BUSCH: Dave Blaney signs with Goewey

HIGH POINT, N.C. -- Dave Blaney, driver of the #93 Amoco/Siemens Dodge Intrepid in NASCAR Winston Cup Series competition, has agreed to join DIRT Modified owner in a limited NASCAR Busch Series effort for the 2001 season with veteran owner/crew chief Mike Greci directing the program.=20

The agreement marks the second time that Blaney, the 1995 World of Outlaws champion, has driven for Goewey, who will field three full-time DIRT Modified teams in 2001 for drivers Jack and Ronnie Johnson and K.C. Goewey. Blaney led the late-season SuperDIRT Week finale at the fabled Syracuse (NY) Fairgrounds Mile in both 1998 and 1999 in Goewey-owned entries before suffering late-race problems.=20

The Busch Series deal with Blaney is the second NASCAR effort as an owner for Goewey, a former DIRT Modified and NASCAR Featherlite Busch North Series driver, who is entering his 15th season as a modified owner with Team Goewey. Goewey ran a limited Busch North Series schedule as an owner/ driver in 1994, with a best-finish of fourth at Watkins Glen with Crew Chief Greg Zipadelli -- now Crew Chief for WC standout Tony Stewart.

The team -- which will use engines prepared by Bill Davis Racing and Head Busch Engine Builder Brad Thrower -- will operate out of the Team Goewey race-shops in Latham, N.Y. where Goewey's trio of DIRT Modified cars are housed. Over the past three seasons, Thrower-powered Busch Series entries have won seven pole positions -- six in then-track-record time by Blaney -- at six different tracks.

"It's been a goal of ours to eventually move into NASCAR with our program but we really wanted the right opportunity with the right people at the right time, which I believe is now with Dave Blaney and Mike Greci," said Goewey, a prominent Albany, N.Y. area Dodge dealer who also raced against Blaney in the late-1980's before becoming a full-time owner.

"We've got an ambitious combination of teams and drivers working out of our shops for the 2001 season so we're starting with a plan to run five races -- including both races at Charlotte -- and see where we go from there. There's no question that Dave's NASCAR profile is on the rise and that he'll likely make the same sort of impact in stock cars that he did with his World of Outlaws career."

In an unusual move, Goewey is offering up visibility to potential sponsors on his Busch cars -- which will be Chevrolets -- but also on his DIRT Modified entries as well as the #10 World of Outlaws team owned by Blaney and driver by Dale Blaney, Dave's brother and the seventh-place finisher in last year's WoO standings.=20

"A company that understands that they can reach a wide group of racing consumers is going to get a great deal being on all our race cars," said Blaney, who will debut his self-designed WoO chassis with his #10 team during Speedweeks at Daytona next month. "I've know Brian for a long time and he does everything first-class so I know we'll run only the races and tracks where we can really be competitive."

Blaney, who begins his second Winston Cup season after finishing third in the highly-competitive 2000 Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Year race behind Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -- led his #93 Amoco team to a sixth-place finish in the 1999 Busch Series standings after running a limited Busch Series schedule in his first-ever stock car season (1998). Blaney's best career Busch finishes are second-place finishes at Atlanta and Darlington in1999 and third-place finishes at Michigan and Rockingham (1999) and at Dover and Charlotte (2000).

Team Manager/Crew Chief Mike Greci

Most recently, Greci served as Team Manager/Crew Chief in the Busch Series for Innovative Motorsports, which whom he won the July, 1999 race at Pikes Peak International Raceway with 1998 Rookie-of-the-Year Andy Santerre.