Big business holds New Hampshire's fate

It is the first question on everyone's mind.

What now?

Now that New Hampshire International Speedway has been sold off to corporate America, deftly renamed the New Hampshire Motor Speedway and put in the hands of people who count success by the millions, what's to become of the track's two annual NASCAR Nextel Cup Series races?

Do they stay or do they go?

Read the complete story in today's Kennebec Journal.

Bahre gets $340 million for track

Bob Bahre finally cashed in on his investment.

The 80-year-old businessman from Paris, Maine, sold New Hampshire International Speedway to Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. on Friday. The track in Loudon, N.H., which opened in 1990 and hosts two major NASCAR races annually, was sold for the price of $340 million.

Read the complete story in today's Kennebec Journal.

Racers chime in on New Hampshire sale

Here's a sampling of some of the thoughts circulating in the racing world regarding Speedway Motorsports Inc.'s purchase of New Hampshire International Speedway from Bob Bahre on Friday:

ANDY SANTERRE, 3-time Busch East Series winner at the track:

"There were a lot of race fans in New England before, but they could never go and see NASCAR racing up close (without traveling). Honestly, that’s where anybody from New England went. Guys like myself — or Ricky Craven wouldn’t have made it to Cup — if New Hampshire wasn’t there. We got noticed because it brought the big boys to New England. Without that, I don’t think a lot of us would have had the opportunity.

“The Bahres did a great job with the place, and to have two (Cup) dates, they were very fortunate. A lot of that was what they’ve done for NASCAR in past. But if (Bruton Smith) spent that kind of money, he might want to move a race to one of his tracks that only has one race.”

KURT BUSCH, who swept the two NHIS Cup races in 2004:

"New Hampshire has a great fan base. They sell out that race track every year we go up there. The Northeast loves their NASCAR. I would hope that racetrack keeps at least one date. I would like to see us go to a lot of race tracks just once a year and maybe trim the schedule down, but that’ll never happen.

"But (moving one of the dates), it’ll make every race that’s at their race track more important and drivers will feel more excited about winning each race — to do it when there is only one win that you can get at a track each year. But, Vegas would start off in the Chase. It would be a little warm out there the first of September. I don’t know. All of it is speculation."

BRIAN FRANCE, NASCAR CEO:

"The success of NHIS, and the desire of the Bahre family to sell, made the track very attractive to SMI and several other interested buyers. SMI has a highly regarded record for hosting some of the most successful and enjoyable race events in all of NASCAR, and there's no doubt that will continue.

"While we don't have any details about SMI's plans for NHIS, all sanctions for 2008 have been signed and finalized. As a result, there will be no location changes to the 2008 schedule that was released last month. This is important to the fans, competitors, broadcast partners and sponsors who have already made plans for the 2008 races.

"Looking beyond 2008, NASCAR will continue to consider requests by any track operator, including SMI, to relocate race dates. Under NASCAR's "realignment" plan, we have worked with track owners to relocate race dates to meet the needs of our growing national fan base. Ultimately, any change must meet NASCAR�s objectives and serve our fans.

"The industry owes Bob and Gary Bahre a debt of gratitude for their leadership and commitment to NASCAR. All of NASCAR wishes the Bahre family well during this time of transition. They will always be considered pioneers in NASCAR."

Smith buys NHIS from Bahre

It's official.

For the price tag of $340 million, Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. have purchased New Hampshire International Speedway from Bob Bahre. Less than half an hour ago, Smith said announced the purchase, which is expected to be completed early next year.

SMI now owns 7 tracks that will hold a total of 12 Nextel Cup Series races in 2008. New Hampshire first held a Cup race in 1993 and has held 2 races annually since 1997.

Smith didn't announce any change to the track's annual schedule, though did say he's already begun thinking about the facility after visiting with an engineer.

"I do not have any plans to share at this time," Smith said.

NHIS will also have a name change and will be known as New Hampshire Motor Speedway, putting it more in line with other SMI holdings, such as Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Lowe's Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway.

