NASCAR O'Reilly

BUSCH: St. Louis: Chris Bingham preview

Experience is everything Busch Driver Chris Bingham and '01,'02 GTS Grand am Rolex champion has had a difficult transition to stockcar this year, mostly due to unlucky circumstances. Chris and Jay started the season with high hopes and a budget to ...

Edited: Apr 16, 2008, 12:40 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Experience is everything

Busch Driver Chris Bingham and '01,'02 GTS Grand am Rolex champion has had a difficult transition to stockcar this year, mostly due to unlucky circumstances. Chris and Jay started the season with high hopes and a budget to take Jay's team to the next level, while also allowing Chris to focus on seat time, which is crucial in this new form of racing.

Until this year Chris has never raced on an oval track in a stockcar. The only experience on an oval track was in an open wheel car and that was only a few races. But still, Jay had a feeling about Chris.

Jay quoted "In testing Chris is by far the best Rookie driver that I have worked with. He has so much natural ability. The few times we were able to test he has been very quick, especially given his lack of oval experience. There's no doubt that given the right chance, Chris will be very successful over here, not to mention Chris's natural ability to impress sponsors."

Budget concerns and over due sponsor commitments have overshadowed this team at the start of the season. With new cars and Yates motors you would think they should have been more successful, but when you arrive to a track that you never have tested or raced on and only are able to run a few laps before a practice session, and then you have to go out and qualify, it is very difficult to be competitive.

They now have had to resort to running motors that lack the horsepower of the competitive teams and hope to get back to running those very powerful Yates motors soon.

Jay's a real trooper and will run Chris no matter what it takes, even if it takes going to a track with only a few crew guys and Jay himself doing most of the pit stop work, as they did in California. The ironic thing it that they would have finished in the top 30 if the motor hadn't blown.

Chris quoted  "I feel Jay has given me a great opportunity. He has really
taught me alot and is continuing to work with me.  I want to thank him
for that. I'm learning  more and more every weekend.

"It has been difficult without the Yates power and appropriate testing time, but we will make to make it to all of the tracks and learn more as we go, so that when we come back we will be that much further ahead. We have a lot of things on the horizon for sponsorship and hope to announce something soon, which will enable us to get our program back on track.

"We still welcome the opportunity to look at any $ for primary or associate sponsorship. I also want to thank all my fans for the support and let them know we will make it no matter what it takes."

The team and Chris are looking forward to St Louis this weekend, and then on to Nazareth the following weekend where Chris finished 7th in the Indy light race in '97.

-cb-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article BUSCH: St. Louis: Jason Keller preview

Next article BUSCH: St. Louis: Ashton Lewis race notes

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Why the anticlimactic WEC title showdown was the worst-case scenario

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

39 min

Why the anticlimactic WEC title showdown was the worst-case scenario

How Istanbul is revamping its F1 circuit to clinch long-term future

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Turkish GP

2 h

How Istanbul is revamping its F1 circuit to clinch long-term future

The ten closest finishes from the 2026 NASCAR season

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup 18 h

The ten closest finishes from the 2026 NASCAR season

‘Lewis suspected a conspiracy’ – Nico Rosberg explains how Lewis Hamilton F1 rivalry went awry at Mercedes

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 19 h

‘Lewis suspected a conspiracy’ – Nico Rosberg explains how Lewis Hamilton F1 rivalry went awry at Mercedes

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts