Under the Gun
Buckshot got reloaded, Tony Furr heads down the highway, remembering the demon, the restrictor plate fiasco, and the Aarons 499 from Talladega Superspeedway.
Buckshot Gets Reloaded........
Petty Enterprises announced on Wednesday, April 17th, that they had let Buckshot Jones go. This was Buckshot's second season with Petty, driving the No. 44 Georgia Pacific Dodge. It isn't any surprise to see Buckshot hitting the road, his performance with Petty has been what one could call "less than stellar."
Jones qualified for 30 races last season for Petty, and doesn't have any top fives or top tens to his credit. What he does have to his credit are a lot of torn up race cars. Poor Buckshot has had a penchant for bouncing off of the wall. It seems like nearly every race, he somehow ends up connecting with the fence. Actually, Jones has one top ten finish to his credit in his Winston Cup career of 52 starts. His best Cup finish on record is an eighth placing in the MBNA Platinum 400 at Dover in 1998. He only entered five Cup races that season, and I don't have any idea who he was driving for.
Immediately replacing Jones for this week's race at Talladega is Steve Grissom, who has reportedly been working with Petty Enterprises this past year in racecar development. When it comes right down to setting the race track on fire, Grissom also leaves a lot to be desired. To his credit, in a 130 starts he does have 5 top five and 17 top ten finishes in Winston Cup. Grissom drove the No. 41 Kodiak car for Larry Hedrick Racing, until Hedrick lost the Kodiak sponsorship after the Richmond, Virginia race in September of 1998.
Good Riddance to Furr........
Hendrick Motorsports announced last week that Tony Furr was leaving their organization as crew chief on the No. 25 Chevrolet. Furr was sidelined in 2001 after the Daytona 500. NASCAR suspended him for five races because of a system he had designed to make the car lower during the race by having a part fall off the car onto the racetrack. It is one thing to cheat with illegal schemes and tricks to benefit your driver, but designing metal parts to fall onto the track during a race is downright dangerous. Metal parts on a racetrack can easily cause a tire blowout which can result in deadly consequences at the high speeds attained by a racecar. The 2001 Daytona incident wasn't the first and only time Furr had fallen at odds with NASCAR officials for illegal trickery.
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