Junior trying to change road rules

[Elwood]

Junior trying to change road rules; bad week for B. Bodine

 

By Lee Spencer -

 

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is lobbying NASCAR to adopt the old Formula One qualifying rules when the Winston Cup teams go to road courses. It would allow drivers to run multiple laps, with the fastest counting as their qualifying time. Under the current setup, drivers run only one lap for qualifying. That leaves little room for error and is challenging for many who aren't as savvy on road courses.

 

"I can race all right, but I just can't get a decent starting spot," Earnhardt says. "If we don't get the opportunity to do that, then I'm looking to do more road racing stuff, maybe with Jim France's (Grand American) Series to get a little more experience on the road courses."

 

Junior, who won the 1999 Busch Series race at Watkins Glen, considers road courses the most physically demanding tracks on the Cup circuit. …

 

Tony Stewart recently shook down a new road course Monte Carlo at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Va., and plans to run the car this weekend at Sonoma.

 

Stewart, the defending Winston Cup champion, says it's the chassis that matters at Sonoma. "It's not a big aero place because we never run that fast," he says. "It's a track that depends on technical grip a lot more than aero grip."

 

With an average qualifying position of 2.5 and average finish of 7.0, Stewart always is a threat at Sonoma. …

 

Brett Bodine, the last of Winston Cup's privateers, was hit with a double whammy last week. First, Hooters announced it was withdrawing sponsorship from the No. 11 Ford. Then, Bodine suffered a concussion and a broken collarbone and needed eight caps for his teeth because of a practice crash at Michigan.

 

Battered and bruised, Bodine says he is optimistic a new sponsor will be on board before the end of the year. Brother Geoffrey Bodine filled in at Michigan but dropped out early and finished 39th. …

 

Owner Larry McClure must have slept through the Motorsports 101 lecture about shaking down new cars before putting them on the track. His No. 4 Pontiac failed to qualify at Michigan; the team hadn't taken the car to the wind tunnel or tested it before unloading it last weekend.

 

"If we made a mistake as a group, it was leaving the car we qualified third with at Charlotte in favor of the new one," driver Mike Skinner says.

 

Though the team is 40th in points, Skinner says it has made significant gains in its engine program and that he and crew chief Chris Carrier are getting along better. However, that won't matter anymore -- Skinner was fired on Monday. . . .

 

Stanton Barrett is the latest financial casualty in the Busch Series. Roush Racing suspended operation of the No. 60 Ford following what the organization called "a 15-race marketing test" for Clean Control Corp., the manufacturer of sponsor OdoBan.

 

Insiders say continuation of the sponsorship agreement was contingent on direct sales, but Roush president Geoff Smith said the company no longer would "extend credit" to the sponsor.

 

The decision was not a result of Barrett's performance. He was 16th in points and had four top 10s. Smith says the No. 60 could return later in the year with Mark Martin, Jeff Burton or Greg Biffle as the driver if significant sponsorship is found.