With 25 Nextel Cup drivers entered in Saturday’s Busch Series event, Bobby Hamilton, Jr. and the remaining 17 Busch Series drivers knew there would be nothing easy about the USG Durock 300. The race had all the makings for domination by the Cup drivers. The 25 Cup drivers were able to take advantage of nearly three times the amount of practice over the weekend in sweeping 17 of the top 20 positions on the 1.5 mile superspeedway. The advantages were just too strong for the 25 Cup drivers in the field. Hamilton crossed the finish line in the 29th position.
“Today was very tough for us, we did all we could with the practice we had to work with,” Hamilton said. “My guys worked hard on the Eckrich / McDonald’s Ford all weekend. We were real excited to have Eckrich on board our car this weekend. Now we can go to St. Louis and O’Reilly Raceway Park the next two weeks for what should be very good races for our team. We have our focus on moving up into the top-five in the point’s race and these next few weeks will be very important for us.”
Kevin Harvick captured the win, leading Matt Kenseth across the finish line.
Constant Reader knows I am a Bobby Hamilton Jr. fan. But what this article doesn't say is that Bobby was the seventh highest Busch regular. For whatever reason, Team Rensi's performance wasn't even up to their normal "Busch Regular" standards on Saturday.
Granted, this article does ease the pain of the disappointment of the 29th place finish to some degree.
Still, why did David Gilliland, driving similar Team Rensi equipment, finish 27th if it was all about practice? It seems to me that Rensi's equipment simply isn't up to the quality of the Nextel Cup operation's Busch cars. I would like to see Rensi admit this and Bobby's handlers and he himself complain a little less about the practice issue.
Okay, so the tracks really need to have cup drivers in the races to fill make a profit. ESPN needs cup drivers to make their deal work financially.
But does it have to be more than half the field?
Isn't this a bit of killing the golden goose by not having a series where you can see tomorrow's stars today? Isn't NASCAR failing to do what they need to in order to develop new drivers by giving them the seat time they need?
Right now, Craftsman and ARCA are the development series. But Craftsman is going to see more Cup drivers until 2009 since the truck drives (and looks and is) more like the COT than the Busch car.
If you take out the guys that have won Cup races in the past, you end up including Bowyer, Ragan, Reutimann, and a few other Cup guys, but that left 25 guys for the Busch race. That's a couple less than normal.
I truly believe that if NASCAR does nothing it will balance out a bit over the next few years. I think it will be pretty normal for the Busch champ to be in a Cup car at the same time, but not necessarily something that happens every year. Once guys like Edwards and Bowyer have more Cup experience I don't think they will run quite so many Busch races, and I think Denny Hamlin had said he was never going to do a Cup/Busch-double like Milwaukee and Sonoma again, and when they don't do that there isn't as much reason to run close to the entire series like a lot of guys do now.
If they would go with your no Cup victories for the Busch champion rule which could be implemented at the beginning of the year, while it would be a litle weird to me, I could go with it. It would at least be a step in the right direction. It would be equivalent to another suggestion I had, have a Cup class and a Busch class in the same Busch Series race. The past Cup winners could run for the Cup class championship.
Its a down grade for cup drivers to race in Bucsh. In all the big sports, when you make it to the big time, You dont go play on the farm team unless you have stunk it up in the pro's or a comeback from a injury.
This is what gets me. You will see a cup driver shoot is mouth off about a rookie mistake in a cup race and yet the day before he was in a race with more than half the field of rookies.
Its easy money for the cup drivers and they do need it when they are car owners in other series. You will see the Busch drivers in cup soon and most of them won't have a Busch series championship like most cup drivers do.
Christ sakes.... The solution is as easy as can be. 'If you participate in the Nascar/Sprint series, you will not be licensed to participate in any other Nascar sanctioned series without the expressed written consent of the Nascar governing body. There, problem solved ........If a team like DEI wants to put a young driver in the Bush series or somewhere else, go for it. They just can't put their Cup driver in to R&D his Cup ride at the expense of the regular Bush drivers..
"Its a down grade for cup drivers to race in Bucsh. In all the big sports, when you make it to the big time, You dont go play on the farm team unless you have stunk it up in the pro's or a comeback from a injury. "
yeah, depsite the fact that the Aussie flag has no green and yellow at all, those are 'our' colours....go figure, lol. It's the same with NZ; they always wear black *shrugs*
I only know LJ because she plays for the Storm. I'm not too big on Olympic sports. Don't you have a diver with a funky name (to me at least) who is pretty dang cute?
"But all this must be suffered by those who profess the stern order of chivalry" Most Interesting Blog, June 16, 2008 and six other occasions. Lisa awarded him Best "breaking news" blogger March 31, 2008. Blog of The Day, Christmas Day, 2007. edhardiman wrote, "Falco's tribute to Rocket Richard reminds us all the stars of today stand on the shoulders of giants..." October 23, 2007. Three Golden Swirrly p00p Awards (Hockey, NASCAR and Use of Graphics), FlyingPig, July 18, 2007. 2007 Memorial Day Weekend Trifecta sponsored by williamwilman . Featured on WFORacingFans April, 2007. "Stylin'" award, Dusty, February 07. "One of ten new bloggers to watch" Dudski, January 2007.
