Submitted from NASCAR Ranting and Raving
Sometimes that’s what happens when you get somebody that invests in a sport that doesn’t really know anything about the sport,” said Petty about the release of Joe Nemechek and Sterling Marlin earlier this week.
“I’m not slamming Bobby Ginn, but that team’s been pretty much a fiasco ever since he’s invested in it. He should probably listen to the people that run the team and were in charge of the team. To let someone like Sterling go is a crying shame, I’ll say that right now. I only wish he had let him go five or six races ago and I would have let him drive my car while I was doing the Turner stuff, that’s how much I think about Sterling.”
Harry Gant, who retired from racing completely in 1994 added, “It seems like the sponsors dictate who they want, even when I was still racing it was just starting to come into play. When I was racing, (age) was no big deal, it used to be if you weren’t 40 years old, Junior Johnson and people like that didn’t want to hire you.” - source: Mark DeCotis, Florida Today
Read what you want into what Kyle has to say but the #01 car is still running better than any of the Petty Enterprises cars, so the people at Bobby Ginn Racing must be doing some things right. Yet I have to agree with Kyle, to let Joe and Sterling go at this time of the year seems a little out of the ordinary for a typical NASCAR team, but this is more of a business driven sport, and business does not look at other things besides profit margins and if the profit margins drop then costs are cut regardless of who it effects. That is the nature of the new NASCAR.
When one is as passionate about a sport as I am, the lack of the traditional weekend goings on from Friday Happy Hour, qualifying and practice to the actual race leave a big void in time. I could welcome the break and actually get some “Honey-do” things done or play some golf, which I may just do, or mow that rain soaked lawn, but I normally do those things anyway inbetween race stuff. Pattyjo and I do have a wedding to attend today, but those events usually make me want to go home as soon as I get there, especially when that one person who is always present at a wedding reception takes that 14th drink that turns them into a raging lunatic. Maybe the food will be good and make it worthwhile. I barely know the bride and I’ve never laid eyes on the groom, so why is it we feel obligated to attend a wedding when we get that invitation in the mail? Then there is the Busch race tonight. It could be a race where a non-whacker wins. But Cousin Carl is part of the lineup.
