75 things for NASCAR’s 75th anniversary: Weirdest announcements
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
We are closing in on the final handful of weeks of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, the stock car series’ 75th anniversary campaign. To celebrate, each week through the end of the season, Ryan McGee is presenting his favorite top five things about the sport.
The five best-looking cars? Check. The five toughest drivers? We’ve got it. Top five mustaches? There can be only one, so maybe not.
Without further ado, our 75 favorite things about NASCAR, celebrating 75 years of stock car racing.
Previous installments: Toughest drivers | Greatest races | Best title fights | Best-looking cars | Worst-looking cars | Biggest cheaters | Biggest what-ifs | Weirdest racetracks | Best racetracks | Biggest scandals
Five weirdest announcements
Among the many nuggets of wit and wisdom that my late friend and NASCAR Hall of Fame media member Steve Byrnes dropped on me over the years, one stood out when we were working together for Fox Sports during the NASCAR boom days of the early 2000s and were watching a celebrity announce that they were starting a race team — the umpteenth celebrity to make the umpteenth announcement that they were doing so.
“Here’s what we’re going to do, McGee,” he said to me. “We’re going to get someone to draw a fancy picture of a funky paint scheme, schedule a press conference and announce we’re starting BM Motorsports. And then we’ll never run a race. But we announced it, so that means we own a race team.”
Byrnes and I both knew the team whose introduction we were watching would never see a racetrack. Why? Experience. We’d been to so many news conferences announcing new racing organizations, and so few ever managed to turn a wheel in anger.
So pick up a press kit, a decal of a new splashy logo and be sure to grab a media gift on your way out as we present our top five weirdest NASCAR announcements.
Honorable Mention: Friday, Sept. 3, 1999, at Darlington Raceway
In fairness, everything that was announced on this day in the Darlington Raceway media center actually happened, but the sheer volume and importance of each announcement was so overwhelming that even now, 24 years later, I can’t believe it all took place on the same day.
Richard Petty announced that after 27 years, STP would no longer by the primary sponsor of his famous No. 43 car. A.J. Foyt announced that he was starting a NASCAR Cup Series team. Ernie Irvan announced his retirement. All on the same day in the same room.
Meanwhile, this was the first race after Dale Earnhardt had wrecked Terry Labonte to win the Bristol Night Race, but none of us could leave the media room and go into the garage to check on them. As another Hall of Fame media member, Steve Waid, said to me: “Terry Labonte could be out there beating Earnhardt in the head with a tire iron and none of us would have any damn clue because we’re all stuck in here!”
5. Wayans Brothers Racing
In 2005 at the Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, the four Wayans brothers — Marlon, Keenan Ivory, Damon and Shawn — announced the formation of Star Motorsports, formed in conjunction with Carolina Panthers wide receiver Steve Smith, set to take the green flag in the Cup Series the following season. That never happened, although they did field one entry in the Busch (now Xfinity) Series, finishing seventh at Mexico City with Jorge Goeters.
The comedy minds behind “In Living Color,” “Major Payne” and “Scary Movie” need not feel bad, though. The list of celebrities who announced teams that never saw the light of day is long and illustrious, from Jim Brown and Alice Cooper to Hank Aaron and Jackie-Joyner Kersee.
4. Pittsburgh’s Indoor Speedway
Perhaps the only list longer than those who announced NASCAR teams that never happened is that of the would-be track owners who announced racetracks that never materialized, from the “Dale Jr. Signature” facility in Mobile, Alabama, to would-be International Speedway Corporation ovals in Seattle, Denver and countless defunct projects in and around New York.
The most bizarre announcement during this time came in November 1999, though, when a bunch of us were flown to Pittsburgh, where a pair of West Virginia-born brothers, Bob and Ted Brant, presented their idea of a one-mile oval … inside of a 2.6 million-square-foot dome, the equivalent of more than 45 football fields, all surrounded by a 120,000-seat grandstand, built on 145 acres adjacent to the Pittsburgh International Airport at a privately funded cost of around $300 million.
NASCAR Hall of Famer Cale Yarborough was there (never one to pass up a nice appearance paycheck) and said he totally thought it would work. When asked about stuff like noise levels indoors and carbon monoxide poisoning, the affable Brant brothers politely laughed and then basically admitted they hadn’t really worked all of that out yet. Nor, it would appear, had they worked out any of the rest of it, either.
