Full Throttle

CONCORD, N.C. (January 26, 2005) - Make yourself a reminder on your Post-it Note: the No. 16 National Guard Ford Taurus will have a new associate sponsor for the 2005 Nextel Cup season. Post-it brand products from the Office Supplies Division of 3M will take on an associate sponsorship role through a new partnership with the National Guard and Roush Racing.

“The Nextel Cup is a great opportunity to team up with the Post-it brand,” said Dr. Jack Truong, division vice president, 3M Office Supplies Division. “This sport is a lot like life today

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. - (KRT) - Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs went back to being Joe Gibbs the racing team owner again for a day, but both sports were clearly on his mind Tuesday.

Addressing the NASCAR Nextel Media Tour at the Joe Gibbs Racing headquarters, Gibbs took a moment to remember Reggie White, the retired Green Bay Packers great who died last month. He also announced that with the blessing of White’s widow, Sara, Reggie White Motorsports would live on.

“I’ve got to tell you, Reggie White, to me, was somebody who helped change the people around him,” said Gibbs, the National Football League Hall of Famer who came out of retirement to return to the Redskins last season.

Gibbs first got to know White through football, and White sought advice from Gibbs about changing the face of racing. Last season, Reggie White Motorsports in partnership with Joe Gibbs Racing began fielding a two-car short-track stock-car team set up to help minority drivers and mechanics get a foothold in the sport.

The team will continue and both cars will carry the number 92 this season in memory of White, who wore it on his Packers, Philadelphia Eagles and Carolina Panthers jerseys.

Chris Bristol, a 27-year-old African-American from Columbus, Ohio, will again race at Carraway Speedway in Ashboro, N.C., where Gibbs driver Bobby Labonte won the 1987 championship. Aric Almirola, a 20-year-old Hispanic from Tampa, will compete in select late-model specials around the Southeast.

“We’re excited about that,” Gibbs said on continuing the diversity program. “It’s helping the sport and taking it in a direction we think it needed to go.”

Gibbs and White were friends in retirement and in their shared faith.

“He had a great wit and a great testimony,” Gibbs said. “The whole time I was in football, I wish I had a chance to coach him.”

In the “stick & ball” sports success breds a mass exodus of players in both monetary poaching by other teams, or players just moving on for a variety of reasons. The recent success of the Boston Red Sox is a prime example. All have proclaimed the “Ruth hex” is dead. The loss of players to other teams willing to pay more for their services argue against that being true.

Formula One has had it’s share of drivers shifting teams or owners poaching drivers. The recent tussle over the rights to Jenson Button displays both forms of political and monetary infighting. As a result of Ferrari’s decision this week to remain with “Bernie’s boys” we see another price of success, F1’s version of Mutiny on the Bounty. It’s version is called, “Mutiny at Heathrow Hilton’s Jacuzzi.” It’s the story of the “principals’” attempting to do something lounging in 120 degree water they can’t do on the track, beat Ferrari:

(GMM — Jan.26) Ferrari, on Tuesday, were further isolated from their grand prix rivals at a principals’ meeting inside Heathrow Hilton (London).

Not only did they shake hands on a 30-day test limit, a letter agreeing to leave Ferrari in the cold as the only team to (so far) sign Bernie Ecclestone’s new ‘Concorde,’ was signed.

They also asked FIA president Max Mosley to delay a planned Friday meeting, slated to discuss another radical overhaul for the technical code, including a tyre monopoly.

Among other proposed (by the FIA) changes are the elimination of telemetry, standard brakes, a mandatory engine rev-limiter and two-day GP format.

In the letter, it said teams need a few grands prix - maybe up to seven or eight - to first evaluate the 2005 regulation set.

Ferrari did not attend the meeting.

And why would Ferrari be consorting with a bunch of mutineers?

On second thought: It could also be a F1 version of Survivor, and Ferrari just got “voted off the island.”

UPDATE:

(GMM) Ferrari will not join every other F1 team in agreeing to limit testing to a 30-day programme in 2005, we can verify. Team spokesman Luca Colajanni said the scarlet marque would push ahead with their own 15,000km cap, to save around 3 million Euro.

”We’re doing our own project,” he reiterated.

Minardi’s Paul Stoddart, though - after a landmark teams’ meeting west of London - warned Ferrari that going against a nine-team agreement is risking credibility.

”One day (Ferrari will) realise they can’t race against themselves,” said the Australian, the nominated spokesman. 50-year-old Paul Stoddart also confirmed that Ferrari had been invited to Heathrow, but failed to turn up.

What’s Italian for “Up yours!”

Cross posted @ SportsBlog

LONDON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Former champions McLaren say they intend to exploit fully this season a third car rule originally intended to help struggling Formula One teams and aspiring drivers.

The Mercedes-powered team can run three cars in Friday practice sessions at grands prix as a result of finishing fifth overall in 2004.
“We will definitely run the third car,” said team boss Ron Dennis after the test debut of the new MP4-20 in Spain on Monday.
“It’s certainly something that we will exploit to the maximum benefit of the team.