Texas presser slated for 12:30 p.m. today

Conveniently, the Nextel Cup Series is in Forth Worth, Texas, this weekend for the running of the Dickies 500.

Of course, Texas Motor Speedway is one of the tracks own by Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. A press conference is expected to come at 12:30 p.m. today with news of New Hampshire International Speedway's sale to SMI.

According to a report on ThatsRacin.com, no dates will be changed in 2008, as NASCAR has already set the schedule for next season. 2009 and beyond, however, are a different story.

NHIS.com is already advertising next year's Lenox 300 on June 29 -- just 240 days away.

Bahre's timing makes perfect sense

If nothing else, Bob Bahre has always been a smart businessman.

He knew people in New England would eat up big-time NASCAR stock car racing. He knew that by keeping local tours like Busch East and Modifieds on his schedule it would foster good public relations around these parts. He knows that treating a big business like a small-town general store works.

Bahre's also smart enough to know to get out while the getting's good.

Everywhere you look, NASCAR's "stock" is plummeting. The racing is routinely criticized for being more boring than ever. The television ratings drop on what seems to be an event-by-event basis. Tracks may report sellouts, but the camera shots tell us otherwise virtually everywhere the Nextel Cup Series goes -- Talladega (yep), Atlanta (uh-huh), California (naturally)...

Add in that you've got Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc. throwing millions upon millions of dollars you're way for your little New Hampshire International Speedway -- and what's a good businessman to do?

New England fans know that keeping their 2 Cup races is now a pipe dream, that they will be lucky to have 1 race a year if and when Smith gets control of the track. In fact, it's a very real possibility that in the matter of a few short years, Cup racing will be gone entirely from the antiquated little track in the nation's northeast. It's no big secret that among Smith's first order of business will be to move 1 of the dates to his Las Vegas facility, perhaps for the start of the Chase in 2009.

NASCAR is big business now, of course. Hundreds of millions of dollars is a small price for someone like Smith to pay for NHIS's 2 coveted Cup dates -- money Smith could easily make back 10-fold in a couple of seasons by simply moving his race to bigger, more profitable tracks.

Bahre's son, Gary, has never had any interest in running the track for his father, now 80. That being said, the family ought to get out while the getting's good.

In such a fickle business, all it would take is a couple of years worth of NASCAR in a downward spiral for the Bahres to be left with next to nothing. It may hurt for the fans to hear it, but there will never be a more appropriate time to sell the place.

All you can hope for now is that Smith doesn't want to change what's at work at NHIS already -- as ridiculous as we all know that notion to be.

Report: NHIS could be sold

According to a report in today's Boston Globe, New Hampshire International Speedway is being sold.

Globe racing writer Michael Vega says that NHIS owner Bob Bahre has reached an agreement with Bruton Smith to sell the track. Smith, under the guise of Speedway Motorsports Inc., already has 6 tracks encompassing 10 Nextel Cup Series race dates.

NHIS officials, according to Vega's story, said there's nothing to report. Still, a press conference could come as early as Friday with news of an official sale.

If Smith gets control of NHIS, the fear is that Cup racing will leave New England. Smith desperately wants to add a 2nd race at his Las Vegas facility, and it's unlikely that NHIS would continue to hold its place as both the 1st race of the Chase and the 1st race in the "Race to the Chase."

Victory champagne makes for a sticky mess

Cleaning off the desk while waiting for the fine folks at 51 Sports to send me a Halloween Howler 150 press release that will never come...

* Time and again I'm asked the same question: Why do the northern drivers all travel south for PASS races, but the southern guys never come up here? The answer is an unpleasant one.

Southern Super Late Model teams have a nasty reputation for being unwilling to travel to any event in which A) they don't think they are the prohibitive favorite to win and B) aren't guaranteed a non-handicapped starting grid.

That's it. That's the reasoning. They're so busy swimming in the NASCAR Kool-Aid that surrounds them, believing anything short of a win at the local level will kill their NASCAR aspirations faster than a blown engine, they're not willing to risk much.

