Spencer: Early incident at Loudon not my fault

Jimmy Spencer has a lot to worry about for the rest of the season, especially considering his Ultra Motorsports team is looking of a primary sponsor for 2004 and beyond.

But Spencer doesn't seem too worried about John Andretti.

Spencer and Andretti, you'll recall, got together early in Sunday's New England 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway. The encounter left Andretti against the wall -- and hopping mad.

"It drives me nuts to think that another guy would do that," Andretti said after the incident. "It's really disappointing. He's got a full-time job. He's not making life any easier for me, I'll tell you that.

	Damaged parts litter Jimmy Spencer's hauler area at Loudon.

"I'm really, really disappointed for the team, disappointed for me, disappointed on the day. We had a good car and we got taken out for no reason. It's not right. ... The way I feel, I think it was real intentional."

No it wasn't, Spencer said Tuesday. In fact, Spencer blamed Andretti for the wreck.

"John's reaching for straws," Spencer said. "It was just a racing deal. He passed me earlier in the race, and slipped up coming off the corner, and I got back underneath him.

"We went down the back straightaway, and I passed him. We went into 1 and 2, and my car freed up a little bit, He kept pinching me down, pinching me down.

"My feeling was it was a racing thing. But on the other side of it, I feel like John probably could've used more common sense. He should've said, 'Wait a minute. This is my first ride in this car.

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"I've got to get familiar. I'm starting pretty far back.' He didn't. He went to being aggressive and pinching me down to the point where I had no alternative left. My car just got a little free, and we bumped, and he ended up spinning out.

"I sure didn't mean anything by it. You know, desperate people do desperate things, I guess."

Ouch.

But that's Spencer. If Andretti has a problem, Spencer believes he should come talk.

And Andretti's team shouldn't dump parts from its battered race car on the lift of Spencer's hauler. But that's what the Haas CNC Racing team did, and Spencer wasn't too thrilled.

"That's very unprofessional," Spencer said. "It's not the crew members that cause these problems. It's usually the drivers, and the drivers should discuss it. He was nowhere around to discuss it with, and I didn't really think I had to."

Spencer surprised at sponsor's decision to leave

One person Spencer will have to talk to is a potential sponsor. The team's current backer, Sirius Satellite Radio, announced Tuesday it was leaving the team after this season.

"It was a surprise," Spencer said. "We got the most publicity for them that they could get for their dollar. There are some things that go on behind (the scenes) in companies that you don't know the workings of.

Ultra searching for sponsor  MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Ultra Motorsports announced today it has launched a search for a new primary sponsor for the No. 7 entry in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series.  Sirius, team's sponsor since last year, announced it would not be returning in 2004.  Sirius will remain on the No. 7 car for the rest of the season -- a year that has been somewhat of a resurrection for Ultra Motorsports' Winston Cup team.  Full Story

"I'm going to work as hard as I can to do the best I can for Sirius and our new sponsor -- whenever we can announce that."

Spencer said he's going to let owner Jim Smith do the worrying about finding a new sponsor. Instead, Spencer will keep his focus on the No. 7 Dodges, and he hopes his team does the same thing.

"The thing we have to do as a race team is focus on getting our cars to handle and working with our motor department and getting our cars better every week and get top-10 finishes," Spencer said. "We felt like we had a top-10 team a couple weeks back, and we stumbled.

"Now we feel like we can get back. That's what we're going to do at Pocono (this weekend) and on in to the rest of the year. We'll let our car owner and marketing people worry about trying to find a sponsor.

"We feel confident we can get one, and we feel like we can put them in the winner's circle."

There are several places that can happen later this year, Spencer said.

"The crew has really turned the corner, as far as I'm concerned," Spencer said. "Their attitude is really positive. I know my attitude is positive. All in all, we feel like we can win a race.

"We're coming to some strong tracks. We had a decent test at Indy, we had a really good run at Richmond in the spring, we had a really good run at Bristol, Darlington - a lot of the tracks we're coming back to in the next few weeks. We're excited about it."