Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Park backpedals on criticism of his crew

Friday, June 11, 2004 | 9:30 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.

Unlike many other professional athletes, auto racers aren't always afforded a "cooling-off" period to collect their thoughts before conducting interviews with the media.

For one day, at least, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Steve Park probably wished he had taken up baseball or football instead of racing. Immediately after climbing out of his Orleans Racing Dodge following his 13th-place finish a week ago at Dover International Speedway, Park made some "heat-of-the-moment" comments that he said he quickly regretted.

Park qualified a season-best third for the race and led 17 laps early in the race before things started going south. He got caught on pit road when a caution flag came out, putting him a lap down. Subsequent adjustments to the truck only made it handle worse, Park said, and by the time he pulled into the garage area at Dover, he was fuming.

Within seconds of exiting his truck, someone asked Park to detail his race and Park unloaded, giving the impression that he was unhappy with his Las Vegas-based Orleans Racing crew and not looking forward to tonight's race at Texas Motor Speedway -- where the team won four consecutive races with Brendan Gaughan driving.

Upon further review, Park ruled his Dover comments "ridiculous" and said he has the utmost confidence in interim crew chief Charlie Wilson and the rest of the crew.

"It'd be nice to have a cooling-off period and be able to take a look at how the race unfolded and why things happened before you comment on them," said Park, who qualified 20th for tonight's O'Reilly 400K. "Sometimes you say things you shouldn't say because you don't know all the details of what went on."

Instead of the doom-and-gloom picture his comments portrayed last week, Park said his 13th-place finish at Dover may actually have been a signal that the team is turning things around after five finishes outside the top 10 to open the season.

"That's really a sign of improvement, when you feel like you have a truck that's better than a 12th- or 13th-place truck and then you finish 12th or 13th and you're mad as heck," he said. "The funny side of it is, we finished 12th at Charlotte (two weeks before Dover) and we had a 12th-place truck -- we were kind of disappointed with that, but we were happy (to finish 12th).

"Then we finished 13th at Dover and we were as mad as heck because we thought we had a truck good enough to win the race."

Although he stands 19th in points going into tonight, Park said he is confident that Wilson will keep the team headed in the right direction as team owner Michael Gaughan searches for a permanent crew chief.

"We're going through a transition period and it's tough in the first part of the season to be looking for a crew chief and looking for some help on the race team from a personnel standpoint," Park said, "but Michael Gaughan has given us the equipment and the people to move forward and overcome this adversity.

"I'm enjoying this year compared to the last two years (in the Nextel Cup Series) because it was nice to qualify third, it was nice to get to second, it was nice to get into the lead and it was nice to lead laps again; I haven't done that in a while and that felt good. It also felt good to be all mad that we finished 13th because we had a truck that was capable of winning the race but circumstances kept us from doing that. That's a whole new aspect and a whole new outlook on things, compared to having everything go right, everything be perfect, and you finish 20th."

Sascha Maassen of Raeren, Belgium, set the fastest lap for the GT class in Thursday's final round of qualifying with a lap of 4 minutes, 7.394 seconds in the No. 90 Westward Ho Casino Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. Also driving the vehicle this weekend will be Jorg Bergmeister of Langenfield, Germany, and Patrick Long of Oak Park, Calif.

"To win the pole position is an awesome feeling for the team and myself," team owner Michael Petersen said. "But it is a very small piece to the giant puzzle. The race is a very long and grueling 24 hours. With a lot of skill and a little luck, hopefully we'll be in that same position or, at least, close enough to fight for the victory on Sunday afternoon."

The Petersen/White Lightning team won last year's GT class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in concert with American Le Mans Series rival Alex Job Racing.

The Speed Channel is providing 21 1/2 hours of televised race coverage Saturday and Sunday from Le Mans, France.

Wallace's laps, of course, were run without the horsepower-sapping restrictor plate that is mandatory for races there.

"It was a hell of a deal that I certainly will remember for the rest of my life," Wallace said. "We'd all been wondering what it would feel like to run at Talladega again without the (restrictor) plates and now I know. I'll bet we could be running speeds up to 235 without the plates if we spent time doing some tweaking.

"But I'll tell you this: there's no way we could be out there racing at those speeds. It was neat to be out there running that fast by myself, but it would be insane to think we could have a pack of cars out there doing that."

Nextel Cup Series crew chiefs Todd Parrott and Jeff Buckner each were fined $500 for driver restraint equipment infractions during last weekend's race at Dover. Parrott was fined because driver Elliott Sadler's shoulder harness belts had an expired manufacturer date. Buckner was fined because driver Hermie Sadler also had a belt that had an expired manufacturer date. The infractions were discovered during Friday's opening-day inspection.

Vasser, 38, has made 186 consecutive starts and could break Al Unser Jr.'s record of 192 consecutive starts in August in Montreal.

Mark Kinser has been hired as the driver and Karl Kinser as the crew chief for the No. 83 Beef Packers Eagle, Outlaws car owner Dennis Roth announced this week.

Karl Kinser has won 17 World of Outlaws Sprint Series championships as a car owner/crew chief. Mark Kinser drove for his father during the 1996, 1997 and 1999 championship seasons and ranks third on the series' all-time "A" feature victory list with 152.