Q: how many people have they had drive the dlp car in the past few years? tony raines, ron fellows, jj yeley, pj jones, brad coleman, and now kenny schrader for bristol? they've had more people go through that car than the 70 team has - ok, maybe not that many. but still, a lot. do you think hall-of-fame racing would just be better off renting out the car and team from week to week for other teams to put drivers in to get them ready for cup racing? gibbs could put logano in it to get him some cup time before next year, and it would work out well as its a toyota. and i'm sure for the right amount of money, hendrick could put keselowski and/or cassill in it every now and then to get them some cup experience as well - they might have to put their number on a chevy for that, but hey, it's an idea. and heck, none of them could do much worse than the others the owners keep putting in there. before you know it, they might actually break the top 35. so, should they rent the team out to other owners to use as a "test/development" machine? if not, who should they put in it that might actually stand a chance of lasting a whole year? oops, forgot the news link: http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/headlines/cup/08/19/kschrader.96.car.bristol/index.html
A: That's a good idea, but for one problem. I don't think that the car runs well enough for any of the bigger teams to bother paying to put a driver in. Why would Hendrick put money into getting Brad or Landon into a very under-performing car. In order to bump up the performance,teams would have to give scuds of help and personnel to the team for the week their driver was in the car. And once you were done, you couldn't take the technology back with you, so the next guy gets the fruit of your labor. It would be interesting to have a team for hire roaming the garage. Say some guy in the Nationwide series is tired of waiting to get a shot, and wants to front his own money for some seat time in the Big Show. I just don't see it for drivers that are already associated with a good team.