3. TRAC
Team Racing Auto Circuit was announced in 2001, a stock car series based on a team-first concept and with not-so-quiet shadowy backing from perpetual thorn-in-NASCAR’s-side Bruton Smith. The news conference was attended by investor and legendary Clemson football coach Danny Ford, who gave a pep talk on the importance of team, and yes, a smiling Yarborough, who said he totally thought it would work.
The idea was that identical machines would represent different regions of the nation … or maybe it was cities … or maybe it was car makers … no one really remembers because after a few test sessions, the inevitable financial troubles and lawsuits started and TRAC was in the wall by the end of 2004.
2. Bruton Smith’s Nürburgring
Speaking of that rabble rouser Bruton Smith, no one who was sitting in the Bristol Motor Speedway media center in March 2012 will forget when he sat down at the table up front as his employees started setting up easels with renderings of not just a road course, but what looked like a pretty close copy of arguably the most famous road course of them all: Germany’s Nürburgring. Then he proceeded to announce that he had been “approached by some Germans” to build a Nürburgring duplicate in Nevada, about 10 miles outside of Las Vegas, and he said he had the Silver State governor’s blessing.
“They can’t run that track much of the year because of all the snow and everything, so they want a version they can run all the time,” Smith said to me. “And they don’t get much snow in Nevada.”
I followed up with calls to the Nevada governor’s office and even to Smith’s track ownership group, Speedway Motorsports Incorporated. It has been 11 years, and I’m still waiting for the callbacks and the desert version of the Green Hell.
1. Angela’s Motorsports
In case you were wondering exactly which announcement it was that I was watching with Byrnes when he made his proclamation, this is the one.
It was 2002, and a woman named Angela Harkness was standing at the podium at Atlanta Motor Speedway alongside longtime NASCAR racer and grinder Mike “Magic Shoes” McLaughlin. She told a heartfelt story about her life as an elementary school teacher who loved NASCAR and how she’d worked to find investors to make her racing dreams come true.
They bought cars from Robert Yates Racing and hired proven winners in crew chief Harold Holley and McLaughlin and had a cool new sponsor in WiredFlyer.com. The team made its debut in that year’s Busch Series finale, finishing 36th with Jay Sauter behind the wheel, but Angela’s Motorsports never raced again. Harkness, along with business partner Gary Jones, failed to pay their $6 million in bills the following winter, and the team folded before Daytona, Harkness and Jones having disappeared.
Turns out she wasn’t a schoolteacher from Texas and her name wasn’t Harkness; she was a stripper who had danced in Texas, where she met Jones, a customer, and they had cooked up their NASCAR fraud scheme. Her real name was Fatemeh Karimkhani, an Iranian expatriate.
After the Angela’s Motorsports debacle, she fled the country prior to her sentencing following a fraud case in which she testified against Jones as part of a plea agreement. She was eventually found hiding in Dubai, where the local government seized her Iranian passport and handed her over to U.S. Marshals, and she served three and a half years in federal prison.
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David Purdum
Oddsmakers think the Stanley Cup Final rematch between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers is a toss-up.
ESPN BET on Thursday opened the Panthers and Oilers each at -110 after the matchup was set. The price was on the move Thursday night, with Edmonton emerging as the favorite at some books, but the odds remained close.
The Panthers outlasted the Oilers in seven games to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup last season. The opening price for this year’s finals suggests another competitive battle is in store.
Game 1 is Wednesday in Edmonton. The Oilers opened as -120 favorites to win Game 1.
Florida rolled over the Carolina Hurricanes in five games to reach its third straight Stanley Cup Final, while the Oilers finished off the Dallas Stars on Thursday in the Western Conference finals.
The Panthers began this season as the favorites to win the Stanley Cup and remained among the top tier of contenders all season. They are looking to become the 10th franchise in NHL history repeat at Stanley Cup champions.
The Oilers also were among the top Stanley Cup favorites all season at sportsbooks and attracted plenty of support from the betting public. Entering the playoffs, more bets had been placed — and more money wagered — on Edmonton to hoist the Cup than any other team at multiple sportsbooks. At DraftKings, approximately 21% of all bets placed on the sportsbooks’ odds to win the Stanley Cup were on the Oilers.
The Panthers beat the Oilers twice this season. Both games were decided by one goal.
Edmonton’s Connor McDavid is the favorite to win the Conn Smythe Award at -110, followed by Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky at +250 at ESPN BET.