* With the southern guys hospitably stepping aside, Cassius Clark won the Halloween Howler at Greenville-Pickens (S.C.) Speedway on Saturday. A disappointing year for Clark has been salvaged over the late part of the season. Faulty scales robbed him of a 100-lap win at Wiscasset Raceway last month, but he's won both the PASS North season finale at White Mountain on Oct. 14 and now the Howler.

Yeah, Cassius is good. And if people knew the shoestring budget his team worked with, they'd be even more impressed than they already are.

Top-5 from that Howler: 1. Cassius Clark, 2. Ben Rowe, 3. Derek Ramstrom, 4. Ryan Lawler, 5. Corey Williams.

* Want to see one of the most embarrassing things on the World Wide Web? Check out this thread on the Racin' Paper message board devoted to All-Star Speedway.

I don't know if track owner Bobby McArthur does or does not pay what he owes racers, and frankly, it's a discusssion I don't really want to have. But for him to make the posts he does under the screen name of "SHOWSTOPPA" is one of the most disgusting things you'll find in the world of short-track racing. This is the man running a NASCAR-sanctioned short track threatening his teams openly.

Yeah, that's good P.R. I wonder how many cars you'll see in the feature lineups next season -- assuming All-Star lasts that long...

* Game 4: Red Sox 4, Rockies 3. (Sox win World Series, 4-0.)

Yeah, it was THAT good. And, yeah, I haven't gotten sick of watching the post-game coverage yet. Probably never will.

Labbe to lead No. 36 Toyotas

There's a Maine twist to all this silly season action.

Biddeford native Slugger Labbe, best known for his Daytona 500-winning work with Michael Waltrip at DEI, will take over as the crew chief for the No. 36 Bill Davis Racing Toyotas. Mike Skinner will try and qualify the car for the next 2 events (Atlanta, Texas) and Johnny Benson will try and steer the cars into the final 2 (Phoenix, Homestead). The seat became open when Jeremy Mayfield announced his decision to sign with Haas-CNC racing for the remainder of 2007 and through 2008.

Labbe, 39, had been working with Jacques Villeneuve at BDR. He's also served in crew chief capacities at Gillette-Evernham Motorsports, Robert Yates Racing and the now-defunct Ginn Racing.

Labbe's start in NASCAR racing came as a crew member for Kelly Moore's Busch North Series operation.

Minott coming back to Wiscasset booth

In the midst of a somtimes turbulent change at Wiscasset Raceway this summer, there remained one constant.

One constant that, thankfully for track owner Doug White, will be back for a 15th straight season of racing at the facility. Ken Minott confirmed this weekend that, despite swirling rumors to the contrary, he will be back as the track's lead announcer in 2008.

Minott is a true gem on the local racing scene, a guy that people like myself can lean on. Want to know who won the Late Model feature last weekend? Ken's on top of it. Want to know how many times Chris Thorne finished 7th or worse in that division over the last 3 seasons? Well, Ken's got that info, too.

When White bought the track in the middle of the 2007 season, he brought with him the engergetic and sometimes abrasive John Crawford. Crawford was originally brought in as a consultant to White, someone who then could sell the place to potential advertisers and help bring it a little more visibility -- like he'd done with Unity Raceway when he leased that track from Ralph Nason a few years back.

But, Crawford soon ended up on a microphone, and then on a radio to help officiate races. In fact, Crawford was everywhere all the time it seemed. It became clear that it grated on Minott's nerves -- when during one Saturday night, Crawford left the announcer's booth with a scrape on his forehead.

(For the record, Minott didn't swing at Crawford. He simply knocked over a pile of "stuff" that caught Crawford's melon...)

More than Crawford's appearance, however, Minott had to weigh what all of us are forced to at times -- family obligations vs. our vocations. On a couple of occasions, Ken had asked me if I ever felt torn between work and my family. At first, it seemed an innocent enough query, but by September I knew something was on his mind.

For 14 years, Ken has missed out on Saturday cookouts, trips to Red Sox matinee games on Sundays in Boston, on watching his kids do things themselves.