“We have two excellent development drivers in Alexander Wurz and Pedro de la Rosa,” he said. “They are both very talented guys and both have renewed confidence in their abilities. “At some appropriate stage, but not yet, we will decide which driver actually participates in (practice at) the initial races. We won’t switch backwards and forwards. There will be an initial commitment, probably the first four races.”

Dennis said he was ’surprised and comforted’ that the rules had not been changed to prevent McLaren taking advantage of the situation but was not ruling out a late attempt before the Australian season-opener on March 6. “There isn’t a mechanism for it to change. But I’ve experienced change without a mechanism before so I’d never say it wouldn’t happen,” he said. “But as far as I can tell I wouldn’t see this changing this season.”

Having the third car on race Fridays will confer even more of an advantage this year as rule changes mean engines now have to last for two races in a row and the same set of tyres for qualifying and the entire race.

“We don’t intend to put a young driver in although obviously it’s an interesting and exciting opportunity for a young driver,” said chief executive Martin Whitmarsh. “We feel that you’ve got to have a driver who is experienced in the tyre development and chassis programme and someone who can give us good feedback.”

Wurz’s height — he is 1.86 metres tall — has made it difficult to fit the 30-year-old Austrian into the car but Whitmarsh said McLaren would do what they could to help him.

“Alex is the more challenging package for us and always has been but each year we fit him in,” he said. “The only issue of modification that appears at the moment to be necessary to accommodate Alex is modifying the fire bottle in the car but we’ll see when he has a second seat fitting in about 10 days time.”

De la Rosa, 33, is also an experienced racer with 63 starts for Arrows and Jaguar from 1999 to 2002.

Guess this explains why Ferrari decided to back out of the GPWC deal.

Ecclestone offers

Sebastien Loeb of France won the season-opening Monte Carlo rally for the third year in a row Sunday. The world rally champion for Citroen dominated during the three days and 15 special stages for the 11th rally victory of his career. He finished 2 minutes, 58.3 seconds ahead of Finland’s Toni Gardemeister. France’s Gilles Panizzi was third, 3:40.1 behind.

“This was a difficult rally,” Loeb said. “A lot of pilots made mistakes but luckily not us. Very much like last year, it was a tricky event.”

Markko Martin of Estonia finished fourth in his debut for Peugeot. Two-time world champion Marcus Gronholm of Finland was fifth.

Several drivers experienced difficulties on the skidding asphalt track during the three days. Belgium’s Francois Duval pulled out Saturday after crashing into a telephone pole. Co-pilot Stephane Prevot was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Nice, but officials say he appears to have fully recovered.

Source: USA Today

EXCLUSIVE Drunken F1 race ace Kimi kicked out of a lapdance club for fiddling with his gearstick

MOTOR racing star Kimi Raikkonen was chucked out of a lapdancing club after putting on an obscene display that shocked staff and customers. The married Formula One driver and his pals had spent more than

But I believe he’s blowing smoke.

Michelin Don’t Stand a Chance

That’s the seemingly awkward claim of French motorsport director Pierre Dupasquier, 67. He said, given that Bibendum supplies more teams than Ferrari’s tyre partner Bridgestone, that Michelin is therefore at a title disadvantage.

”Let’s say two or more of our partners are very competitive,’‘ he explained, ”then they will share points rather than all the points going into one basket, as is the case for our competitor.”

Dupasquier reckons Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher could finish every race fourth or fifth and still be world champion.

As some have noted, I should explain the lack of posts in a few days. Simple, a lack of time management on my part. Been busy with the home life and also doing some design and promotional work for my political blog.

Fear not I haven’t forgotten about the “Throttle” in fact part of the design work is here. I have been working on adding separate news feed pages, the first can be viewed here. With luck I will have the rest up and running in a few days.

Another project will be adding a forum to the site, although that may be a few weeks before it becomes operational. Rather than use the current softwear available I will be useing BBPress. It is brand new and in the early stages of developement and not officialy released.

Oh I almost forgot, you’ll note the little comment thingy below this is changed. I now have the ability to enter whatever I desire in each post vice the generic “comment.”

Chris Jenkins, USA TODAY

Pension plan?: Entering his final season in Nextel Cup, Rusty Wallace is calling on NASCAR officials to establish a pension plan for drivers similar to those provided to athletes in other professional sports leagues.

“I think we’re deserving of it,” Wallace says. “Every other sport has got it. We’re the only ones who don’t.”

Wallace says he, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon brought the idea up in a meeting with NASCAR officials about five years ago, and they seemed receptive, but the issue was dropped after Earnhardt’s death in 2001.

“I think it’s ridiculous that we don’t have one,” Wallace says. “I think it needs to happen quick.”

NASCAR vice president of communications Jim Hunter says officials would look into a pension system if the “right plan” came along. But Hunter notes drivers are “independent contractors” working for teams, not for NASCAR