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Ryan S. Clark
DALLAS — Jake Oettinger is one reason the Stars are in a championship window, yet his Game 5 performance Thursday night was instrumental in Dallas’ third straight Western Conference finals exit.
Oettinger allowed two goals on Edmonton‘s first two shots, leading Stars coach Peter DeBoer to pull his star goaltender, hoping it would spark a change. It did, as Dallas pulled within a goal twice only to watch its season end in a 6-3 loss to the Oilers.
“Any time you pull a goalie the reasoning is to always try and spark your group,” DeBoer said. “So that’s your No. 1 reason. We had talked endlessly in this series about trying to play with the lead, and obviously, we’re in a 2-0 hole right away. I didn’t take that lightly, and I didn’t blame it all on Jake.
“But the reality is, if you go back to last year’s playoffs, he’s lost six of seven games to Edmonton.”
Dallas’ downfall began when rookie forward Mavrik Bourque was called for high-sticking with 18:13 left in the first period. The Oilers needed less than a minute for Corey Perry to score on the man advantage for a 1-0 lead. Mattias Janmark then scored nearly five minutes later for a 2-0 lead.
The early deficit continued a trend for the Stars, who allowed the first goal in their past seven playoff games going back to Game 5 of their semifinal series against the Winnipeg Jets.
Casey DeSmith relieved Oettinger, who logged 7:09 in ice time in his second appearance this postseason. His first came in the Stars’ 4-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 of the quarterfinals, when he played 19:50.
DeSmith stopped the first two shots he faced, but the Oilers took a 3-0 lead on the third via Jeff Skinner, who entered the lineup after Zach Hyman suffered an injury in Game 4 that is expected to keep him out throughout the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers.
The Stars twice cut the deficit to one goal. Jason Robertson scored the first of his two goals with 8:20 left in the opening period before Roope Hintz scored on a power-play goal with 7:33 remaining in the second, trimming the lead to 3-2.
Oilers superstar captain Connor McDavid countered on a breakaway, maneuvering past Hintz and scoring for a 4-2 edge with 5:32 left in the second.
Robertson’s second goal just 38 seconds into the third brought it to within one again, but Evander Kane‘s attempt to throw a pass into the slot was redirected off Esa Lindell‘s skate and into the net for a 5-3 lead less than three minutes later.
That effectively ended the Stars’ comeback before Kasperi Kapanen‘s empty-netter pushed it to 6-3 with 11 seconds left.
“I don’t know the timing of it, but I think they scored pretty quickly both times,” Robertson said of the Stars coming within a goal. “It’s disappointing.”
Robertson was then asked about the message sent by DeBoer regarding the decision to pull Oettinger.
“We gotta step up,” he said. “It’s unacceptable for us to let him hang him out like that. The whole playoffs, he’s been our guy. The whole season. It’s unacceptable.”
Oettinger, who won more than 30 regular-season games for a fourth straight season, began last year’s Western Conference finals with a 2.08 goals-against average and a .940 save percentage through the first three games as the Stars took a 2-1 lead. But he then lost the next three games while posting a 3.09 GAA and a .847 save percentage with the Stars falling in Game 6 despite allowing only 10 shots on goal.
Dallas opened this series with a comeback 6-3 win as Oettinger gave up three goals on 24 shots. Game 4 was the only time this series in which his save percentage exceeded .900 (.935 after stopping 29 of 31 shots).
“So, it was to partly spark our team and wake them up,” DeBoer said. “And partly knowing [the] status quo had not been working, and that’s a pretty big sample size.”
Oettinger’s early exit adds to what will be an offseason of intrigue for a Stars team that has several financial decisions to make in what is expected to be an active offseason in the Western Conference.
PuckPedia projects the team will have a little more than $4.96 million remaining in cap space because it traded for Mikko Rantanen and signed him to an eight-year deal worth $12 million annually, in addition to the pay bumps players such as Wyatt Johnston and Oettinger will receive starting next season.
Dallas will have a seven-player class of unrestricted free agents led by captain Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene. Benn told ESPN in late March that he didn’t envision playing for any other team.
Along with reconfiguring parts of their roster, the Stars also will use the offseason to reconcile what it means to be the first team in NHL history to reach three straight conference finals and not advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
“The examples are endless in this league,” DeBoer said. “You know, the Washington Capitals, a decade of knocking on the door. You know, on and on. It’s a really, really hard league to win in. And when you get down to the end of the final four here, it gets exponentially tougher.”
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