Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: TV analyst McReynolds keeps one foot in the garage

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002 | 10:23 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

After 15 years as a NASCAR Winston Cup crew chief, Larry McReynolds had little difficulty making the adjustment last year to his new role as a television analyst.

That was due, in large part, to the fact that he didn't completely leave the garage area.

After he finished his inaugural season last year on Fox Sports' NASCAR telecasts, McReynolds spent the second half of the season as a consultant for Petty Enterprises, which fields three cars in the Winston Cup Series.

McReynolds, who was in Las Vegas last weekend as the featured speaker at the second annual "Racers Workshop," said his decision to keep his hand in the sport served two purposes.

"One, I have a huge passion for the sport and I couldn't imagine sitting at home, watching the races on television, for six or seven months," McReynolds said. "But the biggest reason, I felt a big part of the strength of our broadcasts last year was that Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Hammond and myself had just stepped out of the garage area as competitors.

"Our sport is so different from any other sport out there (that) if you're away from the sport at all, you can't keep up with it. Other sports -- football, baseball, basketball -- you can turn away from them for a little while and come back and a touchdown's still going to be six points; the rules don't change. In our sport, if you turn your head for one second, these things will have six wheels on them and you won't even know when it happened or why it happened. It's an ever-changing sport."

As a result, McReynolds said, he will go into the 2002 season confident that he still is on top of the latest developments and trends in NASCAR.

Although NBC, which televised the second half of the 2001 season, has the rights to the Daytona 500 this year (Fox and NBC will rotate coverage on an annual basis), McReynolds and his FOX broadcast partners will keep busy during the week leading up to the Feb. 17 Daytona 500.

Fox recently purchased the Speedvision network, which will be renamed Speed Channel on Feb. 11, and plans to air several special programs from Daytona, including a live telecast of the ARCA race and a daily show recapping the events of the day.

Roush Racing's Jon Wood posted the fastest speed through four non-drafting sessions at 184.790 mph in a Ford. Ron Hornaday, in a Chevy, was second fastest at 184.676 and was followed by Travis Kvapil (Chevy, 184.532), Joe Ruttman (Dodge, 184.253) and Matt Crafton (Chevy, 184.249).

Ruttman, who still is without a ride for the upcoming season, took part in the test in an RDS Motorsports Dodge.

Las Vegas native Brendan Gaughan, a Rookie of the Year contender, was 32nd fastest (of 41 drivers) in the non-drafting sessions in his Orleans Racing Dodge. In the drafting sessions, however, Gaughan was 17th fastest (185.831). Crafton topped the speed chart in the drafting sessions at 187.566 mph.

Green and Darwin Oordt, owner of the Galaxy Motorsports Winston Cup team, will call the partnership Denny Green Racing, LLC. The team has not announced a driver or sponsor.