Bill Davis sells out ...

[RaceFanStan]

Bill Davis has sold majority ownership of both his race team (Bill Davis Racing)
and his engine company (Triad Racing Development) (will now be Triad Racing Technologies) ...
The new partners will still be in a search for a Cup primary sponsor for the #22 ...

http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/headlines/cup/12/22/bdr.sold.dblaney/index.html

[colinspooky]

More a case of sells up more than sells out? Or, not being, up on everything political in NASCAR, have I got it wrong?

:dozey:

[RaceFanStan]

IMO anytime an owner sells controling interest in his teams and/or business, he SELLS OUT. :s


nascar.com
... "Davis will have nothing to do with Triad moving forward", Gaunt and Held said,
"and any participation in the race team will be in a "godfatherly way" ... At best Bill Davis will be an employee with the race team ONLY with no power to make decisions. :s

Bill Davis Racing will no longer be controlled by Bill Davis ...
it is really sad to see a long-time team owner bite the dust. :s

[Mark in Oshawa]

Stan, as nice a guy as he has seemed over the years and the amount of hard knocks he has had, I also think he has driven away some pretty talented people over the years and it has caught up with him. Look no further than Ward Burton....

[call_me_andrew]

Well Bill Davis has always been a sellout. GM dropped his funding because they found out he was giving their technology to Dodge to join their effort. Then he did the same thing to Dodge when he joined Toyota.

[colinspooky]

Well Bill Davis has always been a sellout. GM dropped his funding because they found out he was giving their technology to Dodge to join their effort. Then he did the same thing to Dodge when he joined Toyota.


Ooooh - well, let's hope that's all spot on - libel can be so boringly expensive. :eek:

[Mark in Oshawa]

Colin, it isn't just Andrew that is saying this, it was the feeling of a lot of people in the garage at the time.

Whatever Bill Davis's pluses are, his rep as someone jumping ship and taking secrets with him looking for a better deal is quite well founded. He almost got sued when he jumped to Dodge and Dodge was talking about the same thing when they settled for cutting him off from help while making him finish the season with their stuff when Toyota was coming.

Bill Davis was the author of his sad story in a lot of cases. His lack of tying up Jeff Gordon with a good contract was one of them. Ford had a little to do with that but I read Gordon's autobiography and he freely admitted Davis didn't want to do a long term deal when he was racing Busch for him. Davis thought they had a verbal agreement but didn't want to commit fully at that point. Then Rick Hendrick came along and was shocked Jeff was available for the picking. There you go...Bill makes his first big mistake.

Nice guy...but never seemingly on the ball when it came to protecting himself....