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5C i)«0 SPORTS^e Cftarlotte ^o»t Thursday, February 9, 2006 COMMENTARY ’06 Media Tour was worth a hill of baked beans ByALANTAbrS Cox News Service Charlotte After three days of riding buses to race shops and generally being treated a whole lot better than we deserve, a couple hundred of us media clo^vns — er, correspondents — now face the bleak prospect of having to pay for our own crab puffs. Not that the 2006 NASCAR Media Tbur wasn’t productive. We’ve learned a lot. We learned that Tbyota is coming into Nextel Cup in 2007, which some of us already knew. We learned that Michael Waltrip will be a Tbyota driver, which, considering his brother Darrell is a Tbyota spokescelebrity, even Inspector Clouseau should have been able to figure out. We learned that NASCAR is very high on its “Car of TbmoiroAv” and we learned that team owner Felix Sabates thinks ifs “a bunch of crap.” This is a good time to note that the official name of the tour is the “NASCAR Nextel Media Tbur hosted by Lowe’s Motor Speedway.” We were asked to use that de scription whenever we wrote about it, but I confess I did not. Near as I can determine, neither did anyone else other than the home town Charlotte Observer and the Fort Worth Star-Tblegram. Actually, mc»t of us did mention the NASCAR and Nextel parts. Lowe’s Motor Speedway got short shnft, and that’s regret table. Wiffiout them, there is no tour. They’ve been doing it for 23 years and I’m to tally serious when I say they do a spectacu lar job of >vhat basically is herding cats. Cats follo^v directions better than us, though. Sponsorship is what this tour is all about, with sponsor logos prominently displayed at each shop. We even got some sponsor news. M&M’s, for instance, isn’t just a big sponsor of Elliott Sadler’s No. 38 Ford. Ifs now the “official chocolate of NASCAR.” And Combos, another member of the M&M/Mars corpo rate family, is the new “official cheese-filled snack of NASCAR.” This raises a couple of questions: What other cheese-filled snacks did Combos outbid for the contract with NASCAR? And do other snack fillings get their own categories? Creaip? Caramel? Nougat? Lingonberries? As soon as I can persuade my editors to let me investigate th^, I promise you’ll have an swers. As we were leaving each race shop, public relations people handed us our “media gifts.” Ethics being a sensitive topic in the media these days, let me say ri^t away that it is my newspaper’s poUcy to auction off such gifts and donate the proceeds to charity. So I have a suitcase — the first thing we got — full of swag to deposit in my boss’ office. Tb clear my conscience, though, I have a confes sion that I ate the M&M’s. The Combos are still in the suitcase. I actuahy saw one of my colleagues tiy to refuse a gift bag. But the gift-giver looked so shocked — like she was going to get fired or burst into tears or her head was going to ex plode — that he gave in and took it. Most of the gifts are the sponsors’ prod ucts. So when we left Chip Ganassi Racing (“with Felix Sabates”), we were offered 18- packs of C)oors Light beer, ^vhich sponsors Ganassi’s No. 40 car. Knowing I couldn’t take it on the plane and probably wouldn’t be able to finish it on the bus before the next tour stop, I declined. But when we later got cans of Bush’s Baked Beans from the Wood Brothers’shop, my decision appeared foolish. After last year’s tour, a few of us suggested that teams stop giving gifts and instead do nate money to charity. We were pleased to see that Hendrick Motorsports did just that. Hopefully more teams will follow suit next year. Just keep those crab puffs coming. Alan Tays writes about NASCAR for The Palm Beach Post. iNm Pedal power L With cycling, you don’t have to rely on a pit crew for mainte- 2. I like to be surrounded by athletic women. 3. There are usually less crashes on bicy cles. Photos by NASCAR Roush Racing drivers Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle (from left) chat during testing sessions last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Martin says he’s upbeat about the '06 season. Back and lovin’ it Mark Martin defers retirement to have more fun By RICK MINTER Cox Ne^vs Service Daytona Beach, Fla. M ark Martin has done his best during testing sessions to put the pessimism of the past behind him, vowing to contin ue the fun-loving approach that served him so well last year. Martin is back for an encore sea son in Roush Racing’s No. 6 Ford after his re tirement plans were put off a year when Kurt Busch’s sudden departure to Penske Racing left a vacancy. While at NASCAR testing a few weeks ago at Daytona International Speedway, Martin smiled broadly, laughed loudly and seemed quite at ease and opti mistic about the upcoming season. It was a re markably differ ent approach than he us^ for much of his career, when he appeared to be miserable despite his success es — 35 wins in Nextel Chip and a series-leading 47 in Busch. “I tell you what, I had fun last year, which \vas really cool,” Martin said. “It was the best year of my life professionally and personally. “I just want everybody to make siu^ that they know that they’re talking to a guy that had a blast last year.” “I just want every body to make sure that they know that they’re talking to a guy that had a blast last year.” It helped that he ran so well He won the Nextel All-Star Challenge at Charlotte and a points race at Kansas and had 12 top-five and 19 top-10s in the Cup Series. He com fortably made the cut for the Chase for the Nextel Cup and finished fourth in points. In just ei^t Busch Series starts, he won tivice, and he won bvo IROC races en route