Black hole looming for Galaxy?

Wally Dallenbach and the No.75 Galaxy Motorsports team are facing a bleak Winston Cup future after failing to land a main sponsor for the 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup season and although the team is still standing and was present at the Ford test at the Daytona Superspeedway, the No.75 team could well have run their final Winston Cup event.

Another of the Winston Cup's smaller teams is on its knees after Wally Dallenbach announced that if his Galaxy Motorsports team hadn't found a sponsor by the end of the week the team may be forced to pull out of the 2001 Championship.

Galaxy Motorsports and Dallenbach had a trying first season together in 2000 where Dallenbach's ninth place effort at Watkins Glen was the best they had to show. Galaxy owner Darwin Oordt bought the team from veteran NCW team owner Butch Mock who had also fallen on hard times and during the past year the team went through an array of main sponsors including Turner Broadcasting, WCW Wrestling, Red Cell Batteries and finally Rotozip Tools but the team's final placing of 34th in points was not enough to attract any of them back this year.

Both Oordt and Dallenbach were continuing to search for any potential deal up to and during Ford's official test at Daytona and the ex-Trans Am standout was cautiously optimistic that something could be put into place just at the last moment.

However if sponsorship is not forthcoming the team could still attend Daytona with either a short term sponsor or at worst, none at all with the hope of performing well and attracting one of the many potential backers found at Speedweeks. The latter option has to be considered one of desperation however and the team would be hard pressed to make the first few rounds after Daytona with no source of income barring a minor miracle in the Daytona 500 itself.

It would be a shame to see another established Winston Cup operation disappear (Mock set up the team with Bob Rahilly in 1978), especially one that showed real signs of promise at times last year and it was unfortunate that Dallenbach's cruel luck appeared to follow him from team to team for the speed and skill was there to add several more top ten results had the rub of the paint gone their way.