The Buzz: August 20, 2001

August 20, 2001
7:53 PM EDT (2353 GMT)

Rumor has it that Target might be wanting to get into Winston Cup and Busch Series racing with Chip Ganassi.

The word around the garage is that the company might tap Wally Dallenbach to run the full season, along with the Indy 500 in May. Jason Leffler would get some seat time in a Target-sponsored Busch car. Leffler raced full-time in 2000 before jumping into Winston Cup in 2001.

Jason Leffler

Ganassi lost Cingular Wireless as sponsor of the No. 01 Dodge last week to Richard Childress Racing, opening the door for a possible Target entry.

Target has been the longtime backer of Ganassi’s CART powerhouse. Ganassi has ran the Indy 500 in each of the last two seasons with Target on those cars as well.

I'LL TAKE SOME OF THOSE

Team owner Richard Childress’ decision to run both in-car cameras and telemetry systems in his two Winston Cup cars at Michigan, one weekend after a battery fire in the telemetry box mounted in Robby Gordon’s car knocked a potential race-winner out of the show, raised some eyebrows in the Michigan garage area.

“They probably traded him three Pi systems,” joked one crew chief, who preferred to remain anonymous.

Pi Research is the company that provides the telemetry portion of the package for the broadcast use and has long been a provider for the package that teams use for testing.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

The Buzz has learned that 18-year-old Tim Andrews is testing a Busch North Series car a New Hampshire International Speedway this week. If the test goes well, Tim will then enter in the upcoming companion event to the Winston Cup New Hampshire 300 next month.

The son of Winston Cup crew chief Paul Andrews, Tim has competed in Go-Karts, Bandaleros, Legends and Thunder Roadster cars since he was 12. He recently sewed up the inaugural Thunder Roadster championship in the Tuesday night Legends races summer series at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

He has also competed in Late Models at Concord (N.C.) Motorsports Park.