2005 Racing Issue - UAW-Chrysler.com

LEFT: CORBIS; THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF DAIMLERCHRYSLER
And in 2005, sprint-car standout
Erin Crocker joins the team. Racing’s
hottest woman driver last season,
Crocker is competing in the NASCAR
Busch Series and ARCA races for
Evernham Motorsports and in the
USAC Silver Crown Series for Kasey
Kahne Motorsports.
Succeeding should not be difficult
for Crocker, who turns 24 this year,
even if it means driving three different
types of vehicles. The first woman to
win a World of Outlaws race, Crocker
won her first event — a quarter midget
race — at age 7, and has been raising
dust ever since.
Last year, her victory in a 410
winged sprint car in Tulare, Calif.,
added the “410 Wild Card” to her
impressive collection of awards. It also
got the attention of Ray Evernham
and Nextel Cup Raybestos Rookie of
the Year Kasey Kahne, who drives
Evernham’s No. 9 Dodge Charger
co-sponsored by the UAW-Daimler-
Chrysler National Training Center.
For Crocker, a Massachusetts
native who has an engineering degree
from Renssalear Polytechnic Institute,
driving for Ray Evernham is a perfect
fit. “I get to drive for a leader who
puts teamwork, engineering and technology
first,” she says. “This is a
chance for me to learn from the best
in the business.”
ALL ABOUT SPEED
Those cars can lead to bigger things.
By the end of last season, Dodges
dominated the NASCAR Craftsman
Truck Series, and much of the credit
goes to drivers who moved over from
Nextel Cup. Bobby Hamilton, for one,
won his first Craftsman Series championship
in 2004, giving Dodge its first
drivers’ title in a NASCAR national
series in nearly 30 years.
Hamilton’s victory came in just
his second year as a full-time truck
driver. The win also gave Dodge its
first-time hold on both the drivers’
and manufacturers’ titles in a single
year. For his part, Kahne won two of
two starts in the 2004 Truck Series.
When Ted Musgrave left the highprofile
Winston Cup series in 2001 to
race the No. 1 Mopar Dodge Ram
truck in the Craftsman Truck Series,
he saw it as a rare opportunity. Since
“
I get to drive
for a leader
who puts
teamwork,
engineering
and
technology
first.
”
— Erin Crocker
USAC Sprint Car
getting into the truck with the barbed
wire paint job, Musgrave had more
victories — 13 — in the 2001 through
2004 seasons than any other driver.
For the 2005 season, Musgrave is driving
the No. 2 Team ASE Doge Ram for
Ultra Motorsports. Dodge scored its
first Craftsman victory in 1995, just
two years after the series began, and
didn’t look back. Last year’s manufacturers’
title was its third in four years
— Dodges have won 52 percent of the
races during that period.
In the NASCAR Busch Series,
Crocker is joined this season by
Evernham Motorsports’ teammates
Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield, driver
of the No. 19 Nextel Cup Dodge
co-sponsored by the UAW-Daimler-
Chrysler National Training Center.
After finishing 11th in the drivers’
standings in 2004, Kahne shares
time behind the wheel of the No. 38
Dodge with USAC Silver Crown star
Tyler Walker. Mayfield is co-pilot
of the No. 64 Dodge owned by
fellow Nextel Cup veteran Rusty
Wallace, sharing duties with Cup
driver Jamie McMurray.
SERIES SCORCHERS
In the World of Outlaws series,
Mopar drivers challenged for championships,
but came up just short
in 2004. Steve Francis finished second
in the Late Model Series season
in the No. 15 Mopar Dodge. “The
Kentucky Colonel” also won the
first World of Outlaws Late Model
Series event at Volusia Speedway in
Barberville, Fla., and the highestpaying
series event of the season at
the Red River Valley Speedway in
West Fargo, N.D.
For Danny “the Dude” Lasoski,
last year was the debut of the new
Mopar 410 Aluminum Sprint Car
engine block. He led all 25 laps at the
Dirt Track in Las Vegas the first time
out. Lasoski’s No. 20 team, owned by
Nextel Cup driver Tony Stewart,
earned the runner-up position in the
2004 Series Championship.
TOMORROW SPECIAL RACING 2005 21