Any word yet on the #8 having a new DEI engine for 'Dega?
Jr said the engine will be new. He is running #25 which was built in 04 and run at Daytona and Talladega before.
And now I say OH NO OH NO OH NO OH NO......
Wimmer and Morgan-McClure part ways, Todd Bodine in #4 at Talladega: #4-Morgan-McClure President, Larry McClure announced today the mutually agreed upon release of Scott Wimmer as their full-time driver for the remainder of the 2006 season. Wimmer and McClure have agreed to part ways now, allowing the team to possibly utilize some veteran experience to diagnose the existing cars as well as try some potential drivers for 2007
[Bovine..do not wreck Jr]
Wimmer is going to KHI in the Busch series.
BTW Jr's take on the smoke issue.......
... your car filling up with smoke and you maybe needing a relief driver. Can you talk about exactly what that was?
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: We don't really know what the smoke was. I'd run about five or six laps in practice and the car was filling up with smoke inside. I thought that -- we had exhaust run out the right side, and I thought the rubber was getting in the crush panels and laying on the rocker, because the rocker was so hot, obviously, and in pretty much everybody's car it burns the paint on the other side -- on the interior of the car.
I was thinking it was just baking the rubber or whatever, the rubber debris that you pick up, we need to seal the crush panels up better. We sealed up the crush panels and we got it running in the race. There wasn't really anything consistent about it, but every 20 laps or whatever the car would fill up with smoke for some reason.
I couldn't really tell you whether it was oil or a fluid or rubber or what. It didn't have a distinct smell like it normally would, like rear-end grease or a tire rubbing. It didn't have kind of a distinct smell so I could really point it out. We also had a little bit of an oil leak on the lower pan. That might have been causing it.
But just depends what it was. Can't really find it. I mean, I was fine. I just wanted -- I didn't know if I'd be able to get Tony, Jr. the kind of warning to get silly or anything or get drunk in there smelling whatever I was smelling. I didn't know if I would be able to give him a warning, so I just told him to have somebody ready in case he saw me go down in the corner and go straight.