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NASCAR: Did Danica Dump the Eurys?

by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

September 22, 2012 8:28 am UTC No Comments

What do you make of Tony Eury Jr being released as Danica Patrick’s NASCAR Nationwide Series crew chief and being bought out of JR Motorsports?

Bob Pockrass has what is probably the definitive story on the changes at JRM. Here is a quote from Pockrass’ article at SportingNews.com

“It has been difficult to see these changes and it was not easy at all to sever the working relationship with Pops (Eury Sr.) or Tony Jr., but we’re a company that wants to improve over what we’ve been doing and we’re making some changes to see if we can make that happen,” Earnhardt said.

We talked about this On Pit Row this week. Here’s the highlight with video.

Photo credit: BethAnne Heisler – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick, NASCAR, NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR business, NASCAR Feuds, NASCAR video, Nationwide Series, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio

Tagged with: bob pockrass, Tony Eury Jr, Tony Eury Sr

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NASCAR Safety: Looking for Trouble in all the Wrong Places?

by Charlie Turner

August 27, 2012 2:24 pm UTC No Comments

Why is it so difficult for NASCAR and race tracks to spot potentially dangerous on track areas and not preemptively fix them? Mark Martin’s wreck at @MISpeedway triggered this Fast Lap question from Steve. In the following video, we don’t agree – even a little – on the answer. What say you? Photo credit: BethAnne Heisler – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Mark Martin, NASCAR, NASCAR business, NASCAR Tech, NASCAR video, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio

Tagged with: NASCAR safety

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I Guess Danica Patrick is a 10 After All

by Charlie Turner

November 5, 2011 11:29 am UTC No Comments

Danica Patrick is a helluva driver. She’s also a marketing person’s dream. Funny too. Now she’s officially a ten. No more argument.

Photo credit: Getty Images for NASCAR

Filed under: Danica Patrick, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR business, Stewart Haas Racing, Tony Stewart

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5 More Years! 5 More Years!

by Charlie Turner

September 2, 2011 12:57 pm UTC 1 Comment

The news that Rick Hendrick has agreed to extend the contract of Dale Earnhardt Jr for five more years is no surprise. It should be music to the ears of Junior Nation as well, since there is no place else where NASCAR’s most popular driver has a better chance to get back to winning than at Hendrick Motorsports.

But can he?

Junior has one win – and that on a fuel strategy gamble at Michigan Speedway – in his HMS, Sprint Cup career. He currently sits ninth in Sprint Cup Series points, a precarious spot to be in, without a win or two. If he falls from the top ten, he won’t make the Chase. Again.

Everybody likes Junior. Well, most everyone. For fans, he brings an honest, down-to-earth air to the sport. You don’t get much “Driver Speak” from him. And he wears his frustration where we can see it. Kind of vulnerable. Chicks dig that, I’m told.

Owners dig that they don’t have to worry about sponsorship on Earnhardt’s car. Every team is looking for money. But that won’t be an issue on the #88. Ever.

And NASCAR still seems to peg their popularity to the success of that #88. Early this season, when TV ratings were up a bit, we heard many anecdotal opinions that said – “No wonder. Junior’s doing well…”. I have doubts about that being the reason. But it sure isn’t because of the economy.

So here’s to five more years. Go get ‘em Junior.

Photo credit: Glenn Bure – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR, NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR business

Tagged with: #88, Junior

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Rusty Wallace Misses Call on Son’s Wreck

by Steve Wronkowicz

I am co-host of the syndicated radio show: ON PIT ROW. Over ten years on the air and three on the net; see what can happen when I don't let the facts get in the way of my opinions.

August 1, 2011 7:24 pm UTC 4 Comments

ESPN needs to find other work for Rusty Wallace.

Friday night’s Nationwide race at Lucas Oil Raceway was looking to become a very memorable event. Not only was it quite possibly the last NNS race at the facility but it had some long green flag runs that aren’t usually seen at short tracks. The racing was good and ESPN’s coverage wasn’t. Not only does The Worldwide Leader have a penchant for going to commercial at all the wrong times; but it also employs one of the greatest understatement artists of all time.

Rusty Wallace has had a tough time transitioning to the broadcast booth. Unlike many of his contemporaries such as Ricky Craven, Dale Jarrett, Darrell Waltrip or Phil Parsons; Wallace isn’t able to pass along his vast racing knowledge to the television audience.

His lack of polish and broadcast acumen aside; he continues to struggle with having to comment on his own race team in general and his son in particular. It was no more evident than in Fridays race when he was too quick to lay blame on James Buescher for bumping Stephan Wallace thus propelling Wallace into prone teammate car.

Not only did the replay show that while Buescher did hit Wallace it was well before the latter ran into Annett; but the elder Wallace kept trying to sell the audience on his son’s innocence. It became embarrassing as Rusty then tried to divert the audiences attention by lamenting how much money it just cost him to have his two cars wrecked.

ESPN should not allow parents to be commenting on their children’s races–period.

Photo Credit: BethAnne Heisler/ON PIT ROW

Filed under: ESPN, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, NASCAR business, NASCAR Feuds, Rusty Wallace

Tagged with: James Buescher, Michael Annett, NASCAR, Rusty Wallace, Stephan Wallace

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Kurt Busch, Roger Penske and Pennzoil; a Winning NASCAR Combination

by Steve Wronkowicz

I am co-host of the syndicated radio show: ON PIT ROW. Over ten years on the air and three on the net; see what can happen when I don't let the facts get in the way of my opinions.

