Kenny Perry wins the Buick Open for second time in career.
June 30, 2008
Kentucky, Kenny Perry is coming home.
Perry shot a 6-under 66 on Sunday to win the Buick Open by a stroke at 19 under, likely locking up a spot on the Ryder Cup team that will face Europe at Valhalla about 40 miles from his birthplace.
“I’m ecstatic,” he said. “It really won’t sink in until I’m actually putting on the red, white and blue.”
Perry was amazed he won at Warwick Hills for a second time because Woody Austin closed with consecutive bogeys to blow the tournament and Bubba Wilson just missed a 12-footer that would’ve forced a playoff.
While Perry was on the driving range, he backed into earning $900,000.
“I still can’t believe I won,” he said. “I feel like I need to go make a birdie out there to win.”
Austin and Watson shot 68s.
Perry, 47, joined Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as the only multiple winners this year on the PGA Tour, became the oldest player to win at Warwick Hills and joined a short list of multiple champion.
Vijay Singh has three Buick Open titles, while Woods, Julius Boros, Tony Lema and now Perry have two in the tournament that celebrated its 50th anniversary.
“It’s always nice to have your name associated with the greats of the game,” Perry said. “I’m just hanging onto the shirttails.
“I’m the guy that’s going to get their clubs out of the trunks of their car.”
Austin sounded like he wanted to hide in a trunk.
He became the leader by curling a 9-footer in at the 16th, then fell back into a tie by missing a 13-foot putt for par on the next hole. Austin three-putted from 63 feet to close the tournament and put Perry ahead.
“I threw it away,” said Austin, whose demonstrative ways led him to cup a ball and slam it against the wood board marking the 7th tee. “I didn’t hit the ball close enough to the hole the last two holes to counteract my yips.
“I’ve got to figure it out or I’d better quit.”
Watson had a chance to force a 73rd hole despite a hooked tee shot by remarkably punching the ball onto the green to set up a makable putt that he barely missed.
“If someone had told me that on a tight golf course I’d have a putt for a playoff, I’d have taken the putt and skipped the rest of the week,” he said.
Perry is not going to be at the British Open because he already committed to playing in Milwaukee the same week, following his decision to not attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open the day after winning the Memorial.
“I committed to all these tournaments before when I was ranked 100th in the world,” he explained. “Now all of a sudden I’ve won twice, I’m probably top 20 in the world now.
“I’ve already committed to Milwaukee and I’m not going to back out.”
Perry, who won in 2001 at Warwick Hills, has 11 victories on the PGA Tour.
He had a bogey-eagle-bogey-birdie stretch that dropped him from the lead and put him back into a tie with Austin at the 16th.
His best shot of the week was at the par-4 14th, where his tee shot landed in sand and he pitched in for eagle from 30 yards.
“It came off like a dream, took two hops and just slam-dunked right in the cup,” Perry said. “You never expect to make them, but that really energized me for the last few holes.”
But Perry lost the lead at 15 when he plugged a shot into a greenside bunker, leading to a bogey that put Austin ahead.
Perry bounced back at 16 with a birdie, putting him in position to take advantage of Austin’s collapse and Watson’s errant tee shot on the final hole.
With Tiger Woods sidelined by season-ending knee surgery, Perry trails just two active players in U.S. Ryder Cup standings and one in the FedEx Cup standings.
He has all but guaranteed he’ll reach his goal of playing for his country in his home state and improving his chances to win $10 million in the PGA Tour’s playoff.
“With Tiger out, it’s just a great opportunity for an old guy here to actually steal some money in that FedEx Cup,” Perry said. “So that’s what we’re after now.”
Before Perry gets a chance to win the loot, though, he will get an opportunity in September to live a dream.
“My only goal was to make The Ryder Cup team, and that’s really got me focused for whatever reason,” he said. “It’s at home in Valhalla in my home state and at a golf course that I lost the 1996 PGA Championship to Mark Brooks in a playoff.
“I just feel like I needed to go back there.”
