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Park to return to NASCAR Busch Series in 2000
Steve Park, 1997 NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division Rookie of the Year, will return to the series for a limited schedule of about 15 races in 2000, Park said during a test session Wednesday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Park is set to unveil the program, which will feature Chevrolets owned by long-time Connecticut NASCAR stock car owner Ted Marsh with sponsorship from Whelen Engineering; at a press conference Saturday morning at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham.
Park will debut in the car at the Nov. 13 HotWheels.com 300 at Miami at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami oval.
"This is a brand new team that's been around a while in the Busch North Series and also in Busch South a little bit," Park said of Marsh's team, which ran Connecticut driver Ted Christopher in a limited schedule of Busch North Series, NASCAR Touring and NASCAR Busch Series races this season. "We plan on running 15 races next year and we're planning to kick it off with a run at Homestead next month."
Christopher had a number of strong showings in Marsh's cars this season, including three top-5 finishes and four top-10s in five Busch North Series starts. He has also made five NASCAR Busch Series starts in Marsh's cars, with one top-10 finish. Christopher, however, said at New Hampshire International Speedway in September that he would not be back in Marsh's cars in 2000.
Marsh is particularly familiar with Park since he raced against him both in the Busch North Series and in Featherlite Modified Series, NASCAR Touring competition.
"We wanted to get together at the end of this season to give us all the opportunity to work together and shake things out a little bit before we get into running 15 races next year," Park said of the exploratory race. "We've got a great sponsor in Whelen. They make a lot of the emergency warning lights for police and fire vehicles and ambulances and tow trucks you see around, and they also do the lights on the NASCAR pace cars."
"We're pretty excited about their involvement in this effort and I'm pretty excited about getting back into the Busch Series for the first time since 1997," said Park, who actually attempted to make the Coca-Cola 300 at Texas Motor Speedway last March in the Grubb Motorsports Chevrolet, but failed to qualify.
Park said the program would only help to continue to improve his primary NASCAR Winston Cup Series program in the Pennzoil Chevrolets from Dale Earnhardt Inc.
"The Pennzoil car has been running really good lately and we're looking for some pretty big things there. We really think we're going to a lot of tracks we can run good at and Homestead is one of them."
"We're still new to a lot of these race tracks and it's gonna give me an opportunity to get caught up a little bit on some of the experience we missed when I was injured a year ago," Park said, "and I think it will reflect not only here but also in the Winston Cup program, also.
Park, who earlier this week tested his 2000 Monte Carlo for DEI in Talladega, Ala., ran only one day at Homestead. On Tuesday, Busch North Series driver Dennis Demers and Park's DEI teammate, Ron Hornaday, who was on hand to test his own NASCAR Busch Series car, warmed up the No. 13 Whelen car for him.
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