News flash! Stop your blogs, boys and girls...
Yahoo! Sports is reporting on its site that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will officially be leaving DEI, the company built by his late father. An announcement will be forthcoming on Thursday in a televised press conference from Mooresville, N.C. at 9 a.m.
The move involves Earnhardt and teammate Martin Truex, Jr., who will both move over to Earnhardt's JR Motorsports, an operation that until now had fielded cars exclusively for the Busch Series.
In a word...whoa!

According to the story, Budweiser will move over with Junior if details in the language of the contract, which runs through 2008, can be worked out. The team will also field Chevrolet chassis from Hendrick Motorsports and Hendrick engines as well.
Stop the racing world. Dale Earnhardt without DEI is like day without night, sunshine without rain, and a burger without the bun.
But like any good record, certain things are made to be broken.
Quite frankly, it's an amazing development for everyone in the racing community, even if we knew it was coming.
It may not translate into more trips to Victory Lane, where Earnhardt hasn't been since last May at Richmond, but his odds have just improved dramatically.

Posted by Tom Zulewski at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )

All of this business about the Car of Tomorrow is starting to drive me batty. Some love it. Most can't stand driving it. Fans say the racing isn't as good.
NASCAR had the right idea by putting the COT on a partial schedule in 2007 as a means of breaking it in, but I have to wonder why they didn't wait.

One of the common traits of the old car was the ability to knock competitors out of the way to gain position. It led to a lot of hurt feelings and flared tempers every so often, but nowadays, we actually have (gasp!) real racing!
And yes, the Hendrick cars seem to be getting it right.
Jimmie Johnson has four wins, Jeff Gordon has two, and Kyle Busch has one. Busch can't stand driving the COT, though, despite his worst finish being seventh in the four races. Whatever happened to winning curing all ills?
Another note discovered from Richmond: The lap times with the COT were a full second slower than average. In the end, it only added about 10 minutes to the total time of the race, a 400-lapper.
The groundswell has started to take the COT to full-time status for 2008. Considering how confused everyone is as to how it's working and when it will run, the sooner, the better.

Posted by Tom Zulewski at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )