Practice for Nextel Cup Cars Cut to Save Money

There will be no “Happy Hour” for Nextel Cup fans at Fontana this week. In what is called a cost-saving decision, NASCAR officials have eliminated the Saturday afternoon practice session for the Auto Club 500 cars and have limited practice to Friday only.

Cup cars will practice twice Friday, from 1:20 to 2:40 p.m. and 4 to 5 p.m. The American Wheels 200 in the Craftsman Truck series will follow at 6:15 p.m.

Nextel Cup qualifying will be Saturday, starting at 12:10 p.m., sandwiched between Busch series qualifying and the Busch 300-mile race at 3 p.m.

California Speedway will be the first track to implement a new NASCAR rule that mandates cars be impounded following qualifying, meaning that no work may be done on them before the start of the Auto Club 500 on Sunday.

“It’s a joke,” one crew chief said anonymously, fearing the wrath of NASCAR’s hierarchy. “The total savings is the cost of two sets of tires, and for that we lost our chance to test our cars in race trim.”

Qualifying will also be slightly different because the first 35 cars as determined by 2004 owners points will be guaranteed starting positions in Sunday’s race. Their position still will be determined by Saturday’s time trials, but they cannot be bumped because of a slow time.

“Maybe I’m old school, but I grew up where you either had to race your way in or qualify your way in,” said Ryan Newman, who drives the No. 12 Dodge Charger for Roger Penske’s team. “To me, that’s the way it should be.”

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Having a Nextel Cup race at California Speedway only one week after the season-opening Daytona 500, then having a week off before racing at Las Vegas, is not sitting well with most NASCAR teams.

“They got the dates mixed up, they ought to have Fontana and Vegas back to back,” said Scott Riggs, driver of the No. 10 Valvoline Chevrolet.

“The way it is now it’s murder on the truck drivers. They haul all our stuff from Florida to Charlotte, where the team is located, and out to California.

“Instead of going to Vegas, they haul everything back to Atlanta for a test and then turn right around and cross the country again to Nevada. It just doesn’t make sense, but then who ever said schedules made sense?”

Most of the teams, particularly the multi-car ones, will use the rare week off to test, and most of their testing tracks are in the Southeast, such as Atlanta, Lakeland, Fla.; Greenville-Pickens, S.C.; Virginia Motorsports Park and Kentucky Speedway.

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For a number of years, California stock car drivers have moved themselves and sometimes their families to North Carolina to work where nearly all of the NASCAR teams are based.

Among them have been Ernie Irvan from Stockton, Jeff Gordon from Vallejo, Jimmie Johnson from El Cajon, Mike Skinner from Susanville, Ron Hornaday Jr. from Palmdale, Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears from Bakersfield and Jason Leffler from Long Beach.

“I hated to do it, but if you’re not around Charlotte, you miss too much,” said Hornaday, a favorite at Saugus and Mesa Marin tracks before moving up NASCAR’s ladder and heading south. “It’s something you’ve got to do.”

Now race mechanics are making a similar move.

Kirk Almquist, from Blythe, is car chief for Dave Blaney’s No. 07 Jack Daniel’s-sponsored Chevrolet, and his mechanics include twin brother, Clint, Dan Graves of Thousand Oaks and Ron Liddell of Redding. Brian Bass of Yorba Linda is the team engineer.

“We both raced when we were in high school at Blythe and Havasu and sometimes Orange Show [in San Bernardino],” said Kirk, 25. “We both won our classes at Blythe [I-10 Speedway] and as far back as I remember I wanted to be in racing. After I finished San Diego State, I decided NASCAR was what I wanted so I came down here. I love it.”

Twin Clint went south with his brother but returned to try his hand at driving again. After six super late model races at Irwindale three years ago with only minimal success, he returned to North Carolina and joined Kirk with Richard Childress Racing.

In 1999, Bass had an opportunity to work for Bud Moore, one of NASCAR’s legendary pioneer car owners.

“Working with Bud was one of the most inspirational times of my life,” said Bass, 38. “I worked with him until he dropped out of racing and I stuck around and was involved in mostly road racing before I came to RCR. I’ve been here long enough now to call myself a Carolinian.”

Graves, 34, worked as a volunteer on Brian Germone’s Southwest Tour car until one day he loaded up his trailer and headed to Charlotte.

“I didn’t know a soul, but [owner-driver] Hut Stricklin hired me and I never went back.”