NASCAR Cup

Ken's NASCAR Notebook 96-05-21

Ken's NASCAR Notebook - May 21, 1997 ------------------------------------------- NASCAR changes rules, again ------------------------------------------- The Monday morning after The Winston races at Charlotte, NASCAR officials announced that ...

Edited: May 8, 2001, 12:19 PM

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Ken's NASCAR Notebook - May 21, 1997

------------------------------------------- NASCAR changes rules, again ------------------------------------------- The Monday morning after The Winston races at Charlotte, NASCAR officials announced that they would add an additional one-quarter (1/4") of an inch to the height of the rear spoiler of the Ford Thunderbird in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series for the May 25 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The one-quarter addition brings the height of the spoiler to 5.75 inches.

------------------------------------------- Wood Family Update ------------------------------------------- On their way home from Charlotte last Saturday night, the Wood family van was struck head-onby a vehicle that crossed over the median on I-85. Leonard Wood sustained a cracked sternum and a bruised back and was released Sunday morning. Betty Mae Wood, wife of Leonard, died at the scene. Kelly Witt, Leonard's son-in-law, was driving the van and suffered minor injuries. Beth Witt, Leonard's daughter, was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Winston Salem, N.C. Carlin Witt, Leonard's four year old granddaughter, was to Baptist Memorial and is in critical condition recovering from abdominal surgery related to the injury she sustained from the accident. Gracen Witt, Leonard's 18-month old granddaughter, was also in the vehicle but uninjured.

The Wood Family would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. Funeral arrangements are pending and will be announced as soon as they are finalized. If desired, the family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in the name of Betty Mae Wood to the: Stuart Presbyterian Church P.O. Box 944 Stuart, VA 24171

------------------------------------------- Pressley ousted from #29 Cartoon Network car ------------------------------------------- After the Winston Open race last weekend at Charlotte, Gary Bechtel once again gave walking papers to the driver of the #29 Cartoon Network car. Current driver Robert Pressley has failed to qualify for three of ten races so far this year, and he had three DNFs for the races he qualified for. Jeff Green, who spent some time in the #29 seat last year filling in for Steve Grissom, has been chosen as the new driver beginning with this weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

------------------------------------------- Talladega Rain Delay Alters Wedding ------------------------------------------- When rain forced NASCAR to reschedule the Winston 500 at Talladega for Saturday, May 10th, the result affected more than just NASCAR drivers and fans. Wendy Mullinax was supposed to marry Felix Burns that same day in a church directly across the street from the track. Faced with the traffic jam from an additional 100,000-plus fans, Wendy quickly sought help from the track and moved the wedding up to Friday evening before the race. Even after her ordeal, she was quoted as saying that she is still a race fan.

------------------------------------------- NASCAR Racing Room Closed ------------------------------------------- The chat room at NASCAR.com, which was called the Racing Room, has been closed down permanently. The NASCAR homepage does not give a specific reason for closing the site, but they do apologize for the change. The most likely reason for closing the room is the bandwidth is consumed on the server as well as the manpower to police it.

An alternative chat room has been created on the server for the Nascar Pick12 Contest: http://www.cs.runet.edu/~pac/pick12.html

------------------------------------------- Penske takes control of the Rock ------------------------------------------- Penske Motorsports Inc (PMI), has exercised its option to take a controlling interest of the North Carolina Motorsport Speedway (NCMS), also known as The Rock. Mrs. Carrie DeWitt, chairman of the board of North Carolina Motor Speedway, chose a merger option whereby she would receive shares of PMI stock in exchange for her shares of stock at The Rock. The merger must yet be approved by the NCMS Board of Directors.

Penske Motorsports, Inc. owns or operates the following speedways in addition to its recent addition of the Rock: Michigan Speedway, Nazareth Speedway, and the new California Speedway.

------------------------------------------- MCI Joins Tri Star Team ------------------------------------------- MCI Communications Corporation has joined the Tri Star Motorsports #19 Child Support Recovery International team as a sponsor. Driver Gary Bradberry will sport the new sponsor logo starting at the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte.

MCI is the "Official Telecommunciations Company of NASCAR," the "Official Internet Service Provider of NASCAR," and the "Official Presenter of NASCAR's Timing and Scoring System" for all 12 divisions of NASCAR.

------------------------------------------- Team CAT Website ------------------------------------------- Rookie of the Year contender David Green drives the #96 Caterpillar Chevy and will have a new sticker on the car for the Coca Cola 600 race at Charlotte. The sticker will simply be the URL of the new Caterpillar Racing web site, http://www.CAT.com/racing. The site features stories, news, information, interviews, multimedia, and merchandise....check it out. Tell 'em I sent ya...

------------------------------------------- Happy Motoring :-) =Ken=

 E-Mail:         MustangKen@geocities.com or MustangKen@compuserve.com
CyberHome:         http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/1105/

Please contact me if you wish to repost or redistribute this notebook, or wish to be added to the distribution list. Do not reply to the email address in the To: field above. It is a real email address, but I do not read my mail sent there. This is to help prevent spamming that I have been receiving due to posting on Usenet.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein was compiled from a variety of sources, including the rumor mill and the grapevine, so its accuracy cannot be completely guaranteed. Use of copyrights or trademarks are for descriptive fair-use purposes only. The opinions expressed are my own, and not my employer's.

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