He's not ready to give up either -- the family or racing. And all he wanted from this year was permission from White to miss out on a race here or there to tend to things such as, oh, I don't know, his daughter's graduation. Seems reasonable enough.

Minott will also get his Sundays, too. He's giving up the media relations portion of his gig at Wiscasset, meaning he won't have to spend hours and hours compiling race results, recaps and press releases.

Good for Minott for putting family first. Good for Doug White for understanding the asset he has in Minott. Good for Wiscasset Raceway fans for getting the best deal of all.

A few wild pitches from the week...

I've got to level with you. With the Sox in the American League Championship Series, I've been distracted.

I mean, real distracted. Who can worry about the All-Star Speedway Pro Stock Nationals or some silly Nextel Cup Series race in Martinsville, Va., when Jacoby Ellsbury's going to get the start in center field or J.D. Drew is lining up a 1st-inning grand slam? It's about priorities here, gang.

That being said, I know I've got a captive audience (uh, maybe not...) that's clamoring for some racing news, a readership that could care less about curve balls and balks.

Here's what I've missed this week:

* We've found the answer to Greg Biffle's prolonged 2-season Nextel Cup Series struggles, and it's got nothing to do with Roush Fenway Racing's Fords or the driver's flavor-of-the-month crew chief. It's the driver himself.

Just 37 years old, Biffle's already thought about running part-time down the road if the opportunity presented itself.

"To be totally honest, if I could sign a 3-year deal that I ran 15 to 17 races [a year], I'd strongly consider ending the full-time thing sooner," Biffle said. "It gives you a life."

In a sport that is so brutally competitive, you're never going to be a threat for a championship if you're wishing you were off doing other things. Period.

The "life" you want has to be a racing life, one that is full-time, no ifs, ands or buts if you're going to succeed these days.

* Scott Chubbuck and the Hight Motorsports gang continued their barnstorming ways, swooping in to win the shortened Pro Stock Nationals at All-Star on Saturday night. The 150-lap race was shortened because it ran up against curfew -- a wreckfest that didn't start until somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 p.m.

News flash for All-Star owner Bobby MacArthur -- It's October. It's cold enough to begin with. Add on an 8-hour show, and you tell me who on God's green earth wants to sit through it.

And with the rumors of cheating for an "open" competition at the track, I'm seeing why so many of the area's Pro Stock staples opted to just sit that one out.

* NASCAR's got to figure out how to work this whole owner points/car number scenario out once and for all. Not only can I still not figure out how the No. 15 Menard's Chevy or Paul Menard got the points from the No. 14s formerly piloted by Sterling Marlin at Ginn Racing after Ginn and DEI merged, but now comes a report that Petty Enterprises is simply going to swap car numbers on the Nos. 43 and 45 to make sure Kyle Petty gets into races.

The idea, quite simply, is to take advantage of Bobby Labonte's past champions' provisional opportunity should Petty's No. 45 slip out of the top-35 in points, and thus be in for the guaranteed starting spot each week.

There's something wrong with the entire system when you can just whack a few different decals on one car and -- woolah! -- you're in the race. Really wrong.

* Tony Stewart may be right, but that doesn't mean he has to say it.

After he and Paul Menard had a mini-incident on pit road at Lowe's Motor Speedway last weekend, Stewart sounded off on Menard.

"You can have your father buy your ride and write DEI a big check, but you can't buy talent...," Stewart said after the Lowe's race. "(John Menard's) bought his son a Nextel Cup ride and he's just got enough talent to just be in the way most of the time."

Given the state of Nextel Cup racing these days, you could say that about half the starting field -- or more -- each week. But calling Menard out, just because Stewart has a platform via his weekly satellite radio show, was unnecessary.

Not that Menard kept quiet, either.

"I've known Tony for 10 years," Menard said. "He's not a very mature person. Yeah, I wouldn't be here if my family didn't support me. I don't think he would be either if his family didn't support him. You can't get too wrapped up in it... I know him well enough to know he's a 50-year-old kid in a six-year-old's body. He's got the platform to say that stuff. Good for him. I hope he feels better about it."

