Greg Biffle’s contract extension with Roush Fenway Racing is nearly complete, and the team is working on extensions for David Ragan and Carl Edwards.

 

Using Biffle’s words from earlier in the week, Roush Fenway Racing President Geoff Smith said that the contract with Biffle is 90
percent along.

 

He said the fact that Biffle is running second in points has not accelerated the deal.

 

“We wanted to get it done over the winter,” Smith said Sunday at Martinsville Speedway. “We like to get them done so they don’t become a distraction of the team in terms of the race season.”

 

The contracts for Edwards and Ragan, as well as those with the companies sponsoring their cars, end after the season is over. Smith indicated that the team would like to sign the sponsor and driver at the same time. He said the team also is working with a sponsor to finalize the Biffle deal.

 

“For us, there’s a money equation that has to be met,” Smith said. “The sponsor has to pay [a certain amount] in order for us to pay the driver and so forth. We close all of that out at the same time.”

 

Smith doesn’t anticipate having trouble finding sponsorship for Edwards. His organization currently is looking for sponsorship for the two Yates Racing cars.

 

“It’s pretty early,” Smith said about the sponsor search. “Carl Edwards, even in this down economy, he’s the hottest property in the garage. We’ve got all the sponsorship we can handle for him.

 

“David, and Travis [Kvapil] and David Gilliland, they’re all in the mix. We’re hoping the economic climate improves here shortly and typically May and June are big months for significant prospects to come forward for us. We’re about to find out if that’s true.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Max Helton, who 20 years ago helped begin a Christian ministry in the NASCAR garage that grew into the Motor Racing Outreach organization, died Sunday afternoon at his home in Huntersville, N.C

 

Mr. Helton was diagnosed with brain cancer in August. He is survived by his wife, Jean, along with four daughters and nine grandchildren.

 

Funeral arrangements had not been finalized Sunday night.

 

Mr. Helton was working at a church in Glendora, Calif., in 1988 when he met Darrell and Stevie Waltrip at a race in Riverside, Calif. Helton told the Waltrips that he felt he was being called to lead a racing ministry. The Waltrips, along with Lake Speed and Bobby Hillin Jr. and their wives, were looking for a spiritual leader for a Bible study group they had formed.

 

Within a year, Mr. Helton had moved his family to North Carolina to begin MRO, which conducts chapel services at the track each weekend and also provides counseling and support services to people in racing. Helton led Bible study and counseling sessions at dozens of NASCAR drivers' homes and race team shops before leaving the organization in 2002.

 

Since then, Mr. Helton had formed World-Span, an organization to serve the spiritual needs of racing series around the world. Before his illness, Mr. Helton traveled extensively, helping spread his message of “personal evangelism” and teaching others to serve as spiritual leaders and teachers.

 

“A lot of lives and a lot of things have changed in our sport because of Max.Helton,” Darrell Waltrip said.

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

Petty Enterprises is close to signing investors in the family owned team that would secure its future in NASCAR.

 

According to a report by Yahoo! Sports the Petty’s are in the final stages of negotiations with a group called Medallion Financial, based in New York City.

 

According to the “King” Richard Petty he is confident a deal with a group that he will not disclose could be finalized in the next 90 days.

 

The deal when finalized would be a partnership between Petty Ent. and Medallion Financial and not a sponsorship deal. It would make Petty Ent. a publicly traded company with shares being sold in hopes of growing the Petty brand.

 

Going public also means the team will be opening its books to public scrutiny, thus revealing the wherewithal of a NASCAR Sprint Cup team.

 

Confidentiality has been the hallmark of team ownership, as team owners prefer to be accountable to no one, except their sponsors, as to how they spend their money.

 

The idea of a NASCAR team being traded publicly has drawn a mixed reaction, "I don't care if anybody knows how much I make," Tony Stewart said. "It's not really anybody else's business. I feel we earn what we get here, especially the crew guys. They're the ones that probably don't get what they deserve out of the whole deal.”

 

When the deal is finalized it would not be the first such merger in NASCAR as the price of running a race team keeps going up. Recent Mergers include Ray Evernham and George Gillette forming Gillette Evernham Motorsports or Jack Roush and Boston Red Sox owner John Henry forming Roush Fenway racing.

 

Other mergers have also been done in the past and many more are expected to be done in the future. SCR

Matthew Blaylock

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martinsville, VA – Denny Hamlin battled the weather and a barrage of Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) cars to take the win in his home state of Virginia at the Martinsville Speedway Sunday.

 

With three of the HMS cars (Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson) leading most of the laps all day, Hamlin passed Jeff Burton late to take the win.

 

Gordon also was able to pass Burton in the closing laps to take second as Burton finished third. Jimmie Johnson had only his second top 10 finish of the season as he came home fourth and Tony Stewart rounded out the top five.

 

The other two HMS cars also finished in the top 10, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished sixth and his teammate Casey Mears rolled across the start/finish line seventh. Jamie McMurray guaranteed himself a starting spot next weekend at Texas with his eighth place finish and he was followed by his Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards in ninth, Edwards ran out of fuel coming to the checkers while running third and fell to ninth. Clint Bowyer rounded out the top 10.

 

The win was the second for Toyota in the Sprint Cup Series and the fourth overall for Hamlin in his career and his first in his home state of Virginia. SCR

Matthew Blaylock

Photo: James S. Langley

 

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