to that circuit’s season championship. He said those re sults mean so much to him that he might allo^v himself to lapse back into his old ways if he thought he would achieve simi lar results. “I’m willing to be miserable if need be in order to have that,” he said. “My tenden cy is to go off on that misery side to tiy to make sine that we get that perform ance.” But, he said, “I’m going to fight that a little bit.” He said car owner Jack Roush has laid out a plan that calls for Martin to just enjoy himself in his final Cup season, which ^vlll be fol lowed by a full-time gig in the Craftsman Thick Series. “Jack has a strategy that says, ‘Don’t worry about it. ... Just go have fun with it this year. The pres sure is off, and you mig^it do better than you ever have,’ ” Martin said. “Boy, that soimds real good to me, but we all know that I’m going to fall over that misery edge as soon as I get close enou^ to it that I can jump over it.” Roush said his strategy for Martin shouldn’t be construed as di rect orders. “I wouldn’t presume to give Mark Martin instructions on anything,” Roush said. “But I encouraged him to have fun and not lose any sleep over what we’re frying to do and see if it might come to him a little easi er if he just relaxed.” Roush also said that while Martin appeared to be enjoying himself by maintaining a positive approach throughout the 2005 sea son, there were times when he ^vas under considerable stress, particu larly toward the end of the season. “As we got into the Chase and had to do all the tests, and he thought about how hard it was to face these race tracks for the last time and thought about what he was going to remember about the race track — the times he won or the times it didn’t go so good — there was some anxiety there,” Roush said. “I was just frying to tell him not to be anxious about it, but that was just advice. I certainly wasn’t telling him what to do.” Martin said he just can’t totally buy into Roush’s “take it easy and see how it turns out” advice. “Doggone it, that’s a good strate gy,” Martin said. “I wish that would ^vork for me.” But no matter how this season turns out or r^ardless of how his truck racing career goes, he’s un doubtedly upbeat about the future, particularly when it involves his driving. “That’s what I live for,” he said. “If something were to work out that I wasn’t in that truck, you’d catch me at the Saturday night short tracks across the counfry. “I am not done racing by any HARVICK NOTEBOOK Harvick defers talk of Toyota By RICK MINTER Cox NeAvs Service Kevin Haivick, the driver of Richard Cliildress’ flagship No. 29 Chevrolet, has emerg^ as one of tlie leading candidates for a Tbyota ride in 2007. But Harvick said it’s too early to say what he’ll do next season. Harvick, whose con tract witli Childress expires this sea son, said he plans to focus on the start of the season, then dis cuss his future with Childress in April. I “I’ve been very open witli Richard as far as where I sat witJi my situation,” Harvick said. “I’m not in a hurry to do anything.” He said his seven-year rela tionship witli Childr^s will be a big factor in the decision. “Obviously, tliere’s a loyalty factor tliat iveighs very heavily with a guy who heljied get my career going in the direction that it needed to go in,” he said. Harvick also said he will have to take into consideration the future of Kevin Harvick Inc. “TTiere are a lot of things Uiat have to come into tlie equation, and that’s part of the equation,” he said. Alternative tests NASCAR’s new limits on on- track testing, which were in tended to take away some of the advantages enjoyed by mul ticar teams, likely will lead to increased use of expensive sim ulators, wind tunnels and scale- model testing. The simulation and off-track testing, which the bigger teams can better afford, likely will still give them an advantage when it comes time to race. “Anything you can do at tlie shop before you get to tlie track to letter anticipate race-ivorld conditions and what you’re going to do for them, the closer you’re going to be,” crew chief Ftobert “Bootie” Barker said, “And that requires technology and money.” Is Honda coming, too? There’s been ^videspread speculation in NASCAR about whether one of the current race-winning, multicar teams will make the jump to Tbyota sometime soon. Most team owners dismiss the talk, saying they’re under contract ivith their current manufacturers, Penske Racing South’s President Don Miller said his team is signed ivith Dodge through the end of the 2009 season. He also said Tbyota might not be the only foreign nameplate looking to gain a foothold in NASCAR. “I don’t think Honda ivill stay away very long if Tbyota comes in,” he said, “Those guys are terribly competitive. They’re going to have an impact.” He said Honda and Tbyota have strong engineering staffs and are well-prepared for racing in NASCAR. NASCAR driver Kas^ Kahne gives us the top five rea sons he trains in the offeeason \vith TEAm Lipton, an all female cycling squad; 4. I like to rub el bows with Armstrong — Kristin Armstrong, the No. 1 female cy clist, that is. 5. TVo-wheeled training is a good build-up to the Daytona 500’s four- wh^led race. Get the refund you deserve. A BIGGER ONE. We find deductions the others miss. • We know all the latest tax law changes • Our average refund is $400 more than the average IRS refund • FREE electronic filing with paid tax preparation Call 1-800-234-1040 for nearest location. 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The Charlotte Post (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Feb. 9, 2006, edition 1
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