The team, which ran one car for American driver Ryan Hunter-Reay last season and won the race last July at Watkins Glen, will continue to seek sponsorship. RLR will concentrate on its sports car alliance with BMW in the American Le Mans Series.
RLR is co-owned by talk-show host David Letterman.
Patrick left the team after the 2006 season and now races for a team co-owned by Michael Andretti.
“Making changes at this point would likely cause teams to have to further make adjustments to their adjustments and that’s not productive.”
NASCAR’s research and development division began planning and designing the bigger, bulkier CoT shortly after the sport’s biggest star, Dale Earnhardt, died in a crash during the 2001 Daytona 500.
It first competed at Bristol in March 2007 and was used in 16 races that season before running all the races this year — a year earlier than originally planned.
(More in ‘Tomorrow has arrived: No changes planned in 2009 for NASCAR vehicle’…)
“I’ve been building vehicles since I was 6 with my dad,” said Wilkie, a sophomore at Ypsilanti Lincoln. “I’ve been coming to races here a couple of times, but this is my first time competing. … What an adrenaline rush. It was a thrill to go down that strip like that.”
Drivers competed in different divisions, based on their average speed during practice runs. Wilkie had a run of 16.8 seconds, running at more than 81 mph.
Castroneves led a race-high 35 laps and appeared to have the best car in the 27-car field most of the day. But Dixon, who had been running third behind Penske Racing teammates Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, got past both of them during a pit stop under caution on lap 51.
Several other drivers, on different strategies, stayed out and were ahead at that point, but Dixon eventually inherited the lead when Tony Kanaan pitted on lap 62.
“It’s not a novelty anymore,” Johnson said. “Shirley (three-time Top Fuel champion Muldowney) blazed the way for them, and our sport is now one of the easiest for women to get involved with.
“I don’t let my guard down against them. The women in our sport are there because they belong.”
Force and Will grew up in California. They attended Frank Hawley Drag Racing School, Will in Florida and Force in California.
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Because he’s switching to a backup car, he must drop to the rear of the field at the start of Sunday’s race.
“It’s just part of racing,” crew chief Steve Addington said. “The car got a little bit loose off, and then he tried to just turn down pit road and spun out and tore the front end up on the car. It’s no big deal. These guys will dig in, and we’ll have a good car for the race.”
Once the backup was race-ready, Busch took it out on the track and posted the 16th-fastest speed of the final practice session.
(More in ‘Cup points leader Kyle Busch wrecks car in practice, turns to backup vehicle’…)
Franchitti wrecked when his car apparently lost its right rear tire on the 10th lap of the Nationwide Series race.
His Dodge bounced into the wall and spun down the track, finally drifting down to the apron. It was there that the real damage was done — a car driven by Larry Gunselman slammed into his driver side door.
Franchitti had to be helped from his car and toward an ambulance.
As he got out of the crumbled car, McDowell waved to the crowd indicating that he was OK.
“I feel great, nothing broke,” McDowell said. “I didn’t lose consciousness. I felt every roll down the hill.”
McDowell said he had “few little bumps and bruises” but was fine other than that.
While McDowell said he didn’t know what happened, he said something “didn’t quite feel right” on the car when he came out of fourth turn on the first lap.
Dixon, the New Zealand driver who lost the IRL IndyCar Series championship to Dario Franchitti when he ran out of fuel on the last lap of the 2007 season, got off to a great start with the victory in the Gainsco Indy 300.
But it didn’t look like his race to win.
Kanaan came out of the last round of green flag pit stops in the lead and appeared well on the way to a victory until Ernesto Viso, a rookie driving for one of the former Champ Car teams that just joined the IRL, punctured a tire and spun on the 193rd of 200 laps.
Griffin said details will be forthcoming in a news conference next week.