1/2/05… HAPPY NEW YEAR! As we roll into the new year, we need to be aware of the new changes that are going on around us within our world of NASCAR racing. To begin with, I'm happy to say that our favorite NASCAR web site, Jayski.com has moved up in the world. Most of you already know that Jayski is now being hosted by none other than "ESPN." This is a really solid organization, a leader in motorsports broadcasting, and a definite positive for Jay to begin the new year with.

There are a quite a few drivers looking for work in the Cup Series, a lot of them aren't new to the list, having been in this situation before. A couple of names who have been solid figures in the Cup Series for a number of years stand out, Ward Burton and Jimmy Spencer.

Burton was dumped out of his ride this past season, and hasn't been picked up by another team up to this point. The personality conflicts within NASCAR aren't any different than they are any where else. A person who is shunned by one organization will easily end up fitting into another. It just takes time to do the shuffling, posturing and positioning. Burton may yet find himself in a Cup Series driver's seat before the first of February.

The situation with Jimmy Spencer, formerly known as "Mr. Excitement," tends to be much more difficult. There aren't too many NASCAR insiders who think Spencer will ever drive in one of NASCAR's three main series again. His demeanor remains very brash and cocky, and his age of 48 years is also against him. If he does land a ride somewhere, he'll just be one of the "fill-in" drivers who aren't really competitive, and that mainly serve as entries to top off a 43-car field. It wasn't bad enough that he's been involved in quite a few on-track altercations that required trips to the NASCAR trailer. He had to compound it by assaulting another driver when he punched Kurt Busch's beak, then he had to tussle with law enforcement officers who were attempting to arrest his son. A bad name is a bad name; no major primary NASCAR sponsor would be willing to spend millions of dollars annually supporting a team with the likes of Spencer in the driver's seat. Enough said, goodbye Jimmy, thanks for the memories!

Getting back to the temperament of drivers, I find it strange that John Andretti has landed a Cup Series ride, while drivers who have much better driving records go without work. Andretti ended up out of work during the 2003 season after a stint with Richard Petty Enterprises.

Andretti will be driving the #14 Ford for PPC Racing full time in 2005. The team raced in nine events last season under the partial ownership of A. J. Foyt for provisional starting position purposes. Andretti posted an average start of 24.7 with an average finish of 24.2, using one provisional start. His best finish was 13th in the season opener at Daytona. One thing in the veteran Andretti's favor is that he managed to finish 94.8% of the laps in the races that he ran. Anything over 90% is considered stellar, as far as team effort and driver experience goes.

Just for the heck of it, in comparing John Andretti to Ward Burton, they are both nearly in the same ball park. Burton ran 34 events last season, with an average start of 22.3 and an average finish of 25.7, using four provisional starts. Burton's best finish was 9th at the spring race at Bristol, which was his only top ten. He finished 88.7% of the laps in the races he entered.

More new teams for 2005 include Richard Childress Racing's #07 Chevy team with Dave Blaney at the wheel with Jack Daniels providing the primary sponsorship. Robby Gordon is fielding his own entry this year, co-owned with Jim smith. He'll be driving the #7 Chevy with primary sponsorship from Fruit of the Loom, Harrah's, and Menard's. Jason Leffler will be piloting the new #11 Chevy for Joe Gibbs Racing with the primary sponsorship of Federal Express. Does anyone remember Greg Sacks, a driver from quite a few seasons ago? He'll be driving for the new #13 Dodge team as a co-owner with primary sponsorship from ARCDehooker/Vita Coco. Another new team owned jointly by John Carter and RJ Motorsports may field the #37 Dodge in a season long effort with Kevin Lepage at the wheel with Carter's Royal Dispos-all as primary sponsor.

1/9/05… Bill Wilburn has left Penske Racing to be the crew chief for Brendan Gaughan on the #61 Orleans Racing's Craftsman Truck. Wilburn started out last season as crew chief for veteran Rusty Wallace on the #2 Miller Lite sponsored Penske Dodge, but even though they are great friends, Wallace couldn't jell with him. The team chemistry just wasn't there, so he was moved to another position within the Penske organization. Wilburn had worked some with Gaughan at Penske in different capacities on the #77, so the two were well acquainted.