U.S. Open runner-up Rocco Mediate closed with a 70 and finished 11 under, tied for 28th.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Ryan Braun only 33,000 votes out of NL starting lineup.
June 30, 2008
Vote RYAN BRAUN and not Kosuke Fukudome or Ken Griffey Jr and help get a budding superstar the chance to start in the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium on July 15th.
Ryan Braun needed a lot of votes to put himself closer to a starting spot in the All-Star Game at Yankee stadium on July 15, and his fans have responded.
The young outfielder has surged forward in the voting over the last week, pushing Braun to within 33,000 votes of third place — and a starting spot on the National League squad.
The Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano — who is currently on the disabled list with a broken left hand — leads the voting among NL outfielders, with the Reds’ Ken Griffey Jr. jumping into second place this week.
The real battle now is between Braun and the Cubs’ Kosuke Fukudome. Braun and Fukudome are only separated by 32,925 votes, with Fukudome barely hanging on to third place.
The race between the two Central division outfielders is the closest race for a starting spot in the NL.
Brewers fans no longer have the opportunity to vote at Miller Park, but online voting will remain open until 10:59 p.m. CT on Wednesday.
Fans can vote up to 25 times to give Braun his final push into the starting lineup in New York.
Entering play on Monday, Braun is among the league leaders in total bases, extra-base hits, home runs, hits, multihit games, slugging percentage, RBIs and triples. He moved to left field from third base this season and has not committed an error.
Braun was named last year’s NL Rookie of the Year at third base, after hitting .324 with 34 homers, 97 RBIs and a .634 slugging percentage — the highest by a rookie in Major League history.
The 79th Major League Baseball All-Star Game, being held at Yankee Stadium in its final season, will be televised nationally by FOX, in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and Sportsnet HD, and televised around the world by Major League Baseball International, with pregame ceremonies beginning at 7 p.m. ESPN Radio will provide exclusive national radio coverage, while MLB.com will provide extensive online coverage. XM will provide satellite radio play-by-play coverage of the XM All-Star Futures Game.
The Midsummer Classic will be the fourth held at Yankee Stadium and the eighth in New York City. The Yankees previously hosted the All-Star Game in 1939, 1960 and 1977; the Polo Grounds held the game in 1934 and 1942; Ebbets Field was the site in 1949; and Shea Stadium hosted the 1964 tilt.
Fans can cast their votes for starters up to 25 times with the Monster 2008 All-Star Game Online Ballot at MLB.com and all 30 club sites until Wednesday at 10:59 p.m. Starting rosters will be announced during the 2008 All-Star Game Selection Show presented by Chevrolet on TBS on Sunday, July 6. Baseball fans around the world will then be able to select the final player on each team via the Monster 2008 All-Star Final Vote at MLB.com.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
String of bad luck continues in Loudon for Tony Stewart.
June 30, 2008
Maybe a change of scenery is exactly what Tony Stewart needs.
His winless streak reached 31 races Sunday when yet another piece of bad luck snatched away what looked like a dominating victory.
Stewart led 132 of what turned out to be 284 laps in the rain-shortened Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
But in the end he was stuck with a 13th-place finish when eventual winner Kurt Busch rolled the dice and didn’t pit on the day’s final round of stops and was in front when Mother Nature ended things prematurely.
The frustrating ending was just the latest chapter in a reoccurring story for the two-time series champion in a season full of disappointments.
Stewart had the car to beat in the season-opening Daytona 500 but when he and teammate Kyle Busch couldn’t hook-up to draft in the final lap of the race, Stewart was forced to watch Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch roll by to a 1-2 finish.
Stewart was running second in the closing laps at Bristol until he was bumped out of the way by Kevin Harvick and limped home 14th.
Stewart was on his way to victory in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway until a cut tire four laps from the finish ended his night and handed a win to Kasey Kahne.
Last week at Infineon Raceway, Stewart was once again knocked out by Harvick in the closing stages of the race while running second.
Now, New Hampshire can be added to the hit list.
“It had been just the oddest year I have ever seen for this race team,” said Stewart as he sat dejected in his car while rain poured down on New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “It’s just frustrating. If there was something we could do about it, we’d change it.
