NASCAR

    Another one bites the dust. Yeah, it’s kind of like one of Queen’s old songs from their 1980 album. You probably know the words by heart. The title line begins the chorus with another line that follows: “And another one gone, and another one gone.” No, I’m not going to sing the column, it’s just that these words have real meaning this week. The upcoming Pepsi 400 is on Saturday night, and y’all might want to tape this race because it is going to be the last one. No silly, not the last race in July at Daytona, but the last Pepsi 400. It appears that the soft-drink maker is going to let their title sponsorship of NASCAR races fall to the wayside starting next weekend. As their contracts with you-know-who (ISC and Brian France) expire, they will not be renewing, just like another beverage manufacturer, but on a larger scale.

    Just as Busch is backing away from the NASCAR series with its name on the front of it, Pepsi is following in their footsteps. Now, I never really heard, and so I just don’t know what made Busch drop the Busch Series, but I think money played a huge part. Can it be that Mr. France has been listening to those Wall Street guys when they say the Busch Series is worth 40 - 50 million dollars, and not the 10 or 12 that Busch had been paying? Did he tell Anheuser-Busch that they had to fork over 4 or 5 times more money to keep the series name? I couldn’t tell ya, but if I was August A. Busch IV and Brian came to me and said I had to pay over twenty times what I made a year in salary to sponsor a series, well… you fill in the blanks. A company can spend just so much on advertising and with A-B producing almost everything that people drink anyway, why advertise?

    The way the rumor goes, and from what I can tell, it is a real deal. Pepsi is dropping their sponsorship at Daytona as of this the “Last Pepsi 400” and Coca-Cola is inking a deal with NASCAR to take over from now on. Why heck, they are the “Official Soft Drink” of NASCAR, aren’t they? They do have the Coca-Cola 600, so why not a shorter version? Say, the Coke 400. They do have the Coca-Cola Family of drivers, and those guys probably work for cold drinks and not money, don’t they? Coke doesn’t sponsor a big name team, or at least I haven’t seen one like Jeff’s Pepsi car, have you? It makes good sense for Pepsi to make the move, and not just at Daytona. There is talk of the other tracks. They say Pepsi is in discussions with Brian at Talladega, Darlington, Phoenix and Watkins Glen. Over the next four years the deals won’t be renewed.

    After so many years as a title sponsor with NASCAR, just like Busch, they’re walking away. It makes one wonder, just what is going on with the brains at NASCAR? Can or will they find other big corporations to take these places that are opening up over the next few years? It might be hard to do with the kind of money they are wanting, don’t you think? It’s just like the IROC series when they told us that Crown was not going to sponsor it. They said we’ll find another one, no problem. Have you seen an IROC race this year? Well folks, I bet you won’t, and that series is dead because of the greed that is filling NASCAR. Has a company stepped up and said they would replace Busch? I ain’t heard of one yet. I think it’s going to be tough to get 40 million a year from the likes of anyone. Well maybe AT&T, just because.

    There is another rumor that makes good sense with this move by Pepsi, and that is that they may be in the running as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s full-time sponsor. We all know that will cost a “real big pile of money.” Even if they don’t, it would better for Gordon to have them for more races and give DuPont a break. I haven’t seen a DuPont Paint store in years, have you? Y’all know how I feel about Jr. having anybody but Kellogg’s, and I feel that is who it will be for 2008! Soooooo, if all these sponsors keep biting the dust, where, when, how and just exactly who will replace these guys with bottomless pockets to pay owners, teams and drivers? The almighty NASCAR? Do the words “employee-owned businesses” have any meaning here?

    It seems that Toyota can’t win for losing in the premier series of NASCAR, the Nextel (soon to be Sprint) Cup Series. The guys at TRD must have been really happy with Dave Blaney winning the pole for the Lenox Industrial Tools 300. But then again, to see Michael and Darrell not make the race, well they’ve come to expect that. The real bummer, not only to Toyota, was that Brian Vickers got disqualified for being 1/8th of an inch too low after he made the race on his own. I guess France really meant it about the NASCAR Police cracking down on everybody and not just the big teams, but come on now, one 1/8th? To kick him out of the race and take his car away? To carry it to the wood shed? Well, I guess it could have been worse.

    With Vickers out, the Bam Racing team got in and talked about measurements. They had missed the race by three-thousandths of a second, so we’re talking close here on both things. Now, here’s two different feelings about the outcome. The first was Doug Richert, crew chief for Dave, when he said, “It Sucks,” and you know he meant it. Now Chad Chiffin had other feelings about it: “It really feels good.” Well I guess so, little dude, since it was your first try with the Bam #49 car, and a Dodge at that. I can’t see NASCAR coming down on Brian or Richert with the old “100-100,000 and 6 weeks,” but you just can’t tell. It may take longer for NASCAR to do something, what with the holiday and all.

    With Blaney on the pole and Chiffin starting last, it seems it’ll be a race to the middle for each driver (with Dave going backasswards and Chad going forward). The #22 Cat car finished 29th and the #49 Bam moved up to 36th, so I wonder, just which guy had a better day? Well, that’s all for me this week, but I do need to fill y’all in on a thing. Starting this week Entertaining U Newspaper will be coming out earlier on Thursdays, so you won’t have to wait to hear about all the things to see and do. We will be filing your heads with the entire scoop sooner. Have a safe and happy Fourth of July, Bubbas and Bubba-ettes, although you have probably already had one. So here is where my journalistic powers come into play. I hope that all of you will have, are having, or did have a great 4th because I know I am, will, and already did have one also.

    Remember: (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and if it ain’t NASCAR, It ain’t s**t!!