Kyle 'Rowdy' Busch (L) and Tony 'The Sarge' Schumacher matched up for a best two-out-of-three on the concrete quarter-mile zMAX dragway located next to Lowe's Motor Speedway. (Lowe's Motor Speedway Photo by Harold Hinson)
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Sponsors? More are needed – and more diversity as well to reflect the driver line-up. There are few sponsors in the pro categories that aren’t some form of auto parts, motor oil or energy drink (I suppose so fans can get an over-caffeinated sense of the ground shaking when they’re away from the track). But, one Top Fuel car is now sponsored by the country of Bahrain – “America’s Vital Friend in the Middle East” as the paint scheme proclaimed. I wonder the reaction in the stands if a NASCAR hero pulled on track with a Bahrain flag on the hood of his racecar.
Speaking of NASCAR, there were familiar faces in the house: team owner Bill Davis, Rusty and Steven Wallace, Joe Gibbs Racing’s engine guru Mark Cronquist, and a large number of guys who clearly had rushed over to see the Friday night action after a long day in the NASCAR shops which surround the area.
I also saw John Andretti walking through the pits, which was not so surprising. Some might be surprised to learn John spent a season in the NHRA Top Fuel ranks back in the mid-1990s, driving a Taco Bell-sponsored Top Fuel car owned by former baseball star Jack Clark. He made the semi-finals in his first National event, and uttered one of my favorite drag racing lines of all-time. When asked what it was like running 290 mph side-by-side, Andretti quipped, “I’d like it a lot better if they’d let me block the guy in the other lane…”
I’m not sure if blocking is the answer to the growth of the NHRA, but perhaps when the logistics are refined for running four cars at once as Smith envisions, it’ll
be yet another boost for the NHRA.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel
Jade Gurss is the owner of fingerprint, inc., a sports publicity company. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, including what is believed to be the biggest-selling motorsports book in American publishing history (Driver #8 with Dale Earnhardt Jr.). His two decades of publicity and marketing experience involves nearly every category of motorsports, including nine innovative seasons as NASCAR publicist for the Budweiser brand and Earnhardt Jr. His blog can be seen at:
http://fingerprint.typepad.com
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