the way Roush is running the technical side of the business. Last year Roush and his men got off to a very slow start, but closed fast. This year Roush men are hot from the git-go....well, aside from the Daytona-Talladega tracks. Edwards blew three tires at Talladega Sunday in his worst day of the season.
“ Robbie Reiser running the place, that’s a big deal for me,” Edwards says of the crew chief turned general manager at Roush’s. “More and more I’m understanding how important that is. 
“Things we’ve been doing with this car-of-tomorrow to make it better—it’s very efficient how everyone is working, and it’s making the cars faster.
“And I feel our engine program has a lot in the near future that’s going to be great.
“Plus, my pit crew: I’ve struggled since I’ve been here with changing people and having different pit crew guys. Finally, with Robbie managing that, I’ve got a group of guys that are going to be really good over the next three years. 
“I know everything and where it’s headed. 
“We’re winning right now, and I think it’s going to be better. So that made it easy for me.”

Joe Gibbs: Considered Carl Edwards to replace Tony Stewart?
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

So it’s a great week all the way around so far for Edwards, including the return of crew chief Bob Osborne, on suspension the last six races.
“It’s good to have Bob back,” Edwards says.
“To have Chris Andrews (his chief engineer and for the last few weeks his crew chief) and Robbie Reiser on the box and have Bob back at the shop working showed the depth of our team.
“But it’s definitely good to have Bob back.  We won a lot of races together.
“Bob and I are friends, so we talk about everything. But Friday, Saturday and Sunday you end up talking to that guy that’s sitting on the box and I didn’t realize until Bob was gone how well we communicated about all the little things.  He could tell from the inflection of my voice how I felt about things. That chemistry that everyone always talks about, now I really understand it.
“It’s definitely good we got this penalty out of the way so early in the season.  This could be a terrible thing leading up to the chase.”

Greg Biffle (right) talking with Roush teammate Jamie McMurray (left) and crew chief Jimmy Fennig
(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR)

THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK

Indy-car star Danica Patrick has turned the tables on those pushing her to give NASCAR stockers a try, by offering to swap rides with Dale Earnhardt Jr. – suggesting Texas Motor Speedway’s upcoming Indy-car race the week after the Memorial Day Indy 500.
Patrick just made racing history by becoming the first woman to win a major Indy-car race, two weeks ago.
Ever since she became such a sports sensation, there has been pressure on NASCAR to get her into a stock car, which she has resisted.
When the issue came up again, during Earnhardt’s XM radio interview with her Thursday night, Patrick apparently offered the one-race swap.

So Danica Patrick might be willing to give NASCAR stockers a try, if Dale Earnhardt Jr. would give Indy-cars a shot, maybe at Texas Motor Speedway?
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images for PEAK Antifreeze)

Naturally Texas promoter Eddie Gossage is taking that offer straight to the headlines: offering $100,000 to Earnhardt – or to his favorite charity—if he would compete in his June 7th Indy-car race, the Saturday night before Sunday’s Pocono 500.
“It was interesting to learn Dale Jr. and Danica discussed trading cars, and we’re pleased Danica’s track of choice for him would be Texas,”
Gossage says. “We would love having Dale Jr. in an Indy-car.
“It is definitely possible, schedule-wise, and that’s what made it intriguing to us,” Gossage said. “We’ve spoken with the Indy Racing League, and Junior would have to pass a physical. The IRL’s competition department would then have to make a decision on whether he would be approved for racing or would have to undergo a rookie test. Either way, there is time to fit in a rookie orientation test.”

Texas promoter Eddie Gossage (right): ‘Now, Junior, if you’ll just take a Saturday night spin in Danica’s car.....’
(Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Earnhardt’s response to Gossage’s $100,000 offer: “He must think I’m a cheap date.
“I wouldn’t be able to do it. My conscience wouldn’t let me.
“If they offered me more money my conscience wouldn’t let me feel comfortable with doing it.
“If I was there testing my car, and somebody (with an Indy-car) were there too, I’d like to jump in it and run a couple of laps. But that would be the extent of the adventure.”
Maybe Gossage should offer Earnhardt $5 million to run that Indy-car race? “That would have definitely made the advertising a little more effective,” Earnhardt said, apparently referring to a billboard in Dallas-Fort Worth using him to help market that event. “But he’s kind of like Austin Powers or Doctor Evil – the first estimate for holding the world ransom a little under-figured.”

So Danica Patrick might be willing to run a NASCAR Sprint Cup event in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s stocker...if Junior would take a shot at running a race in Danica’s Indy-car?
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Tony Stewart, who owns the famed Eldora track, says he as a promoter has seen the impact of high gas prices on race fans: “It was harder for people that were further away from Eldora (which is in Ohio). You saw your local crowd come every week, but people that had to drive from further away, and people who would come to special shows, some of those numbers were down. 
“I think it’s directly related to fuel costs. 
“I don’t know what we’ve got to do to get that topic under control, but I would put a high priority on getting that topic squashed as soon as possible and getting it to where we can all afford to do what we do again.”
And the impact of high fuel costs isn’t only felt by those in the stands but also by those on the track. “A perfect example was last week at Talladega (Short Track)—they had two rain delays Saturday, and I was down there with the track promoter just riding around in the pace car helping to run some of the water off the track. 
“You have guys with Late Models rolling around trying to get the track in racing shape, and racing gas there was eight dollars a gallon. That has to hurt guys like that.”

Next week NASCAR has scheduled a two-day special test for all Cup teams at Charlotte’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway, after complaints about ill-handling characteristics of its new winged car and NASCAR’s limited testing schedule.
But Tony Stewart says NASCAR should also have scheduled a major test at Darlington Raceway, because that track has just been repaved, and drivers were hitting 202 mph at the end of the straights.
“I’m not sure why we’re going to Charlotte when we need to go to a track that has just been repaved,” Stewart says.

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Danica Patrick at Texas Motor Speedway
(Photo by Gavin Lawrence/Getty Images)