Racing News Digest

Well I wrote up this big long post talking about the points swapping and team merging that is going on this year. After reading what I had wrote it was very apparent to me that I did not have a clue what I was talking about. Not only have I not been able to keep up on the team mergers but I keeping up the continuing points swapping is another whole deal.

Now there are major and minor owners, owners points form both swirling around, teams not racing and some cars parked.

It would appear to me that while NASCAR does not allow the selling of owner points to other teams, the do allow the transfer or owner points as long as the original owner still has a stake in the team. And I think they said as long as they have a strong stake of the team.

So what are minority owners that a lot of these team owners have become while being absorbed or merged with other teams. Minority Owner does not sound like someone who has much stake in a team. Some of these mergers are legit, but I think a lot of them are mergers to help “bail out” a failing team and help out bigger teams that need some owners points.

So what MARC over at Full Throttle wrote was something about this as well titled NASCAR’s “Minority” Ownership. Maybe he will help make more sense of it for you.

So here is the short of what is happening with the point swapping and the teams and drivers just found out today.

Due to owner points at the end of the 2008 season the Nos. 15 (Dale Earnhardt Inc.), 22 (Bill Davis Racing), 01 (Dale Earnhardt Inc.) and 41 (Chip Ganassi Racing) would be parked for the 2009 season. That would leave theNos. 47 (JTG Daugherty Racing/Michael Waltrip Racing), 10 (Richard Petty Motorsports), 77 (Penske Racing) and 21 (Wood Brothers Racing) entries automatically locked in.

But that wasn’t the case.

NASCAR looked at each team a determined what partnerships were legit and which ones they deemed where not legit.

One of the last minute mergers was between Penske Racing and Bill Davis Racing forming Penske Championship Racing. Dave Blaney’s #22 points got transferred to Sam Hornish JR. locking him in.

After they (NASCAR) got it all figured out this is how the chips fell.

John Andretti will get the No. 15 points from Dale Earnhardt Inc. as part of a deal with the new Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.

Bowyer appears set to get the No. 01 points that DEI had last year.

But no one is going to be getting the #41’s points so that is going to allow Marcos Ambrose to get into the race.

Now NASCAR has decided not to let Phoenix Racing’s Brad Keselowski transfer points. They decided that that allowing the transfer of a car number for a rookie to run a fifth car wasn’t the intent of the points-transfer rules and won’t allow a transfer of Chip Ganassi Racing points from last season to Phoenix Racing’s Keselowski.

That decision is what is guaranteeing Marcos Ambrose into the season’s opening five events.

But my question is, how does NASCAR decide that Keselowski as a rookie in a 5th car does not constitute allowing a points change when it seems like everyone else was allowed to?

I hope all of this makes sense to someone other than NASCAR.

Here is what they said on the matter.

“The final product is the business relationships that fit the current rules,” Helton said. “The decision-making process for NASCAR was each individual situation and how it fits the current rules. And if it does, then in fairness to whatever model that was laid out in front of us, is it similar or does it fit the current rules and does it align with previous decisions that we made.

“In the offseason between ‘08 and ‘09, there was a good deal more of these situations that we had to deal with — some of them even up to the 11th hour — and some of them were not signed off on … Ultimately, we had to make a subjective call that it didn’t fit the spirit of all the rules and regulations.”

“The confusion I suspect could come from conversations about what ifs that were had between different owners, maybe some owners with NASCAR, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’” Helton said. “The tough part is — and this doesn’t necessarily stand in our way of servicing the sport correctly, but certainly causes us to have to look at the way we have conversations with owners to be more clear, more understanding.

“At the end of the day our job — and I’m confident that our group has done this correctly — is to take every situation, analyze it on its own merits and does it fit the rules and the regulations that the industry is used to in our sport.”

I honestly think this is once again a case of NASCAR helping out who they want to while looking the other way. If they don’t want to help you or your team….there’s nothing you can do about it.

It all makes perfect sense, right?

My head is still swirling.