Gaughan drove the #77 Penske Dodge last season for its first outing in the Cup Series. The young rookie finished second in the rookie standings, only to get ousted at the end of the season in favor of former Truck Series Champion Travis Kvapil. Gaughan was voted the most popular driver in the Truck Series for the 2003 season and has eight overall victories. Although Kvapil was the 2003 champion, he only has five victories in that series. It's hard to understand why Penske would dump a successful driver like Gaughan who already has made his mark in the Cup Series, for an unknown commodity like Kvapil with little or no Cup Series to his credit. There are only 41 days left until the Daytona 500 comes to pass, and then we'll see what Kvapil can do!

Robby Gordon has been in the news a lot lately, running the Dakar Rally race covering 5,566 miles from Barcelona, Spain thru North Africa to Dakar, Senegal. The event concludes on January 16th. At last word, Robby was third; although a couple of different times he was leading a couple of legs of the fateful race through the barren desert country.

Gordon, coupled with German driver Dick Von Stizeweitz, suffered a wreck this past week, and had to rebuild the Volkswagon racing vehicle in order to fall back into competition. At one time it was unclear if the vehicle was repairable, but his crew came through for him, although there have also been some reports that the team withdrew from the event. Gordon has gained fame in off-road racing all over the globe, and is a regular in the infamous Baja 1000 event.

Lots of hoopla has arisen due to Gordon's owner/driver status this season in the Cup Series. He mounted a rather successful Busch Series campaign last season, and he and his sponsor Fruit of the Loom are banking on that as a solid base to enter the Cup Series full time in 2005. One of Gordon's goals is to take the #7 into new heights. The late Alan Kulwicki used the #7 and was the last owner/driver Cup Champion. Gordon has the dream of making that come true for him. Of course, all of this looks good on paper, but the majority of fans feel that Gordon will struggle in his first year as an owner/driver. In a poll on NASCAR.com, over 70% of fans voting have Gordon struggling in 2005. If this proves to be the case, he may not have the backing to get past his first season into the second. More than one organization has found out that running against the Cup Series competition is a different ball game compared to competing against the regular Busch Series entries.

The Hutchens Device is out! At least it is as far as NASCAR competition in the top three series is concerned. NASCAR mandated that teams could no longer choose between the HANS (Head and Neck Support) device and the Hutchens device.

The HANS device fits around the back of the neck like a football collar pad and attaches to the driver's helmet. The Hutchens device is constructed of a strap harness system that straps around the chest and waist with straps coming up the back attaching to the helmet, supposedly preventing the head from moving forward. An independent safety organization, the SFI Foundation, hired by NASCAR concluded that the Hutchens device failed to meet minimum standards set by SFI. The SFI Foundation, a non-profit organization in California, sets the national standards for safety in all United States racing leagues and series.

The majority of drivers use the HANS device, but there were a couple of hold outs. Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman used the Hutchens device, as did Dale Earnhardt Jr. before switching over to the HANS after getting a bad concussion in 2003. The Hutchens device allowed more head movement which made it much easier for a driver to turn his head to visualize events around him during competition. The fact that it allowed more head movement is what caused its demise. The more head movement a driver has, the more he is susceptible to serious or fatal head injury.

1/16/05… There have been lots of rules changes leading up to speedweeks 2005. And the season begins to unfold; NASCAR is still tweaking its rules in the final days before the great American race, the Daytona 500, on February 20th.

We've already seen the new rules on the aerodynamic side, with the shorter spoilers, and the new softer tire compound for the left side tires to make up for the spoiler difference. Then there are the new gear rules, and the new qualifying rules, and rules, rules, rules!

The most important aspect of the new rules systems is the change in qualifying, and the newly tweaked rule changes his week make them even more interesting. Gone is the infamous "Happy Hour" that has been a major TV draw for the last few seasons, and also gone is the Friday qualifying to set the field for the weekend's event.

Qualifying will be on Saturdays now, and practice will be on Fridays. After the qualifying time trials, the cars will be impounded until race time. The teams will begin racing with the same setup on the cars that they qualified with. No mechanical changes can be made to the cars until after the event begins.

Industry insiders have made it known that this type of unknown commodity at race time could prove to be a disaster for a lot of top teams. The teams will be faced with the daunting task of trying to maximize their setups to tighten up their cars to get the best qualifying positions that they can, and at the same time, they have to have the car loose enough to compete in race trim as the weekend's event begins with the same car that qualified.

The newest rules change will kind of alleviate the pressure on the teams. NASCAR has mandated that the top 35 teams in points will have a guaranteed starting position in the field as long as they attempt to qualify. The other seven positions in the 43 car field will be set by qualifying time for those who aren't in the top 35, and as per usual the final 43rd spot will be reserved for a former champion. If there is more than one former champion available for the position, then the most recent champion will take the spot. If there are no former champions available for the spot, then the position will revert back to qualifying time along with the other seven positions below the first 35.

If the qualifying trials are forced to be canceled due to inclement weather or another dilemma, the field will be set according to the 2005 rule book. Although it hasn't been publicized, it's assumed that this season's rule book will follow the procedure set forth in previous seasons, setting the field by owner's points.

Industry insiders are correct in stating that testing will be the key element to success in the 2005 season. The team that finds the perfect matches with the new tire, the right shock package, and the right gears to compliment the shorter spoiler, will have the definite edge on any given track.

The 2005 campaign appears to be a truly unique season, with the myriad of rules changes setting the stage for a season that none of us have ever witnessed in stock car racing. Give or take a few hours, there are only 27 days remaining until the Bud Shootout. This will be our first glimpse of the team's interpretation of the new rules, and also the first look at the new Dodge Charger in action.

Lastly, but certainly not least, be sure to check out the additions on this site to the 2005 Cup schedule. The television broadcasting participation has been set and broadcasting times have been added.

1/24/05… It's almost here! The time is slowly passing by, although the usually slow month of January has seemed to just fly by for me. We'll soon be treated to some actual live racing to begin the 2005 season. The infamous Bud Shoot is now less than 20 days away!

As we wind down the last days of our anticipation of what the up-coming racing season will bring, there are a few interesting stories out there surrounding the Speedweeks testing at Daytona.

I find it strange that an organization like Richard Childress Racing (RCR) is having a tough time finding horsepower. I've read the accounts and am kind of surprised that they were able to get an engine from Hendrick Motorsports to use as a measuring stick to find out were they were at in their own engine program. I've heard a lot over the years about inter co-operation between teams in the Cup Series, but engine swapping with out a viable contract is usually unheard of? I guess times change.

At any rate, I'm thinking that the engine problem isn't paramount with the RCR team. Don't forget that the rear spoilers are shorter in height this season, and that there is a new softer tire compound to deal with. One would think at first, that a shorter spoiler would let the car go faster, because there is less of a drag going through the air with the inch taken off the top of it. This may be so, but the purpose of that spoiler is to have the wind on it force the rear end of the car down to adhere to the track, giving the race car the much needed traction to be able to accelerate coming out of the turns on the racetrack.

So herein may very well lie the problem in RCR's quest for speed. If the aerodynamics on the car aren't right, and the cars aren't balanced from front to back with aerodynamic force, then the engine isn't going to do them a lot of good. You can have all of the horsepower in the world, but if the car won't stay stable when you accelerate coming off of a corner without the rear end fishtailing out on you, then you are not going to have the accumulative speed as clocked each time you circle the track. When the car fishtails, the driver has to ease off of the accelerator, wasting valuable seconds and losing valuable speed. You can't win a race with a car like that.

Getting back to the new softer tire compound; this is a factor that also causes drag on the car which robs horsepower. The harder the tire compound, the less drag the vehicle experiences from the tires. The same thing goes for us in our family vehicles, tires with low air pressure, can rob us of fuel mileage, because the radial type tires are softer and flatter, making the engine work harder to propel it down the road at any given speed. An over inflated tire would do just the opposite; you would gain fuel mileage because your engine wouldn't have to work as hard as the hard tire would not create any drag because it would have a minimum amount of "flatness" touching the roadway.