“None of the results this year is due to lack of effort. There’s a percentage in this industry that’s called luck and there’s nothing we can do to change it. … You have to have some of it on your side and we just haven’t had it this year.”
While Stewart has been successful in the Nationwide Series, winning for the fifth time in only seven starts this season Saturday at New Hampshire, he has endured a painful first half of the Sprint Cup season.
The trying times have many believing Stewart will indeed leave the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 ride for either another team or to start his own operation with the Haas-CNC Racing Team.
While reports surfaced last week that Stewart’s partial ownership deal with the Haas-CNC team was set, going as far to name Newman as a potential teammate and various sponsors already in place. Stewart denied anything was set.
“I don’t even know who I’m driving for yet,” Stewart said over the weekend in Loudon. “It’s kind of hard to pick a sponsor when you don’t know who you’re driving for yet, don’t you think? It’s kind of like, which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”
The news of Casey Mears’ dismissal from Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the year opened another opportunity for Stewart if he indeed is looking to move from JGR. Already boasting an all-star cast of Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., the addition of Stewart to drive the team’s No. 5 entry would give car owner Rick Hendrick a lineup unrivaled in NASCAR history.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” Stewart said when asked if the open Hendrick seat has his interest. “You’ve got to. There’s nobody in this garage area that’s not going to look in that direction. You’ve got to look at that. “There’s a lot of variables to look at still. We’ve got all the information, except for what’s happening today. The good news is we’ve got time to look. We’re going to have to make a decision at some point.”
As teammate Kyle Busch continues to lead the points and is winning races on a regular basis, Stewart’s struggles have him sitting ninth in the standings.
The series is in a stretch of races where in the past Stewart has excelled, but unless he can shake the wrath of Lady Luck for the rest of the summer he is in danger of possibly missing the Chase for the second time in three years.
Worrying about where he’ll drive in 2009 most likely isn’t helping lower the stress level either.
But after the view he’s had from the No. 20 car he’s driven his entire Sprint Cup career this season, you wouldn’t blame Stewart for thinking a change of address might not be a bad thing.
Hookscenter.com wire report (Pistone).
Brewers activate Eric Gagne from disabled list - role unknown.
June 29, 2008
The Milwaukee Brewers activated right-hander Eric Gagne from the 15-day disabled list after Sunday’s game at Minnesota, but manager Ned Yost wasn’t ready to formally assign the former closer a role upon his return.
“Reliever,” was all Yost said.
With Salomon Torres 12-for-12 in save opportunities since taking over the ninth inning duty, though, Gagne is likely headed for a setup spot after missing more than a month because of rotator cuff tendinitis.
After signing a one-year contract with the Brewers for $10 million, Gagne lost the closer’s job briefly in mid-May before the injury arose. For the season, the 2003 NL Cy Young winner is 1-2 with an unsightly 6.98 ERA and 16 walks in 19 1/3 innings.
He has 10 saves, and five blown save chances.
“It’ll be good to get back on the mound,” Gagne said. “Ready to rock and roll.”
Right-hander Mark DeFelice was optioned to Triple-A Nashville to make room on the roster. DiFelice posted a 3.95 ERA in 10 appearances, striking out 16 without a walk over 13 2/3 innings.
“We like the fact that he can go down and start and get some innings,” Yost said. “We liked what he’s done here. He needs to work on his ability to get left-handers out.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Twins win series as they get best of staff ace Ben Sheets.
June 29, 2008
No more National League foes remain on the schedule for Kevin Slowey and the Minnesota Twins to master, unless they’re able to reach the World Series.
Half the season still remains, so Minnesota must prove for three more months its place as a legitimate playoff contender. If the Twins can capture the successful spirit of these last two weeks, though, they’ll be right there at the end.
Slowey breezed through his fourth straight dominant start, beating Ben Sheets and the Milwaukee Brewers with a three-hit shutout Sunday in a 5-0 victory by Minnesota that took only two hours and five minutes.
