Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jim on May 27, 2011 at 11:09am

and Front Row Joe's "plans" are different than RG's. Joe has only completed 403 laps this year in 11 races. Thats only 11%, and a finishing average of 41.2, but has brought in a little over a million in race winnings. Can we say his intentions are to start and park?

Whats sad is that RG has completed 76.9% and basically brought in the same amount of money in 10 races.

I would imagine that RG would have taken it easy yesterday in practice and qualifying becuase at that time he didn't have a back up car. Wimmer was driving it!.

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Permalink Reply by TOG on May 27, 2011 at 11:11am

Enjoy the race this weekend....Then next weekend is baja....never dull, fo sho..

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Permalink Reply by dastexan on May 27, 2011 at 4:54pm

I would hope that RGM would have more than 2 intermediate track cars in their inventory.


Its not like the shop wasnt down the road....



But on another note, the purse structure in NASCAR Is beyond retarded.

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Hewitt on May 27, 2011 at 5:55pm

@Jim - But while making the same amount of money,it is more than evened out with the PR Speed Energy is getting from every track and every clip of his car shown on TV.

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Permalink Reply by Jim on May 27, 2011 at 7:19pm

exactly, But the question I was answering was how does Joe out qualify RG every week. Joe's "Plan" is not even trying to RACE each race, but to get the car into the show. When other teams are running in race trim, Joe is in qualifying trim....why not.....He doesn't run more than one gas run at a single race. The sad thing is when you look at the winnings so far this year, you don't see much difference from a S & P team and one trying to RACE races but having bad luck.

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Permalink Reply by Bigzoom on May 27, 2011 at 6:29pm

"START & PARK" as requested by Nascar

Being a fan of Robby Gordon is never boring. I've been introduced to off road racing (which I never saw one minute of before becoming a Robby fan), Indy racing (saw my first race when Robby drove his Cingular car), and other forms of racing outside the Nascar series. I've also learned that with Robby Gordon it's not always what he says, but what he does that keeps us interested. Watching Robby is like watching a crew build an airplane as it runs down the runway, you just have a feeling it's about to take off!

Many fans of Robby get frustrated because they know he's one of the better drivers...in ANY series. Very few racers are good at anything they drive. Robby is that good...and his fans are that passionate. Check other driver sites, none compare to the followers for Robby Gordon. As a fan, I wanted to look deeper into the "Start & Park" concept. You hear some drivers shake their head in disgust and some smile as it provides a living. Seraching for information I found "Start & Park" actually came to existence per Nascar's request. In 2009 at Fontana, Nascar didn't have enough teams to entered to have a full field. So Nascar called some teams and suggested they qualify, park & get paid.

“The deal NASCAR has with television, if there’s 42 cars [at the track] they’ll go out and tell somebody pull out your backup car, find a driver,” an anonymous pit crew member told Frontstretch. According to the team, who is being kept anonymous to allow them to keep their place in NASCAR, the sanctioning body loses television money if they show up to the race track without 43 cars capable of making the starting lineup.

“They won’t lose that bonus money for having a full field,” the pit crew member continued. “They don’t care if they have to put decals on their pace car and get it out there for a lap.” He added, “NASCAR came to me and said they wanted more cars, they wanted to park,” said the owner/driver. “[So] we were going to go out there [Fontana] and do a start and park…for NASCAR.”

“At the end of the day, all these teams are trying to do is make a profit. They don’t have the money to race weekly, so what they try and do is try and generate money by running awhile and then having enough money to race. It’s a business.”

James Finch added, “I made more money per lap for running four laps at Bristol than Kurt Busch got from winning,” said Finch, who in the same interview said he would continue running the Cup circuit as long as it remained profitable.

Front Row Motorsports runs three teams out of pocket with limited sponsorship. For them, better to have two teams start & park to fund his flag ship. Later, those entries turned into full race attempts due to companies taking notice and the value of being inside the Top 35. "Being inside the Top 35 allows opportunites to come along that can benefit the whole company. Having all three teams inside the Top 35 puts us in a very attractive position, but our plan works if the other two fall out." (Makes me wonder why RGM doesn't consider running 2 team sor even all three SPEED flavors at the big purse races).

It's still tough for drivers to agree to Start & Park, after a race Michael McDowell posted on Twitter, “They get mad at me when I tell them ‘I was going down the straight away and the funding fell off.’”

I'm sure drivers like Scott Wimmer are glad to get a paycheck, and car owners like Robby Gordon are glad to pay their employees. Wheter you like Start & Park or not, it's part of racing at Nascar's request.

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Permalink Reply by Bricoop on May 27, 2011 at 6:38pm

Wtf is that about, that was a great read...Thank you Zoom!

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Permalink Reply by ROBERT SAVAGE on May 27, 2011 at 6:53pm

That was that rick guy keith Stone he's the guy with the smooth beer.

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Permalink Reply by J.R. Sands on May 27, 2011 at 8:05pm

The first paragraph was perfect...after that, well I am just going to say "Big Picture". We are just along for the ride. Enjoy it......

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Permalink Reply by Karen on May 27, 2011 at 10:15pm

I have not watched Robby race as long as many of you have, but from watching him the past few years I think he does do best on the road courses and plate tracks in NASCAR. I've seen him do well on some of the mile and a half tracks, but not consistently so. I do think he is very talented and does well when he is focused and has good equipment.

This year has been particularly hard to watch for this Robby fan because of the awful showings in off road (have they all been DNFs so far?) and the disappointingly sluggish, though very handsome, cup cars. As I was watching qualifying I thought that if you are brazen enough to bring a neon pink car to the track it should only be if it is a really fast one; running up front with a car like this makes it very cool while being at the back of the pack will make it more of a joke. While any exposure can be beneficial, over time it won't do Speed Energy much good to sponsor slow cars. While Robby is working his backside off and deserves much kudos for his successes in getting Speed Energy out in the market so quickly, he needs to give some serious thought to how he brands it with his racing endeavors. The investment required to put a hot commodity in a Speed Energy sponsored car would be paid for many times over with more exposure and hopefully better finishes.

But, we don't own RGM or Speed Energy, so what we think is not relevant. Robby, above all, needs to be true to himself - it's his life and business and if he is doing what makes him happy, we just need to sit back and support him in his efforts. That is what I plan to do.

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Permalink Reply by WestCoast 2 VV on May 27, 2011 at 10:31pm

Well said Karen...his Off-Road program should be top-notch..has the equipment & resources but the luck is not there. Equipment failure seems to be the issue as of late. Robby caught my eye when he formed his own race team in NASCAR cause I like rootin' for the underdog. Now he's my favorite no matter what...just want to see him continue his quest in the Cup Series. Without him I don't think I would watch with the same passion as I had since the late D. Earnhardt. I guess RoadCourses & SuperSpeedways highlight my NASCAR season.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Richards on May 27, 2011 at 11:48pm

RG knows what he's doing....

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