July 2, 2011 9:54 am UTC No Comments

Roger Penske and Pennzoil team up again in 2011 with Kurt Busch as the driver of the number 22 Dodge.

It had been twenty-three years since Penske first brought the sponsorship to his Indy car team. Busch has shown great success through the first half of the season with one win, four top five’s and three poles in the first sixteen races of the season. Busch’s win at Infineon Raceway was done in dominating fashion; leading fifty-two laps of the 110 lap event.

Pennzoil first joined forces with Roger Penske in 1983 along with premiere Indy car driver Rick Mears. The combination would go on to capture victory at the Indy 500 just one year later. Over a five year period Pennzoil cars would win the 500 four out of five years. In 1984, Mears in the Pennzoil Z-7 Special would post a record-winning speed of 163.612 mph. Danny Sullivan would win in 1985-the famous spin to win race. Also in 1985 Mears, in the Pennzoil car, sets Indy’s fastest lap ever-204.937mph and Al Unser wins the CART PPG Indy Car World Series Championship.

In 1996 Pennzoil would enter NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series for the first time with Bahari Racing and 1995 Busch Series champion Johnny Benson. He would go on to become the Winston Cup Rookie of the Year and drive the car for two years. Also in 1996, Pennzoil became the official oil of both the Brickyard 400 and the Indy 500.

The Pennzoil sponsorship moved to Dale Earnhardt Incorporated for their inaugural year in the Cup series in 1998 with Steve Park behind the wheel. Park would pilot the Pennzoil Chevys for all or part of five years and pick up his only two Cup Series wins. Park finished in the top ten 35 times and won four poles. Kenny Wallace would be behind the wheel of the ride in 2002 while Park recovered from injuries. Following the 2003 season Pennzoil would diminish their role in NASCAR; becoming a part time sponsor, utilizing several brand names for several teams.

Richard Childress Racing would bring Pennzoil and Shell back to the Sprint Cup Series in 2007. In the season-opening Daytona 500, Kevin Harvick claimed his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory in a restrictor plate race with a dramatic final lap pass over Mark Martin by .020 seconds in a green-white-checkered finish. It was the closest margin at the 500 since electronic scoring started in 1993. The race was on the sixth anniversary of the death of his predecessor at Richard Childress Racing, Dale Earnhardt.

Four days after Harvick won the Daytona 500 in his inaugural race with Shell-Pennzoil as a primary sponsor, Team owner, Richard Childress, was asked by NASCAR to downsize the Shell logo on the car and on Harvick’s fire suit; making the Pennzoil logo more prominent to avoid conflict with official NASCAR fuel sponsor Sunoco.

Harvick would go on to win three more times with Pennzoil and Shell; while capturing thirty-two top-five finishes in four years.

Pennzoil got its start in racing in the early 1930′s at the Indianapolis 500 as a sponsor of the highly successful car of Russell Snowberger. In the next five years, he finishes every Indy race he enters-always in the top 10. Amazingly, 27 other race drivers voluntarily select, and run on Pennzoil as well. Pennzoil had made an impressive beginning, and over the years became the lubrication of choice for drivers in all forms of racing.

With drag racing in its infancy in the 1950′s, Pennzoil representatives furnish oil to up and coming race drivers. The familiar Pennzoil oval is seen on many early dragsters throughout America, most notably on the winning machines of teenage driving prodigy Eddie Hill. In 1958 Pennzoil officially sponsors the fastest rising star on the NHRA circuit, Don “Big Daddy” Garlits.

The 1960′s saw NHRA drag racing grow as fast as quarter mile speeds, a growth to which Pennzoil was a principal contributor. They were the first major oil company to develop a racing oil exclusively for cars running on exotic fuels. Throughout the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s Pennzoil lubricated machines dominate top fuel, funny car and pro-stock categories. Pennzoil has used by many top names in drag racing including Garlits, Connie Kalitta, Bill Jenkins, Jimmy Nix and Don Prudhomme.

Jim Hall and Al Unser blow the crowd away with the revolutionary “ground effects” Chaparral at the brickyard in 1979. Painted bright Pennzoil yellow and with Pennzoil in its veins, it leads the race for 100 laps before retiring with a broken water pump. The next season Johnny Rutherford is behind the wheel of the Pennzoil Chaparral and drives to an impressive win at Indy and goes on to win the national championship and is named “Driver of the Year.”

As the second half the Sprint Cup season gets under way and the quest to make it into The Chase for a Sprint Cup Championship heats up Kurt Busch, Roger Penske and Pennzoil look for more wins and more championships to add to an, already impressive resume.

Photo Credit: Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR

Filed under: NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR business, NASCAR History, NASCAR Trivia

Tagged with: Al Unser, Bill Jenkins, Connie Kalitta, Danny Siullivan, Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Eddie Hill, Jimmy Nix, Johnny Benson, Johnny Rutheford, Kenny Wallace, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Richard Childress Racing, Rick Mears, Roger Penske, Russell Snowberger, Steve Park