I wonder what Dave "the Buckeye bullet" Blaney is thinking these days.  I would imagine he has to be thinking two things, primarily.  Number one, what in the world is going on at Bill Davis Racing.  Number two, how is Richard Childress Racing taking over the sponsorship dollars from other teams.

Dave Blaney has jumped from 39th in the owner points standings to 28th place in just 7 races.  Blaney moved up one position in the standings after this past weekend at Infineon.  One would think that is a pretty good feat and Blaney is having a good season for Bill Davis Racing.

But, just like Petty Enterprises was a victim of losing their sponsorship dollars with General Mills to Richard Childress Racing, BDR has lost its sponsorship with Caterpillar to RCR.  CAT has been with that race team for 10 years now, and most of us remember seeing that paint scheme on Ward Burton’s car.

Ward’s brother Jeff Burton’s team can no longer carry a rival telephone company’s logo on its car after the conclusion of this season, and it does seem 'fitting' to keep that sponsorship in the Burton family.

Yet, this brings me back to Blaney.  Blaney will be making his 284th Cup start this weekend at Loudon and he started from the pole for this same N.H. race last year.  Coincidentally, it was the first pole for the Toyota cars last year.

Blaney has been through this before with losing a sponsor, which prompted his initial departure from BDR in 2002.  Subsequently, Blaney joined up with Jasper Motorsports driving the #77 Cup car until that team was sold to Penske Racing, leaving him with a contract but no car.  RCR offered Blaney a full-time ride driving the #07 and he accepted.  However, RCR released Blaney after the 2005 season, giving Blaney only one year for that team.  After all that, Blaney once again returned to BDR to drive the CAT #22 in 2006, bringing crew chief Kevin Hamlin from RCR with him, and it has been going well.

So, who will be the new sponsor for BDR and Davey Blaney?  Let’s hope it’s a company that will stay with BDR for another ten years and lead this team to even higher heights.