Burning Questions: Rockingham

By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com
October 30, 2001
4:56 PM EST (2156 GMT)

1. Does Junie Donlavey deserve this?

Junie Donlavey has been in Winston Cup almost as long as there's been a Winston Cup. Over more than 50 years and 800 races in the sport, he has become one of the more beloved figures in the garage, certainly someone who deserves better than to be told that driver and sponsor are going to leave him high and dry for the coming season. And yet, that's precisely what Hut Stricklin and Hills Brothers Coffee did recently, announcing that together, the two were leaving the No. 90 after this season.

Hut Stricklin

Donlavey, planning to race in 2002 and desperate to make the best of a bad situation, announced that he was going to replace Stricklin with Rick Mast for the remaining five races of the year. Donlavey needs to do everything within his power in the season's final few races to prepare for and entice a sponsor for the coming season, no easy task under the best of circumstances, but almost impossible with a lame-duck driver and lame-duck sponsor.

But, despite Donlavey's obviously straightened circumstances, Hills Brothers announced Saturday that it was immediately severing its agreement with the team. It then went so far as to demand that the beleaguered team remove all decals from its equipment, which team members did with hair dryers and scrapers.

Hills Brothers may well have been angry with Donlavey's decision to put Mast behind the wheel and within its legal rights to do as it did, but did the company then need to compound Donlavey's problems by embarrassing him in such a public fashion?

2. Is the truck series a good barometer of future Cup success?

Or, asked another way, does Greg Biffle's stellar Truck career -- in two full seasons and part of a third, he has won an incredible 16 races -- guarantee that he'll do well when he debuts in Winston Cup next year? Of course not. And neither do his rookie-record and series-high five Busch Grand National wins this year, though those wins are probably somewhat more indicative of future success.

Greg Biffle

Still, the fact remains that how well a driver does or doesn't do in trucks ultimately means very little. In two years, Kevin Harvick never won a Truck race. Mike Skinner shot out the lights in trucks, but never won in his four-plus years with Richard Childress.

No, if the Truck series had any real significance, then certainly we would have at least heard the names Jack Sprague, Scott Riggs or Ted Musgrave mentioned in connection with a possible Cup ride in 2002 -- but despite the fact that those three have won a combined 15 (of the 23 run thus far) races this season, exactly none of them will be a Winston Cup driver next year.

3. Has Robby Gordon saved his ride for 2002?

Robby Gordon

In the month leading up to Phoenix, Robby Gordon had missed one race, used a provisional to make another and qualified 34th and 28th in the other two in his stint in place of Mike Skinner in the No. 31. Compounding his problems, Gordon finished 14th, 38th and 19th in those three races -- hardly the results Richard Childress might expect from one of his drivers.

But did Gordon save his job Sunday with his semi-miraculous seventh -- the first time in 60 career starts that he had finished in the top 10 on an oval -- a finish that came on the heels of another dismal qualifying effort (he started 42nd)?

In a word, no. According to team sources, the decision on next year's driver has already been made and nothing that has happened or happens will affect that decision one way or another.

Nevertheless, you have to imagine that Gordon's performance takes some heat off.