Trouble in Turn2

• Cue the Duck Aflac announced they will sponsor Carl Edwards in 2009. Supplemental insurance is extremely important when you break your neck doing a backflip and can’t work. Is something like that covered? I am already predicting a commercial with Edwards and the duck doing flips after a win. Either that or Edwards can take a fake swing at the duck. As part of the contract, the answer to all Aflac trivia questions is now “Carl Edwards”. The deal is also apparently the second richest sponsorship deal behind Amp and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Of course Earnhardt Jr’s deal with Amp is essentially for co-sponsorship, as the #88 hauls in additional cash from the National Guard.

• Bruton Smith bought another track, this time Kentucky Speedway. It’s a good pickup, but with Tony George owning Indiana Avenue and ISC/France Family owning Illinois Avenue, it will be very hard to get the Red Monopoly and build hotels. Since he already owns North Carolina Ave, I would have made a play for Pennsylvania Ave now and Pacific (Northwest) Ave later.

• Tom Bowles of SI.com has an interesting take on Michael Waltrip Racing.
  

  It’s no secret the driver mortgaged his financial future to move ahead with this program and that he took on an investor (Robert Kauffman) in October to salvage the team’s long-term future. But if all three sponsors bail — this is the final year of NAPA’s agreement with the No. 55 — all the investment money in the world won’t keep this program on track. And with a tough economy making sponsorship difficult, this could be the biggest-level program that winds up biting the dust.

  I guess Napa can only make so many self-deprecating commercials about how bad Waltrip runs. I don’t have the inside scoop that Bowles does, but I was surprised by this. Given SI’s credibility, I have to believe there’s some truth, but my guess is that if MWR can keep all three cars inside the top 35 Waltrip can make it work to stay in business.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr had a few interesting comments on the future of JR Motorsports. He’s considering moving his Nationwide team to Cup in 2009. If NASCAR’s second-tier series is just as costly to operate that’s a serious problem for all parties.

  He also had this to say about Martin Truex Jr:
  

  “Why would he want to come drive for me?” Earnhardt Jr. asked. “He’s in good stuff now and he’s going to have great opportunities from other people. And I would never do that to him.”

  To me, that’s a subtle way of saying DEI should be looking for a driver for 2009. Junior was clear that he wouldn’t hire Truex, but if you look at the link to the story it’s titled “Friends don’t let friends drive junk”. That could be interpreted as not hiring Truex for a startup Cup team, or implying that something is already brewing with another top Cup team.

• Just four races after a crew chief shuffle at Ganassi Racing, there is another one this week. Prior to Talladega Jimmy Elledge moved from the #41 car to Juan Pablo Montoya’s #42 team. Now Elledge has left Ganassi and Montoya is not happy. Elledge is pretty well regarded in Cup and will turn up somewhere if he hasn’t already struck a deal. One place that makes sense is JR Motorsports, since Elledge is Earnhardt Jr’s brother-in-law, although that might be too much family even for JRM.

  Meanwhile Brian Pattie moves from the Ganassi Nationwide team to head up the #42 crew. Montoya has one top ten (2nd at Talladega) while Ganassi as an organization only has two all season. Obviously things are not going well at Acronym Racing (That’s CGRwFS for the uninitiated) and Ganassi has already ripped his organization once this year. Instead of shuffling around internal crew chiefs among the teams, it might be time to look outside the organization for a different perspective.

Off the Beaten Path

A chance for me to discuss whatever else is on my mind this week. Hey, if Peter King can write about his lattes every week…

• I don’t get very political, especially in this space, but it’s inescapable right now. I saw a report that the presidential candidates have raised over $900 million dollars. It’s mind boggling and we’re not even to the official presidential race. Worse, the entire point of donating money to a candidate is for them to burn through it. With so many problems in this country and abroad, imagine how many causes a billion dollars could go to.

• I saw Zodiac last weekend. A pretty good thriller/mystery with a lot of good actors too. It’s based on the true story of the Zodiac serial killer in California and focuses on the investigation. Jake Gyllenhal and Mark Ruffalo are both really good. My one complaint was that the movie ended with a postscript. I have a TV that’s at least ten years old and I couldn’t read what it said. Even if I wanted to throw in a spoiler here, I couldn’t.

• Have a great and safe weekend and be sure to get plenty of rest on Saturday night. We’ll all need it on Sunday afternoon.