Dial it up, Irwin a contender at NHIS

By Marty Smith

NASCAR Online

LOUDON, N.H. (July 6, 2000)



Much to his chagrin, Kenny Irwin won't be in the same No. 42 Chevrolet that won last year at New Hampshire.

But it should.

When the topic was raised in 1999, no one threw Joe Nemechek's name out, yet he placed the No. 42 BellSouth Chevrolet in Victory Lane for the first time in his career. Irwin still seeks career win No. 1, and is now armed with a winning setup as the new pilot of Felix Sabates' No. 42 Chevy. Thus, by all means this could be the weekend the 1998 Raybestos Rookie of the Year hits the NASCAR Winston Cup Series jackpot.

"I think going back with the winning team give us a lot of confidence," Irwin said. "I think they have a good idea of what it's going to take to run good there and I think we'll be able to have some success there this year."

Success has been quite rare for Irwin in NASCAR 2000. He has just one top-10 during the first half of the year, a fourth-place run at Talladega Superspeedway. He is seemingly cursed with bad luck, having finished outside the top-20 in 13 of the 17 events thus far, including back-to-back DNFs at California Speedway and Richmond International Raceway.

"It hasn't been very good so far," Irwin said of his stay with Team SABCO. "We've had a few good runs at the superspeedways, but as a whole I don't feel we've been very competitive. I feel like we go to the racetrack each week thinking we're going to be more competitive, but our qualifying hasn't really been that good. But we keep learning stuff on the way we should do things.

"This new tire has really messed up a lot of people this year and it's really hurt us in trying to figure out how to make the car handle. I think we keep inching up on it, but we're not making the kind of leaps and bounds we hope to each week."

One might think the BellSouth Chevrolet team would make a huge improvement this weekend, what with taking the winning car back and all. Nope. Following Nemechek's victory last season he gave the ride to his former driver as a memento, much to Irwin's chagrin.

"It did (upset me), because I had already talked to Felix before they won that race and I knew I was going to SABCO, so after they won that race I made the comment, 'It's gonna be nice taking that car back there,'" Irwin said. "But (Tony) Glover says, 'Well buddy, Felix gave that car to Joe.' I wasn't too happy about that one. I'm a little disappointed that we're not taking that same car, but we're taking a real good car up there, a brand new car, so we should be just fine."

Despite the well-documented struggles of his first two NASCAR Winston Cup Series seasons with Robert Yates Racing, Irwin's future looks extremely bright, as champion CART owner Chip Ganassi has entered the fold, buying the majority of Team SABCO from Sabates. Although Ganassi has limited stock car experience, he has won four consecutive CART titles, and thus brings with him a winning attitude and the knowledge of how to piece together a championship organization.

"He's buying the majority, so he can run this team how he thinks it needs to be run and it'll be different than what Felix has done," Irwin said. "He hasn't sat down with me and said we're gonna do this and this, but we have sat down and talked about me driving the car next year, and that's what I'm going to do.

"As far as how he runs a race team, nobody has really asked him how he does it. He'll use the same pattern he used in the CART series, and that's just getting good people surrounding him. He brought in Andy Graves and Andy has brought in some people, so I don't think you'll see a big change this year people-wise, they're just gonna add a lot for the 2001 season.

"What's happening with Ganassi is going to be a real positive thing to the 40 and the 42, so everybody right now is very excited about the future and what he's bringing to the table. I'm sure he uses a philosophy (on how to win). I can't wait to start figuring that out, because I really need to get back on that track."

By all means, this could be the weekend he does just that.