* And now, you're starting lineups for Game 7 of the 2007 ALCS. Leading off and playing second base, No. 15, Dustin Pedroia...

WOW! This is big news!

You know, I was just sitting here saying to myself, "Self, I wonder when we'll see that new Nationwide Series logo?" And, wouldn't you know it, it appeared.

Now I'm not one to criticize NASCAR (uh....) but don't you think they would have had this a couple of weeks back, when they made the announcement that Nationwide Insurance was taking over as the title sponsor of Nextel Cup final practice?

I mean, let's get the ducks in a row people.

Yeah, I know. It's slow this time of year.

Mods hit Thunder Road's high banks

This is an interesting gamble that Tom Curley is willing to take.

Like sprint cars in Maine or dirt racing in Canada, Modified racing just hasn't caught on in the northern reaches of New England. That's not stopping Curley from bringing in the True Value Modified Series for an event to run as part of a doubleheader with the American-Canadian Tour on Memorial Day weekend next season at Thunder Road Speedbowl.

It will be a 100-lap race, the 1st Modified race at Thunder Road since 1965.

The 2 sides announced the event after series owner and competitor Jack Bateman (umm, yeah, it's a, uh, mild conflict of interest, isn't it...?) tested on the 1/4-mile and reported running lap times in the mid-12-second range.

Still, Curley likely hasn't gone into this blindly. The TVMS has its roots in northern New Hampshire -- not exactly a Modified hotbed -- and this little grassroots series has found a way to prosper. While the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour has petered out in northern New England, the TVMS raced at Oxford Plains Speedway this season and races in New Hampshire still, too.

The NASCAR Modified Tour is dominated by a driver roster hailing from virtually every corner, city, town and village in Connecticut, but the TVMS has a more geographically-diverse roster. That should serve it well moving forward.

Still — Modifieds at Thunder Road? Boy, it just doesn't sound right.

Chase delivers on NASCAR promise (Not that it makes us feel any better)

Got an interesting comment from a regular reader of Green-White-Checker today.

"The Chase is a fraud format and has failed to deliver on its promise," he wrote.

Hey, you may not like the format gang, but it has absolutely delivered on its promise. Brian France and the rest of the ring masters running NASCAR's traveling circus never promised any great shakes when the Chase for the Nextel Cup format was introduced a few years ago.

All we were promised was a contrived championship battle, one that wiped out whatever anyone had done during the first 26 races of the year and essentially reset the competing field at an equal points position. Once that was done, you were going to get 10 races toward the Cup -- a format that would compete with the NFL, college football and MLB playoffs for fan interest (read: TV ratings and, thusly, advertising revenue).

It didn't matter if you were the best team for the whole season or not. It only mattered that you could be better than the 9 or 11 other teams in the Chase with you for the last couple of months of the season.

The racing hasn't been any better on the track, with or without the Car of Tomorrow (read: Talladega, or at least I think that was Talladega we saw) -- but that's not what NASCAR promised. A "true" champion hasn't necessarily been crowned -- but that's not what NASCAR promised. There haven't been any great worst-to-first performances, either -- but that's not what NASCAR promised.

All NASCAR promised was a controlled setting for its final 10 races, and they've continually found themselves tweaking that system, rightly or wrongly. And that's all they really promised.

In that vein, the Chase is EXACTLY what NASCAR promised. We just don't have to like it.

Clocking in on 1 last Maine racing weekend...

Though the conspiracy theorists certainly suggested that the points race in the PASS North Series was manufactured through a controversial call at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway a few weeks ago, Ben Rowe still survived to win his series-record 4th championship.

In a race won by Cassius Clark at White Mountain Motorsports Park on Sunday afternoon, Rowe finished 5th to lock up the title. Rowe earned the title by just 18 points over father Mike Rowe, who finished 2nd to Clark. Trevor Sanborn was 3rd and Johnny Clark was 4th.

Ben Rowe had 2/3 of his points lead wiped out with a penalty for rough driving at the D.J. Equipment 300 -- a race his father won to set up the championship showdown on Sunday.