Delmon Young’s two-run homer and Carlos Gomez’s RBI triple highlighted an impressive rebound by the Twins against the previously surging Sheets (9-2), hours after their 10-game winning streak ended. They were held to just a pair of hits over seven innings against Milwaukee starter Manny Parra in a 5-1 loss Saturday night.
“You want to come back and prove to yourself we’re just as good as we were two days ago,” Slowey said.
Jason Kubel and Alexi Casilla also drove in runs for Minnesota, which finished a majors-best 14-4 in interleague play thanks to Slowey’s first career shutout — and second complete game.
The right-hander retired the first 10 batters he faced and struck out eight. The only trouble he had was a fourth-inning double by J.J. Hardy, who moved to third on a groundout by Ryan Braun. But Slowey (5-6) blew a fastball by Prince Fielder to end the threat, just as he did with nobody on for the second out of the seventh. He pumped his fist on the follow-through and returned to the mound to retire the last seven Brewers after a harmless single by Corey Hart.
“I’m still young and still learning stuff every outing,” Slowey said, adding: “It’s a culmination of a lot of at-bats and a lot of pitches and a lot of great plays behind you.”
In his last four appearances, Slowey has pitched 29 innings and allowed only three runs with two walks — none on Sunday — while winning three times. Continuing to mesh well with catcher Joe Mauer, Slowey threw fastballs on roughly 75 percent of his 109 pitches and didn’t leave any of them over the plate.
“He was just painting,” manager Ron Gardenhire said.
Minnesota’s minor league pitcher of the year in 2007, Slowey ran his scoreless innings streak to 16. The bullpen never stirred.
“No mistakes. Well, he might have made a few, but when he made them we didn’t get them,” Hart said.
The Twins ended the first two innings by hitting into double plays. Second baseman Rickie Weeks nimbly ran to his right to snag a sharp line drive by Mauer in the first and double off Casilla, who was moving with the pitch.
Against an ace like Sheets, wasting early chances is not the way to win. But it didn’t hurt them at all.
Kubel drove in Mauer after a two-out double in the fourth, and Brian Buscher started a rally in the fifth with a leadoff single. He eventually scored on Gomez’s drive down the left-field line that Braun didn’t play well when it bounced off the wall in the corner.
Then came the big blow by Young, who has only two homers this year, on a hanging curveball following a two-out walk to Kubel.
“Same one I rolled over on the double play,” Young said.
Sheets lost for the first time in eight starts.
“All in all, he threw OK,” Milwaukee manager Ned Yost said. “It never got out of hand. Like I said, he matched up against the wrong guy today.”
Coming off a complete-game victory at Atlanta, Sheets gave up five or more runs for only the second time this season. He’s solidly in the mix of early candidates for the NL Cy Young Award and could be named the starter for the All-Star game next month.
So he wasn’t exactly used to this.
“I thought I had way better stuff than that,” Sheets said. “I didn’t get away with any at all.”
The Twins haven’t had to get away with much lately. They’ll host improving Detroit for a three-game series Monday, the start of a difficult stretch that leads into the All-Star break.
Minnesota went 16-2 against the NL in 2006 on the way to the division title, but Gardenhire had no answers for his team’s record against the other league. Especially at home.
“They’re not really a National League team when they come here. They use a DH,” he said. “So they’re American League teams, and we just thumped ‘em. How about that?”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Kurt Busch wins rain shorten spring race at New Hampshire.
June 29, 2008
Former series champion Kurt Busch stayed on track when the leaders pitted late in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire and the strategy paid off with a win when the race was cut 17 laps short by rain.
It is the first victory for the Penske Racing driver since last August at Michigan International Speedway and it came on a day when two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart dominated, only to see his hard luck continue and his winless string increase to 31 races.
“These guys made an awesome call,” Busch said. “Sometimes you just don’t win ‘em the right way, I think we can honestly say that, but we had a lot of work and a lot of effort put in today and we’ll take it.”
