by richard teague tinynascars@yahoo.com
The COT needs to be upfront for now, since you know the job deal won’t be for sure for a while. Seems that NASCAR and team owners are just plumb tickled to death with the Car of Tomorrow or, as most are calling it, the new car, but I have said many times I don’t like it. There are still some drivers that feel the same but they ain’t got a choice now because it is finally written in stone that the COT will be the only car next season. NASCAR has now, tagged it “The Car” of the four manufacturers and I still don’t see how or why those guys let them do it. I thought they said they were going to wait until summer to announce if it would race full time in 2008, ,but I guess they got in a hurry.
Now if only Dale Earnhardt Jr. would let us know where he is going next year so the Red Army could start buying his new stuff. The makers of Jr’s things, from diecast cars to the sticker on your back window, need to know worse than the fans, because they need time to produce the millions of things that y’all will buy. Did you think they whipped these things up in a couple of weeks or something? Perhaps many of the items are easily produced in a short time, but not the real moneymakers like diecast cars and those fancy NASCAR jackets everybody wears to the races. Motorsports Authentics, which is owned by Brian and Bruton, needs time to get production started in China for the cars, and they said by mid-summer would be nice.
I don’t see how that would be a problem with the cars, since they all look so much alike, so I guess it is the paint schemes that need to be set for the new team he goes with. I read where MA was way behind in putting the COTs on the market because NASCAR couldn’t finalize the dang design, so a car that has already been in several races still isn’t available to the fans yet. I take that back, there is a small diecast maker that has turned a few different drivers out, but not your big time favorites yet. MA says that it may be June or July before you can pick yours up at the flea market or online. Heck, I ordered two of each driver from my GM Dealer distributor last December and they haven’t got a clue when we’ll get ours.
The first guys to get the COT diecast will be the haulers at the races, because they can get the most money for them there and then the local dealers should be next. Yea, I know that eBay has those #8s and 24s up for auction, but read the fine print that says “due within the next thirty days” or “whenever the heck we get them you’ll get them.” I don’t think that Brian or Bruton are worried too much about that when they find out where Jr is going, because they know his fans will wait until a real hot place freezes over to get their little pieces of metal. They know this and live by it cause they can’t make every car’s paint change or every winning version of a car by the time the car is raced or the driver wins.
I do know one thing. The price of this year’s diecast and the 2008 stuff won’t be cheap. I got a funny feeling that, come next February, John and I won’t be getting the deal we used to get. This past start of the season we couldn’t find much to buy because there just weren’t many blowouts of cars like it has been the past many years. I’m thinking about just skipping it next year. Y’all know when I first started this column I would tell you where to get the deals, but since Motorsports Authentics has taken over and cornered the market, there really aren’t any. Oh sure, you can buy the not-so-popular drivers’ stuff at anytime, but who wants that, anyway? And accordingly, they don’t make much of it.
Now when Junior said he was going to leave DEI, all the dealers were scared that all their #8 stuff was not going to sell and they would be stuck with it. The reasoning behind that is that in the past, whenever a driver changed teams, his previous team colors wouldn’t sell because he’s not in that car anymore. Well, from what I have been hearing, this didn’t happen with Jr’s stuff. The fans just started buying it up. As a matter of fact, I had to make sure I got a couple of his 2007 things myself. As for 2008, I just don’t know if I can buy a different car, jacket or hat of his new team, just like Kevin Harvick and the Shell car. Since 2001 I have bought every single car that came out for Harvick, but this year I think I’ll either slow down or just pass altogether on his stuff. I’ve got so much of Jr’s stuff, from hats, that tackle box and the fishing rod from Wal-Mart, to every one of his diecast cars, but for 2008 with a new team, the price of gas and the cost of NASCAR stuff, it’s definitely going to go up. PASS!
By the way, I did get my Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. NASCAR Barbies when they came out, and at the retail price, so I would recommend y’all pick yours up soon. Don’t worry, I will still get the #48 and #24 stuff, and I may even slip a Tony Stewart car in every so often. Even my wife has commented about how I have really slowed on my buying habits of NASCAR accouterments. That word is my favorite when talking about NASCAR paraphernalia, collectibles, gear, materials or just plain ‘ol stuff! Accouterment is defined by Yahoo as “Things needed for a task, journey, or other purpose,” so the task is finding it at the best price you can and the journey is as long as you can afford it with the purpose of leaving it for your grandchildren to dispose of after you’re gone.
Now, to get back to racing for a minute, until I go off on another tangent, how much longer can or will NAPA stay with Michael Waltrip? And what about UPS with Dale Jarrett? Today I had a NAPA driver make a delivery to work, and I asked him about his driver. He said they wouldn’t be back next year. Now, I know that this guy is not privy to special inside information or anything, but gosh, when even the employees think it’s time to move on, well NAPA; move on. I want to ask the same question to our UPS driver, but I’m not real sure if she knows who DJ is. I will anyway, just to get a reaction.
Right here I’m going to say, “I told you so,” and if y’all don’t remember, I was talking about the AT&T vs NASCAR suit. Saturday night, the big ‘ol AT&T logo was plum all over that number 31 car, and don’t you know Jeff Burton and Richard Childress were slap happy about that. Even after the judge spanked NASCAR on Friday, they ran back into court crying “say it ain’t so and don’t let them do it.” The judge probably looked up and said, “Now Brian, just what did I tell ya yesterday?” Now Nextel has joined NASCAR in another appeal, but come on guys, give it up. Y’all done messed with a real mother in Ma Bell, so you best be getting ready for all them little sponsors to start hacking at ya for their rights also. But you know, Brian, there could be a real dark cloud on your horizon in the form of that little old track named the Kentucky Speedway.
Well that’s it for this week and we’re back to real racing next weekend. I’ll be real glad after that All-Star whatever it was (sure wasn’t The Winston was it?). If you feel the need to contact me, you can do it at tinynascars@yahoo.com and you know; If it ain’t NASCAR, It ain’t s**t!!
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