Over The Wall

End of the year fishing tournament

  Its finally over.  When you haven't won in two years the season seems to be longer than it used to be.  Maybe next year will be better.  Any ways, we did our annual fishing tournament down at Okeechobee lake in Fl after Homestead.  Like usual I sucked it up but there were a lot of fish being caught.  We had a three fish weigh in and 18.5 lbs won the tournament.  The cool thing about this tournament was that the guy who won it was only a couple of inches taller than the fish he caught.  Two foot Fred, who is part of country musics Big and Rich, won the tournament and big fish contest.  The fish was 7.5 lbs and was almost as tall as he was.  Matter of fact, two foot told us that the fish took off behind the boat and pulled so hard that it tipped him over.  Good thing for Fred there was a guide there to stand him back up.  Fred has been a friend of the teams for a couple of years now and was at the Homestead race with us.  Speaking of Homestead, I did get a chance to meet Mopardave at the track on Sunday.  Very nice guy and I appreciated him introducing himself.  I always like to put a face with a name.  Its been a good year and i hope everyone enjoyed the blog.  I'm sure there will be more posts through out the year. thanks for a good year.

That's All Folks!

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By: Dennis Terry

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Congratulations to the 48 team for another well-deserved championship.

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Those guys raced hard and smart all year.  Once the Chase began and the points really counted, they dominated everyone.  Hendrick Motorsports is in a league of their own and I don't see any other NASCAR organization being able to compete at their level in the near future.

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After not qualifying for two of the last three races and not even finishing the race we did qualify for, I was happy to finish out my 2007 season racing in Homestead with Michael Waltrip Racing and not sitting at home.  Our 00 team raced up to 7th and after making contact with the wall we finished the race a couple laps down.  That team is a class act and always managed to find success in the midst of the struggles... we had a lot of fun too.

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So, here is the official good riddance to 2007... a season that I am personally looking forward to forgetting about and putting behind me. 

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For the guys at Hendrick, Homestead marks the end of a tremendously successful season and the beginning of their offseason celebrations.  For me, Homestead signifies the beginning of the 2008 season, a new appreciation for team comradery and a new team for me that has some old allegiance.

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DT

In a class of their own

  Its hard to come to grips that Hendrick Motorspors is just that much better than the rest of the field.  Love em or hate em it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that they are at the head of the class.  They consistently dominate every where we go and I don't see it ending any time soon.  Jr. has some big shoes to fill next year.  Personally I don't think he is going to be able to compete with the 24 and 48.  I like Jr. and think he ll have all that he needs to compete I just don't know if he can do it.

OK, next comment.  It finally happened this weekend.  A pit guy from the 31 got hit by the splitter off one of the COT cars.  I don't know all the details but I heard it was pretty bad.  Ive never been a fan of the splitter but so far there hasn't been that many accidents involving them so there hasn't been much discussion about it.  I can tell you this, everyone on pit road was talking about it after the race.  It will become a big problem when some one gets there leg taken off.  I was just hoping NASCAR would address it before that happened.  Oh well.

  OK last thought.  Has anyone wondered why the numbers on the top of the car face towards the inside of the track instead of the outside.  All the fans, spotters, and scorers look at the numbers upside down.  | was thinking about it last week and asked a bunch of nascar officials and no one gave me a good answer.  Maybe some of you guys know what the deal is.  Just throwing that out there.  One more race to go and its off to the mountains.  holla

Petty Moving to Mooresville

By: Dennis Terry

For several weeks now there have been rumblings of Petty Enterprises moving their racing operations from Level Cross near Greensboro to the Mooresville area where most every other NASCAR team is located.

Since Robert Yates Racing has essentially been bought by Roush, it now appears that the Petty teams will be moving into the shop that Yates will vacate at the end of the 2007 season.

I've always been a big Petty fan and I'm sure that most Petty fans will be disappointed to see the team leave "home" in Level Cross.  Home is where four generations of Pettys have built race cars and polished their trophies and trust me, roots grow very deep in four generations.

Moving Petty Enterprises 70 miles across North Carolina is a bold a strategic move by the company and it is sure to disappoint some of the tried and true Petty fans, but in the long run this move will spell great success for their teams.

I see Petty’s move as one of the biggest team improvements for the 2008 season.  Dale Jr. is moving to Hendrick, Gibbs is moving to Toyota, Yates is moving to Roush and there are no fewer than three teams who are getting new financial partners.

But the Petty move will result in the most visible on track performance improvements of them all!

The reason that the team will show immediate improvements is because Mooresville is the center of the NASCAR world.  That means that it is the center of technology, research, suppliers and most importantly...  the NASCAR talent pool.

It's a lot harder to employ a fabricator or engineer to drive 70 miles to Level Cross every morning.  With the Petty shop in Mooresville there will be a much deeper labor pool available to the team and trust me your race team is only as good as the guys building your cars and changing your tires.

DT