Though it was Rowe's 4th title, it was his 1st while driving for Richard Moody Racing.

*****

I've been critical of so-called retirement tours in the past in the Nextel Cup Series (see: Mark Martin, who still hasn't retired, not really, and Bill Elliott, whose happy to hop into a car whenever some team needs a "past champion's provisional" starting spot), but I'm a big fan of the way Dale Jarrett plans on going out.

He's going to run the Bud Shootout (Or the Coors Light-ning Dash, maybe? NASCAR can feel free to use that name if they want, free of charge...), the 1st 5 points races and then the All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway in May. After that, he's going to give the seat of the No. 44 UPS Toyota over to David Reutimann.

An All-Star race is a great way for this former champion, and a solid ambassador for the sport, to go out. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that Jarrett doesn't pull a Martin and advertise a big farewell tour (complete with $30 hats and t-shirts that the fans gobble up) and then change his mind.

Not that someone isn't entitled to changing their mind.

*****

I finally rode in a pace car, and, I've got to say, even Mr. Cynical himself walked away fairly impressed.

For my son's 4th birthday, I took him to the Long John Open at Unity Raceway. Part of that day included a ride in the pace car before the Teen feature. And, yeah, we almost fell out of the passenger seat when the car whipped off turn 4 and into the infield to start the race.

Fantastic.

And, 50 mph looks a lot slower when you're sitting in a press box. No wonder guys get hooked on this racing game...

*****

For that Long John Open, the track should be commended.

After a disappointing season of car counts perilously close to single digits for other Super Street open competitions, a full field of 30 cars showed for the Long John. It just goes to show that while racetrack after racetrack may have a hard time drumming up new interest in its offerings, tradition still holds people's attention.

When it comes to racing in central Maine, the Long John, now 19 years in the books, remains an event people want to be part of. It's that one last time on the track, and it's that one last time to go camp out for a weekend somewhere.

It may have been bigger and better in its heyday, but it's still a pretty good day of racing just the way it is now. And, 60 degrees under sunny skies on an October afternoon never hurts anything.

*****

The guy with the Nextel Cup hauler ought to win the PASS Modified championships, else it just wouldn't look right at all.

Chris Staples claimed his 2nd Modified title in as many years on Saturday in the 40-lap division by finishing 6th in a 50-lap "extra distance" feature at WMMP. Jason Taylor won the race.

Staples' teammate, Mark Lucas, landed 2nd in the final standings.

After Mike Fowler beat Matt Lee in the 100-lapper that night for the PASS Outlaw Late Models, Jimmy Rosenfield was named the division champion.

*****

Is it just me, or are we seeing the Jeff Gordon of the late 1990s, the one who couldn't lose no matter what he did?

*****

Oh yeah, and not that anyone cares, but it's awfully wrong to wait 5 hours for a game to be decided -- living and dying with every pitch -- only to have Eric Gagne give it away.

Hard not to remember how excited I was when the Sox got him at the trading deadline. Now, though, I'm wondering if we'll see him in another game (meaningful or otherwise) in a Boston uniform.

Better get a restrictor plate on that thing

Sure, Super Late Models are faster than Late Models. Supermodifieds are faster than tour-type Modifieds. Super Streets are even faster than Street Stocks.

But it's all relative, isn't it? Just ask Russ Wicks.

Driving what was supposedly a stock car built to "NASCAR specifications," Wicks set a new world speed record in a Dodge Charger on Tuesday. Wicks, who holds world records of more than 200 miles per hour on both land and water, has set the stock car mark of 244.9 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

The record was confirmed by Guinness World Records. The new mark shatters Wicks’ previous stock car world speed record of 222 miles per hour.

Long John practice rained out

If the rain doesn't let up, maybe they can make this Long John Open into a speedboat race.

Practice for the annual season-ending event at Unity Raceway was rained out by persistent showers across the state on Friday, though track officials remained optimistic that the grounds would be ready in time for practice to begin on Saturday morning.

In addition to the $1,500-to-win Long John 100 for the Super Street division, there is also a 100-lap event for the Limited Sportsman machines paying $750 to the winner. There are 5 other divisions on the card, too, running features varying in length from 15 to 30 laps.

