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Severing ties Houston's deal with McDonald's to end at Kansas City
Updated: Saturday August 04, 2001 12:04 AM
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com INDIANAPOLIS -- After weeks of speculation about its involvement with Cal Wells and PPI Motorsports, McDonald's said Friday it had "reassessed its team sponsorship involvement in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series." According to a release issued at Indianapolis Motor Speedway before practice for Sunday's Brickyard 400, McDonald's will phase out its primary sponsorship of the No. 96 car driven by Andy Houston and will become an associate sponsor on Ricky Craven's car next year. The agreement reached between PPI and McDonald's calls for the No. 96 team to run seven more races in 2001: Sunday's Brickyard 400 in addition to races at Brooklyn (Aug. 19), Bristol (Aug. 25), Darlington (Sept. 2), Richmond (Sept. 8), Dover (Sept. 23) and Kansas City (Sept. 30). With its announcement, McDonald's has at least given Houston, a rookie currently ranked 43rd in points, some semblance of closure to what he described as a "nightmare" of a season.
"This is just more of the struggle and agony," Houston said of Friday's announcement. "But that's what [this season has] been." Houston still has two years left on his contract with PPI and he and Wells have yet to address that issue, but it seems likely the two will come to an agreement that will permit Houston to race elsewhere if the opportunity arises. "I want him to find a job," Wells said, "and hopefully it will be with us. I'm working pretty hard on hopefully putting something together." Wells admitted Friday that he hopes to continue operating as a two-team outfit, but that, of course, is contingent upon lining up sponsors. Even more interesting, Wells admitted that his introduction to Winston Cup racing has been a difficult learning experience. "I guess the smarter thing for me would have been to try to partner up with somebody," Wells said. "Buy into an existing program, learn from it, try to bring some ideas that could help over time." While Houston's ultimate goal is obviously to secure another Winston Cup ride, he also understands that Friday's announcement doesn't leave him with too many options. "I ran the Busch race a couple weeks ago at St. Louis, and I'll probably end up running some more," he said. "But I don't really know what path I'm going to take just yet." From Houston's standpoint, Friday's announcement was neither a complete surprise nor as bad as it might have been. "When we didn't go to the race in New Hampshire and the race at Pocono, I knew our season was going to be cut short," he said. "I feel like it could very easily have been a deal where we may not run any more races, so to run seven -- at least we are going to go into the season a little farther ... see if we can redeem ourselves in some way."
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