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NASCAR Notes, Last Week of June

30 June 1997

MAY 28th 1997 -- As has been reported, Mike Wallace lost his ride with Joe Falk and the #91 Spam team. The separation, described as 'mutual' by a team spokesman, was performance related. A team spokesman was quoted as saying, "When you miss eight races you've got to make some changes."

Who's going to replace Mike Wallace in the Spam ride? Short term, Loy Allen Jr. will for for the Firecracker 400 as a one race deal. The team, as of yesterday, had no idea who was going in the car long term or at least if they did they weren't talking.

The #91 team has been tapping the resources of Richard Childress Racing for chassis help and will be running a RCR 'plate' motor in the upcoming superspeedway event at Daytona.

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Roby Gordon, the colorful rookie driver for team Sabco, who was injured at the new California Speedway last week during practice, will be ready to go for next weeks Daytona event according to team spokesman Jon Sands.

It was further noted that Greg Sacks, seemingly regular backup driver for Gordon, will not be on standby at Daytona for Sabco.

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Which way will the Wind Blow? We sure don't know but according to sources, the next generation Ford to be used in NASCAR racing spent the last week in the wind tunnel.

When Ford representatives were asked for details of the tests the answer was a consistent, "no comment". Further, when asked if the replacement car will in fact be the Taurus, more chants of "no comment" were issued.

As you may well guess, the information flow from Ford surrounding the next generation car is a closely guarded secret and no one will talk on the record regarding this car. Reports are that the Ford teams are more than anxious to see what they will have to work with next year but they, like us, will have to wait till an official announcement comes from Ford SVO.

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Dale Shaw, who darned near got his first Busch series win at South Boston several weeks back (Shaw finished second to series points leader Randy LaJoie by a fender), has been named the driver of record for the #4 James Finch owned Monte Carlo starting with the Milwaukee race next week.

Shaw will take over the #4 Busch series car for the remainder of the '97 Busch series schedule after this weekends event at Watkins Glen International road course. Finch put road course veteran Dave Fellows in the car for WGI event.

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So that's what a Top Flight PR Firm is worth?

As had been reported, Featherlite Manufacturing has signed a letter of intent to purchase the PR firm of Camp & Associates. The deal that is reported to be worth $200K in cash and up to 200,000 shares of stock will be completed in about thirty days. Issues such as 'due diligence and negotiation of a definitive agreement' are the items that make the sale 'pending' but all indications are that it is a done deal.

Featherlite makes trailers and up-scale motor coaches while Larry Camp owner of Camp & Associates, can name Bobby Labonte and Shell Oil's BGN racing operations as major clients.

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We reported, from Richmond International Raceway, that Exide as a sponsor, got its first ever victory with Jeff Burton and the #99 Roush Racing Ford in the Interstate Batteries 500 run at Texas Motor Speedway. This of course was in error as Geoff Bodine got Exide its first wins in the '94 season.

In fact the Bodine/Exide team records for the '94 season are 3 wins and 5 poles on the year.... oh and that little race they run in May at Charlotte... The Winston Select.

Geoff Bodine not only won the '94 edition of the Tyson Holly Farms 400, run at now defunct North Wilkesboro speedway, he stomped face as he was the only driver on the lead lap at the checkers. A quick scan of my 'records' indicate that he was the last driver in Winston Cup to finish a race on a lap by himself.

Mike Snow -- The Auto Channel