Stewart, who led a race-high 132 laps on the 1.058-mile oval, held off a challenge from two-time reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson late in the 301-lap race and appeared on the way to his first victory since August at Watkins Glen, N.Y. But Stewart and most of the other drivers who had been racing at the front of the pack did not have enough gas to get to the end.
On Lap 271,Dale Earnhardt Jr., who had been in the top 10 all day, started toward pit road and was hit from behind by Jamie McMurray, who then spun into David Ragan, bringing out a caution.
Stewart and the rest of the front-runners pitted under the yellow flag, while Busch and seven other drivers who had pitted more recently than the leaders, stayed on track.
The race restarted on Lap 279, but there was another crash on Lap 280, with Clint Bowyer and rookie Sam Hornish Jr. crashing, then Juan Pablo Montoya slamming into series points leader Kyle Busch under the ensuing caution flag.
The rain that had been threatening for much of the afternoon began falling moments later and, moments after the cars were red-flagged onto pit lane just before completing Lap 285, NASCAR called the race, leaving Busch on top, ahead of Michael Waltrip, J.J. Yeley, Martin Truex Jr., Elliott Sadler, Reed Sorenson and Casey Mears, all of whom had stayed on track during the previous caution.
Within minutes after the race was official, the sky opened up and lightning began flashing around the speedway, emptying the stands in a hurry and forcing Busch to hold his victory celebration in the shelter of the garage area.
Stewart took a while getting out of his car and could hardly believe his fate.
“It’s just been the oddest year I’ve ever seen for this race team,” he said. “It’s just frustrating. There isn’t anybody that’s going to tell you any different than that. There’s nothing you can do. If there was something we could do about it we’d change it.
“It’s not because of lack of effort,” added Stewart, who took two tires on his final pit stop and finished 13th. “I’ve got some of the best guys in the garage area and I’ve had ‘em for 10 years. It’s the worst string of bad luck we’ve ever seen, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Busch, who has struggled this season, coming into the race 22nd in the points, wasn’t about to apologize for winning via the backdoor.
“We tried to stretch our fuel as far as we could and it worked for us today,” he said.
Crew chief Pat Tryson, who made the call to keep Busch on track, said, “We had a pretty good car all day. We topped off the fuel and were pretty close to make it to the end. We were hoping for some cautions, we got them and I told Kurt that we were going to stay on track and take a gamble. Today it worked and it got us a win.”
Busch’s younger brother wound up 25th on Sunday, while series runner-up Jeff Burton, who finished 12th, climbed from 103 points behind to just 64 heading into next Saturday night’s race at Daytona.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Manny Parra is sharp as Brewers stop Twins streak at 10.
June 29, 2008
The maturation of Manny Parra is happening faster than expected.
Parra allowed two hits in seven innings to win his sixth straight start and the Milwaukee Brewers beat Minnesota 5-1 on Saturday night to end the Twins’ 10-game winning streak.
Bill Hall had a two-run double and Ryan Braun and Corey Hart also had RBI for the Brewers, who have won nine of 12.
Jason Kubel hit a home run with two outs in the ninth for Minnesota.
“I think I’ve started to figure out that if you execute your pitches you’re going to get outs,” Parra said. “I don’t have to have my best stuff to do well, as long as I’m going out there and being aggressive.”
This time he did so against baseball’s hottest team.
Parra (8-2), who has seven wins in his last eight starts dating to May 20, kept Minnesota hitters off balance all night. He struck out six, but walked four. He has allowed 14 free passes in his last three starts, including a career-high six in his last outing.
“The fastball against the lefties I kept missing with, but I made some pitches with my offspeed against them to get them out,” he said. “Against the righties I basically used my fastball and split against them. I made some pitches when I had to. I don’t like how I fell behind in counts, but I’m working through that.”
Minnesota, which had just three runners advance to second base, grounded out 11 times against Parra, and did not hit the ball hard until the latter innings.
“You’re seeing a young major league pitcher evolve into a pretty good major league pitcher,” manager Ned Yost said. “He’s been at the top of our prospect list for a long time and now he’s gotten to the big leagues and is starting to feel comfortable and have some success.”
At Spring Training, Parra was among a quartet of pitchers fighting for two spots on the Brewers roster. After making the team he went 1-2 in his first seven starts, with no outing longer than 5 1/3 innings.
Jason Kendall has had the best view of Parra’s growth.
“He’s getting more confidence every time he goes out and knows he’s good,” the Milwaukee catcher said. “He’s not scared to go after guys. Behind in the count it’s like ‘Here it is,’ and let’s see what happens.”
David Riske pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning for Milwaukee and Mitch Stetter allowed Kubel’s home run in the ninth.
Livan Hernandez (8-5) lost for the first time in three starts. After a rocky start, he went seven innings, allowing four earned runs and seven hits, throwing a season-high 115 pitches. He struck out five and snared a liner off the bat of Prince Fielder.
“He ate up some innings and protected our bullpen a little. That’s huge after the fact. You don’t like to get behind like that, but he sucked it up out there and gave us a chance,” said manager Ron Gardenhire.
Milwaukee manufactured three runs on two hits in the third inning to go up 5-0.
A double by Hart scored one run, and after an intentional walk to Russell Branyan loaded the bases, Hall hit a first-pitch double of the right-field baggie to score two more.
Hernandez was visited by pitching coach Rick Anderson before walking Branyan. With former starter Boof Bonser warming up in the bullpen, Hernandez got Mike Cameron and Kendall to fly out with runners on second and third. Hernandez set down 14 of the next 16 Brewers.
Amid chants of “Let’s Go Brewers” from the thousands of fans making the trip across state lines, Braun had an RBI single in the first and Cameron scored on a ground out in the second for a 2-0 lead.
“We just have to go out and win the series tomorrow and go from there,” said Kubel, who homered for the second straight game and is tied with Justin Morneau for the team lead with 12. “You are not going to win every single game, so you just have to come back the next day and keep playing and keep doing what you were doing.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Tony Stewart wins fifth Nationwide race of 2008 in Loudon.
June 28, 2008
Tony Stewart isn’t running many races in the NASCAR Nationwide Series this series, so he’s making the ones he does drive in count.
The two-time Sprint Cup champion, who hasn’t been having much luck and has no wins in the top stock car series this season, drove away Saturday with his fifth victory in seven Nationwide starts in 2008.
Stewart got track position, restarting third after taking just two tires during his final pit stop on lap 129 of the 200-lap event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He took the lead on lap 136 from fellow Cup star Carl Edwards on lap 136 and led the rest of the way.
Teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch finished second and third.
The No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota that Stewart drove has won eight of 17 races this season, including all five by Stewart and one each by Hamlin, Busch and heralded rookie Joey Logano. Busch also has two wins in his No. 18 entry and another in the Braun Racing car already this season.
But this one was special for crew chief Dave Rogers, who grew up in Marshfield, Vt., about 125 miles from here.
It was Rogers who made the two-tire call that Stewart credited with putting him in position to win.
“I look up and they’re all coming,” Rogers said of the last pit stop for the leaders. “It was a parking lot and I knew if we got back in traffic, we would never make it to the front. This is a track position race.”
Stewart gave most of the credit for the victory, his seventh in the series formerly known as Busch, to Rogers, who started with the Gibbs team as an engineer on Stewart’s No. 20 Cup car.
“That last stop is what won the race for us,” Stewart said. “To get track position and be able to stay up front and not have to overdrive the car or abuse the tires was the key to the win.”
Stewart is the 22nd different winner in 22 Nationwide-Busch races on the 1.058-mile New Hampshire oval.
The race ended under caution after Greg Biffle, racing side-by-side with Brad Keselowski for 10th place, appeared to touch the track apron and lose control, sliding hard into the outside wall. Biffle wound up 19th.
Former series champions Kevin Harvick and Edwards finished fourth and fifth, followed by David Ragan, David Reutimann and Mike Bliss.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” Edwards said about the No. 20 car. “Those guys are doing a great job. There are ups and downs in this sport and, right now, they’re on the up side and we’ve just got to look at what they’re doing and emulate them and try to get them by the end of the season.”
