Nextel action gets back on the track
The Nextel Cup series gets back to serious business this weekend, amid several developments on the business side of stock car racing.
After running its not-for-points All-Star Challenge last Saturday night, NASCAR’s premier series returns to Lowe’s Motor Speedway in suburban Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday.
The series’ longest race has a late-afternoon start, so the 43-car field will finish under the lights. Qualifying is tonight.
The prevalent question is whether Hendrick Motorsports’ domination of the Cup series will continue on the 1.5-mile, high-banked Lowe’s oval, built on the site of a Civil War-era plantation and less than a mile from Hendrick’s headquarters.
Hendrick’s Chevrolets -- namely those driven by Jimmie Johnson, the reigning Cup champion, and Jeff Gordon, the four-time title winner and leader in this year’s points -- have won eight of the 11 points races so far this year.
The two Californians are favorites to win again. Johnson has won five points races at Lowe’s, including four straight in 2004-05, and Gordon is a three-time winner at the track.
Hendrick’s domination this year has not been absolute, however. Other drivers, such as Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing, and Kevin Harvick of Richard Childress Racing, were poised to win races but suffered poor pit stops or bad racing luck, opening the door for Hendrick to win again.
Harvick also held off Johnson last weekend to win the All-Star Challenge.
Even so, Hendrick’s record -- and the team’s deep pockets -- are a key reason why other teams are bulking up their businesses to stay competitive.
Jack Roush sold half of his Ford team early this year to a group led by Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, creating Roush Fenway Racing. Its drivers include Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle.
Ray Evernham also is close to selling part of his Dodge team, led by driver Kasey Kahne, to another businessman with sports ties, George Gillett Jr.
Both deals are aimed at bringing in additional cash and potentially more sponsors.
Childress and Dale Earnhardt Inc. took a different route, announcing last week that the two Chevrolet teams were merging their engine operations.
“I didn’t want RCR to be sitting here two years from now and us be behind again,” Childress said, adding that it’s not just Hendrick they’re chasing, but also the likes of automotive powerhouse Toyota, which joined the Cup series this year.
Even though the Toyota teams are off to a poor start, “they are a serious contender in this sport, they will be,” he said.
DEI and Robert Yates Racing, whose drivers include David Gilliland of Riverside, said last month they also were pondering a merger, even though DEI races Chevrolets and Yates runs Fords.
NASCAR is well aware of the teams’ desire to amass more cash and other resources, and claims the new Car of Tomorrow also will help. The car was designed to reduce the teams’ costly practice of building different cars for different tracks.
Evernham said the Car of Tomorrow is not going to make racing cheaper, “but what it’s going to do is stop the costs from rising as quick as they would have.”
Meanwhile, everyone is watching to see whether Hendrick, and Chevrolets in general, maintain their 2007 mastery this weekend.
But Childress, for one, doesn’t put much stock in Chevrolet’s dominance.
“Two years ago, Roush won a lot of races and had five cars in the Chase, and we weren’t doing that great in a Chevrolet,” he said. “It just comes and goes, I have been in the sport long enough to see that.”
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