[MIKE28]

Just read that Travis Kvapil will be replacing Rudd in the 88. Also, Robert Yates is gonna be retiring and Doug Yates will take over as president.

[Quality88]

Originally Posted by MIKE28

Just read that Travis Kvapil will be replacing Rudd in the 88. Also, Robert Yates is gonna be retiring and Doug Yates will take over as president.

hmm.... don't know about this. Don't want to see Robert step down, but i think he let the sport pass him by. Kvapil? That didn't work the first time he tried, but, then again, you never know. Doug takin over could be very bad though. Will have to wait and see.

[Racer Duck]

The part about Robert retiring was mentioned on TV tonight during the Busch race. They said Robert Yates Racing will be renamed Yates Racing and that Doug will be the new main man.

Here's the link to the story on NASCAR.COM

[Team Yates]

I will comment of this story later as I'm on my way to help a friend prep food for a benefit run for the V.A. hospice.

[PettyBlue]

I feel that Yates just needs to makeup their mind and do one or the other thing and stick with it.They merge with Newman,no wait they don't,too much indecision there of late to help their company.

[Bob Tanner]

This might possibly be another case of a team owner who is just fed up with this new version of NA$CAR. A new dawn where actual racing and auto-mechanical innovation takes a back seat to high-rolling team conglomerates and engineers.

I'm probably way off the mark and obviously I'm not inside Robert's head but, from what I've heard so far, it's beginning to remind me of Junior Johnson's departure from NASCAR. Junior was quiet about the whole thing and just announced one day that he was finished and a yard sale was forthcoming. A couple years later he made a statement to the affect of that he was not happy with NASCAR's new direction and, for lack of a better term, he was just plain fed up with the politics.

I think it'll be interesting to hear Robert's feelings about his leaving at some point in the not-so-distant future.

Though Robert wasn't around NASCAR since the beginning, (the first I remember him was as a mechanic on Bobby Issac's K&K Dodge Charger Daytona) his leaving will mark another tradition gone.

Doug's run things before and it was less than successful. I wish Robert and the team well, but I am absolutely sure of one fact; Robert's not being there will leave a hole in the sport which might be difficult to fill with another person like Robert Yates.

[LSC9901]

One thought could be that Robert has seen th elight. They haven't been real competitive over the last few years. The drivers have been less than stellar and all the big names are all taken up by the bigger teams. You can't keep hiring Rudd's and Jarrett's and so on and expect the driver to hold up the team.

They've had the sponsorship but lackluster drivers. You need the entire package.

[Bob Tanner]

Originally Posted by LSC9901

One thought could be that Robert has seen th elight. They haven't been real competitive over the last few years. The drivers have been less than stellar and all the big names are all taken up by the bigger teams. You can't keep hiring Rudd's and Jarrett's and so on and expect the driver to hold up the team.

They've had the sponsorship but lackluster drivers. You need the entire package.

That's probably more the case.

However, the memory of Junior Johnson's leaving sticks with me.

[LSC9901]

Originally Posted by Bob Tanner

That's probably more the case.

However, the memory of Junior Johnson's leaving sticks with me.

For his own sanity it was the right thing to do. When you started as a rum runner the rules are hard to live with. Especially when many of them actually took racing out of their hands.