Stewart, 11th in the Cup standings, and the rest of the Cup drivers will race on the same track Sunday in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Tony Stewart interested in vacated spot at Hendrick Motorsports.
June 28, 2008
Tony Stewart said Friday the new opening at Hendrick Motorsports could affect his decision about where he drives next season.Hendrick Motorsports announced that Casey Mears would not return in the No. 5 Chevrolet.
“There’s no one in the garage area that’s not going to look in that direction,” Stewart said. “You’ve got to look at it. Absolutely.”
Stewart has said he is exploring an ownership option to become the co-owner and a driver for Haas/CNC Racing. He was asked Friday when he might have a decision on his future.
“At this morning’s announcement [on the No. 5 car], I don’t know,” he said. “It may be pushed back even more. We’ll wait and see. It’s however long it takes to make the right decision.
“There’s a lot of variables to look at. We’ve got all the information except what happened today. The good news is we still have time to look at it.”
Stewart is under contract with Joe Gibbs Racing through the 2009 season. JGR officials have said they plan to hold Stewart to his contact obligations in the No. 20 Toyota.
Hendrick did not say who will drive the No. 5 Chevy next season, but ESPN.com reported Sunday Mark Martin will join the team and take over for Mears full time in one final attempt to win a Cup title.
Hookscenter.com wire report.
Tony Stewart eyes sponsorship deals with Haas CNC Racing.
June 28, 2008
Tony Stewart is shopping for car sponsorships in anticipation of a potential partnership with Haas CNC Racing, multiple sources told ESPN.com.
Although Stewart has a year left on his contract at Joe Gibbs Racing and JGR officials insist he hasn’t asked for a release, the two-time Sprint Cup champion appears prepared to share ownership of Haas Racing’s two-car team in 2009.
One source close to the situation said there have been discussions with Ryan Newman as the second driver. Newman has said he will not return to Penske Racing if the performance of that team doesn’t improve quickly.
Newman’s name definitely would help draw sponsorship to Haas.
“He’s talking to every major sponsor that is available out there for this Haas deal,” one source said of Stewart and his representatives. “I don’t know if it’s done, but it sounds like it’s very close.”
Office Depot and Old Spice have emerged as the favorites for at least one of the cars. Office Depot lost its bid to remain with Carl Edwards of Roush Fenway Racing when Aflac was chosen as the primary sponsor of the No. 99.
Sources said there have been discussions with Stewart’s representatives that would make Office Depot and Old Spice co-primaries with Office Depot as the lead sponsor. Old Spice already has a relationship with Stewart in the Cup and Nationwide Series.
Stewart would not address his future following Sunday’s race at Infineon Raceway.
JGR president J.D. Gibbs insisted Stewart had not closed the door on signing a long-term deal with the company that brought him to Cup racing in 1999 and helped him win titles in 2002 and 2005.
But there is widespread speculation that the reason JGR has rushed Joey Logano into the Nationwide Series is to prepare him to take Stewart’s place should Stewart leave.
Stewart admitted two months ago there had been inquiries from other teams. He acknowledged there had been talks with Haas CNC that included ownership.
Joe Custer, who is running Haas CNC while owner Gene Haas serves jail time for tax evasion, would not comment on where things stood.
“Nothing can happen until they let him out of his contract,” he said of JGR. “They hold all the cards. Go figure out what they are going to do. When he becomes available we want to talk to him.”
Custer said it was not appealing to have Stewart as a co-owner while still driving for JGR next season if the company holds him to his deal.
Both Haas cars, the No. 66 of Scott Riggs and the No. 70 that has been driven by multiple drivers, are outside the top 35 guaranteed a spot in the field each week. Riggs is 36th in owner points and the 70 is 44th.
Haas admitted a partner like Stewart could turn things around for a program that already has support from Hendrick Motorsports.
“It would be extremely helpful to have Tony Stewart or a franchise type player,” Custer said. “Those folks have an enormous impact on a team. Would it help us? Yes. It would help us significantly.”
Hookscenter.com wire report.