Around the garage this week:
By Racin’ Roger
Heard from a couple of Nationwide teams that there will be a meeting this week with series director Joe Balash regarding the change to a COT type car for the series. Team reactions varied, with some talking of moving to another Series if the new car is a go. Some others had more drastic ideas. Seems there is talk of an owner’s boycott later in the season if Nascar pushes the new car.
Lots of talk after the nationwide race at Kentucky Speedway as Kyle Busch quickly exited his car and headed directly to the garage, skipping the mandatory post race interviews. Nascar told the press that he was ‘excused’ but failed to say why. A promised audio of a pit road interview was never made available.
GM’s cutoff of support for the Nationwide series seems to have little to no effect on the smaller teams in the series. Other than KHI, JR motorsports and RCR, teams have seen very little to no support from GM over the past few years.
Speaking of the cuts from GM, seems that Nascar is already approaching other foreign car manufacturers with US plants. Among those mentioned were Honda, Nissan, BMW and possibly Volkswagon. The face of Nascar as we have known it for years may be totally different in a few years.
Bruton Smith says no Cup date at Kentucky in 2010, but assures everyone, there will be a Cup date there ASAP. His plans call for adding 50,000 more seats and moving Pit Road closer to the grandstand as he did at LasVegas.
Kyle Busch offered to vacate the 51 truck for Jonny Benson, the reigning Camping World Truck Series Champion who lost his ride last week. Benson is scheduled to take over this week at Milwaukee, but Benson’s wreck at the track he owns, Berlin Speedway in western Michigan, on Saturday night may sideline him for a few weeks. Last report I had was that he is still in the Spectrum hospital in Grand Rapids where his condition was upgraded to Fair.
