RSS-PostsNASCAR ok’s Penske to swap owners points between Busch, Hornish
NASCAR has approved Penske Racing’s request to transfer the owner points from Kurt Busch to Sam Hornish Jr., a move that locks the three-time IndyCar Series champion into the first five races of next season.
Hornish publicly thanked Busch for giving him the points at the Penske holiday party on Friday night. Bud Denker, senior vice president of Penske Corp., confirmed Saturday that the team would swap the points with NASCAR’s approval.
Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, said the sanctioning body had signed off on the transfer.
“This would obviously help Sam as he prepares to run the first five races instead of prepares to qualify for the first five races,” Denker said. “With a champion like Kurt Busch and the opportunity to utilize (the points), anyone would be foolish to not take care of the situation.”
Hornish, a former Indianapolis 500 winner, is leaving that series for NASCAR next season. But his No. 77 Dodge won’t be one of the 35 cars locked into the first five races of the year. As the 2004 series champion, Busch has a provisional position that he could fall back on should he fail to qualify on speed.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Hey Mike
Like the new site. Sorry it took me so long to switch it over…. things have been nuts around here.
Yeah… I talked to my brother on Friday…he lives in Spring Lake near Grand Haven and he told me about your storm… we got hit yesterday here with about 8.
Happy Holiday’s to you and Your’s. Hope the new baby is doing fantastic
December 17th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I was guessing we had 6.5. The news confirmed last night saying we ahd between 6 to 7.5 in some areas.
Thanks for dropping by.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Nice site. It took me a while to get the link changed on my site, but that’s done now.
I’m putting the digest idea on hold for now, but I want to encourage all members of the NASCAR Bloggers Full Throttle group to register at Technorati.com to claim their blog there, if you haven’t already done so. This should help increase traffic for every one in the group, especially if we “favorite” each others’ blogs.
Now that I have that out of the way, what are your feelings on the points exchange? I don’t care for the top 35 provisionals, myself, but since it’s there, might as well take advantage of it. The only thing is, there is neither any guarantee that Hornish will stay in the top 35, nor is there one that Kurt Busch will not have problems during the first five races that could keep him out of the top 35. I’m not being negative, just pointing out that the plan could backfire.
Thank you for letting me ramble.
December 17th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Hey RevJim,
WOW, I guess your right. I have not put my 2 cents in on this yet.
I think it is wrong. I think Penske did a great job of finding a way to do it, but I don’t think it should be allowed to happen.
I also wonder/worry what Penske is going to do that could hurt Ryan Newman. More resources to Hornish? More money? I hope that is not the case…but….who knows.
I also agree with you. I am not for the top 35. And your right, there are no guarantees for either of them!