Bradshaw rides off into the sunset, Dilner stuck under the spotlight

By Mike Harper

Hall of Fame Quarterback, Terry Bradshaw announced today that he’ll end his business partnership with Armando Fitz at the end of the 2006 season and I’m not surprised.

According to the news story about FitzBradshaw Racing on ThatsRacin.com, Bradshaw said, "my schedule is making it harder and harder to fulfill the necessary race team sponsor commitments for personal appearances, and it’s time for me to move on."

While the reasoning of his decision to end his NASCAR Busch Series venture was very diplomatic in nature and truthful, I don’t believe it’s the sole reason he decided to leave the sport.

In my opinion, Bradshaw has grown extremely frustrated during his tenure in the Busch Series over the fact that the big Nextel Cup teams with their drivers are allowed to race in the Busch Series.

In an interview earlier this year with a NASCAR reporter, Bradshaw said, "Dealing with NASCAR, dealing with the Cup teams and all of the money those teams have and we're sitting here begging, borrowing, stealing trying to stay afloat. They might as well turn the Busch Series over to the Cup teams and let them have junior races and big-boy races. Thank God Super Cuts has stayed with us."

Bradshaw has been one of the most vocal against the current Busch Series structure and it’s a frequent topic of discussion during interviews. "For the Busch people this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life," Bradshaw told the reporter. "Then you have to compete with people who have millions of dollars. They come down and take your money, take your points and don't even run a full race season."

I believe the level of stress that a Busch Series team deals with regarding their entire operations from funding, driver talent and sponsorship retention would be overwhelming especially when competing against well-funded Cup Series teams within their own series. Bradshaw, who has other irons in the fire from a career standpoint doesn’t have to subject himself to the increased stress levels of the Busch Series and in my view, decided to withdraw from NASCAR because the competitor inside him, was unable to compete on a level playing field.

In Bradshaw’s own words, "They (NASCAR) won't be happy until every Cup owner has a Busch team and the rest of us will be sitting at home talking about what it used to be like. It's a frickin' struggle." That said, Bradshaw is heading home and it’s a shame that NASCAR let him get away.

It’s been a bad week for SPEED’s Bob Dilner. I would highly recommend reading David Poole’s comments about this story if you haven’t done so.

I’m a firm believer and supporter of the NASCAR media. In my years of following and covering the sport, I’ve come to trust specific reporters. On the short list, Poole, Dutton, Woody and Lang are writers/reporters I trust. Dilner is also on my list.

While at the track, I observe them as I do the drivers because I think a person can find out the real character of a person by simply sitting back and watching them work. There are some media people who I would never trust because after seeing the type of person they were at the track, caused me to scratch them off my list. No, I won’t name names, but you’ll never hear me talk about them or utilize them as a source in my regular contributions.

Monday morning, I went on a radio show and used Dilner’s information because I trust his reporting. When you see it on SPEED, you believe it to be the real deal. Did I regret using the information? No. Did I need to correct the story by saying it was an incorrect story? No.

What I did was add to the story that NASCAR and RCR denied it. In my opinion, when NASCAR uses a statement like "It was one reporter’s unsubstantiated fantasy" to describe what happened, causes me to think, "why they are taking such a harsh tone?" It could’ve easily been denied in a low-key manner without all this hoopla. Instead, it’s grown legs and has become the big story of the week.

Kevin Harvick is claiming a plant from another team started this and basically Dilner fell victim to their evil plan to disrupt RCR’s winning ways. I could easily see this happening over the fact that Dilner was making the entire story up.

I agree with Poole, we may never know the truth behind this story. I also believe Dilner was reporting on what he thought was an accurate story. I’m just one guy, but I’ll say this, I’ll continue to trust Dilner and SPEED because they’ve proven in the past to be trustworthy and in my eyes, they’ve earned it.