16A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
THURSDAY,MAY9,2002
Wood Brothers struggle in today's NASCAR
The Associated Press
RICHMOND, Va. — Sitting in a hauler at Richmond International Raceway, Eddie Wood was asked about the future of his team. The answer came quickly and seemed to surprise even him.
"I hope we are sitting here a year from now," he said.
More than 50 years after Glen Wood started the Wood Brothers Racing team, the organization that's won 97 races and is among the pioneers of stock car racing is being threatened by the sport's enormous growth.
Elliott Sadler, a promising 27-year-old driver in his fourth season in the Woods' famed No. 21 Ford, wants out his contract, reportedly to take big money elsewhere.
through past crises.
But Eddie Wood and brother Len said they'll keep Sadler in their car for the rest of the season, and they will survive, as they have
"We've had so many ends of the world, but then it always works out," Eddie Wood said, recalling when Dale Jarrett and others made plans to leave the team at season's end.
Sadler last week accepted blame for the team's struggles, saying he felt he had let the Woods down and suggesting a change would be best for him and the team.
Eddie Wood said while he'd heard rumors about Sadler being pursued and wasn't totally blind-sided, he's not ready to find someone new.
"We don't even know who we need to talk to. We weren't looking for a driver, and if you're not looking for a driver, you don't know what's out there because you don't care. Now, we're paying attention," he said.
In an age when one-car teams are having a tough time surviving, the Wood brothers have
experienced something of a revival, despite their troubles. Teaming up with Jack Roush for engines and other assistance has helped, and Sadler's lone victory ended a nine-year drought in 2000.
The Woods also are widely respected in the Winston Cup garage.
"This sport, unfortunately, is being driven by money," said Ricky Rudd, the last of the highly successful single-car teams who finally shut down his operation and joined Robert Yates Racing for the 2000 season.
"If the Wood brothers had some of the sponsorship dollars some of these other teams have, they'd probably win 10 races a year. They can operate a race team a lot cheaper than most people can because they know so much about their cars and they make a lot of their own stuff.
Teams return to CART racing
"They're fighting that battle as many car owners are doing."
The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — The billboard across the street from the speedway looks like a greeting for a long-lost friend: "Look who's back in town."
Then you see the photo of team owner Bobby Rahal and driver Jimmy Vasser.
To Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 champion, there could be no simpler message: If it's May, he belongs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
"It was disappointing not to be here," Rahal said after arriving at the track this week. "We had some races in May, so it wasn't like we were sitting around doing nothing. Certainly, though, I think we should have been here."
Rahal insists he always believed that,
even when his CART team left Indianapolis after the Indy Racing League formed in 1996.
Rahal was one of Tony George's most vehement critics after George's decision to split open-wheel racing into two circuits, CART and the IRL.
He said at the time that the IRL was more interested in "going its own way" and that the track's tradition "had gone away" because of the split.
That started a feud with IRL队 owner A.J. Foyt, who questioned the decision of CART owners to stay away from Indianapolis.
"They're forgetting where they came from and what made their name," Foyt said then.
Time is healing the wounds.
Rahal is the most recent addition to a
growing list of CART teams that have returned to Indianapolis.
Chip Ganassi broke the ice in 2000 when he won the race with Juan Pablo Montoya. Last year Team Green and Roger Penske returned, with Penske driver Helio Castronews winning. This year, seven CART drivers will try to make the May 26 race.
And after a six-year absence, Rahal has gotten enough money from his primary sponsor, Miller beer, to put his first car as a full-time owner on the Indianapolis track.
"There's an excitement, a certain challenge about" being back, Rahal said. "It's certainly changed around here from the last time I drove here."
third-place finish was the last in a string of successes. He had seven top 10 finishes in 13 Indy starts, including the '86 victory, a runner-up finish in 1990 and another third-place finish in 1994.
His final race here came in 1995 and his
As much as Rahal enjoys being back, though, he remains adamant the split was unnecessary and the addition of two other races — the Brickyard 400 and the U.S. Grand Prix—have tarnished the Indianapolis 500.
"I'm a purist, a romantic," Rahal said. "I felt the split was bad and I thought it was wrong to bring a stock car race to the track.
"I'm always galled when I hear everyone in NASCAR say it's America's race. If anything is America's race, it's the Indy 500."
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