Heat racing begins at 1 p.m. Saturday.

No All-Star makeup for PASS, season ends this weekend

This likely qualifies as old news by now, but the rained out PASS 150 at All-Star Speedway will not be made up.

Weather has not been kind to the PASS North Series over the last 2 seasons, and this fall has been no exception. After already moving the D.J. Equipment 150 at White Mountain Motorsports Park from mid-September to this weekend because of rain, PASS was left without any wiggle room at the end of its schedule.

This weekend's 150-lapper at White Mountain will serve as the official end of the PASS North season. 3-time series champion Ben Rowe leads his father, Mike Rowe, by 12 points entering the race. Richie Dearborn is 40 points behind Ben -- giving him, at least technically, an outside shot at his 1st championship.

The reality is that Dearborn would have to win the race in a field featuring upwards of 30 cars -- plus not lose any points in the heat races -- while both Rowes would have to finish in the final few spots in the running order. It's highly unlikely, particularly considering the seasons each of the Rowes' respective teams have put together.

Open door policy for open-wheelers

In another move that can hardly be called surprising, Patrick Carpentier is making the jump to NASCAR.

Someone should tell New Englander Jeff Simmons that the market is hot right now for open-wheel drivers over on the stock car side. So hot that, well, Patrick Carpentier can make the move straight to Cup.

Gillett Evernham Motorsports made it official on Wednesday, the former CART driver will run a full-time Sprint Cup Series schedule and part-time Nationwide Series schedule for the team in 2008. Carpentier debuted with the team by finishing 2nd in a Busch race in Montreal, following that up by leading 7 laps in the Cup race at Watkins Glen the next week.

These days, you don't have do a whole lot more than that to warrant a million-dollar Cup contract. Carpentier resume is as follows: 2 Champ Car wins, 3 CART victories and a Toyota Atlantic Championship. That's it.

Still, GEM is ready to roll Carpentier out.

“Patrick (Carpentier) has shown tremendous talent in every series he has driven throughout his career and has a bright future in NASCAR," George Gillett said in a release. "We are committed to giving Patrick the best resources and opportunities available to make this transition and we look forward to a great deal of success together both on and off the track.”

An identity all his own

On Friday night, assuming he qualifies for the race, Jason Keller will make his 418th career Busch Series start at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It will break the mark held by Tommy Houston.

As NASCAR readies to make a switch to the Nationwide Series and the Busch Series' identity erodes bit by bit, it's understandable that NASCAR wants to tout the achievement of someone like Keller. What we have to hope is that this business won't all get run over by a pace car after Friday's Dollar General 300 is complete.

"There are so many agendas in the Busch Series, I hope that we maintain enough spots for all those agendas and not just become a series with 25 or 30 Cup drivers on a Saturday, and then just a couple of spots just left for everybody else," Keller said. "That's what concerns me.

"I mean, I think the series is great when you have 12 to 14 or so Cup drivers, because they are more recognizable. They are more known to the fans, and that brings notoriety to our series, so I'm all for that. But when you start getting up to the 24, 25, even higher, numbers of Cup drivers in the series, it kind of puts it over to one side and that concerns me a little bit."

Keller is a driver with a different agenda. Like former series champion Randy Lajoie before him, Keller has no real interest in Cup Series racing and the circus that goes along with it. He's far too happy spending Sundays at home with his wife and kids.

But choosing his family has come at the cost of his racing career. And, because he's 37 years old and not the 18- or 19-year-old polished kid that every team is looking for in its development program, he's had to settle for what he can get this year.

"It's tough because I want to be a part of a series week-in and week-out," said Keller, whose made only 16 starts this season. "I mean, I equate it to only playing golf once a month. It's hard to get in a rhythm. It's very tough for me to get in a rhythm over the summer months because I raced for a couple of different teams. I mean, there for 2 months, I had a team for every other week and a different spotter every other week, and some of the small things that go along with that — it's just it's hard to get into a rhythm."