|| *Comments on the 2003 GFS Marketplace 400:* View the most recent comment <#39> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. HomeDepotKid posted: 01.21.2005 - 11:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This race was full of suprises. Even though Ryan Newman won(Not suprising), Steve Park did well this day, as did Mike Waltrip, Ken Schrader, and Johnny Benson. Great runs by all four of them. But really, nobody cared about that stuff. What they cared about was this: After the race, Kurt Busch incited Jimmy Spencer a little. Spencer got more than a little pissed off, and cold-cocked Busch. Busch milked the incident, claiming that Spencer had "Broken his nose" and that he had "Tissue damage". Spencer was parked for the next week, and that angered the fans. At Bristol, Kurt Busch was resoundly booed during the weekend. "FREE MONGO" signs were seen throughout the track, and Jimmy's souvenir sales markedly increased. And oh yeah, Kurt won that race, too. The fans booed louder than ever. 2. Mike D posted: 08.31.2005 - 2:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I remember in this race Rusty suddenly darted out of the pits at the last moment and slammed Dale Jr. Is this why they created the commitment line rule? 3. HomeDepot20TS posted: 11.08.2005 - 3:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yep. 4. Matt posted: 11.12.2005 - 4:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was also the race with the scary wreck involving Todd Bodine and Kenny Wallace. Bodine's car ended up on Wallace's hood with Wallace's car engulfed in flames. Both drivers were luckily okay. 5. Steve posted: 02.14.2006 - 10:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jimmy Spencer VS Kurt Busch Round Four. Winner: Spencer off the track, Busch on the track. If the feud didn't end here, it really settled down after the "punchline". Kurt flattened Jimmy's fenders, so Jimmy flattened Kurt's face. 6. Mr. Etc posted: 08.10.2006 - 1:52 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Michael Waltrip 5th in points, etc. etc. 7. Darrell posted: 09.09.2006 - 11:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) I thought Busch should have been disciplined as well. You don't go around saying you're going to spin someone out and then congratulate yourself for it. Sheesh, doesn't he even know about deaths that have occured, especially at that racetrack? 8. RaceFanX posted: 01.09.2008 - 11:36 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) Last race for the Ted Campbell's #57 CLR car, they'd attempt some more but never get in. 9. Rad83 posted: 06.03.2008 - 5:32 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) This race made me think Robby Gordon was gonna be a star. 6th at Michigan? Geez. He had performed well after this race, he could be a star driver. 10. Anonymous posted: 01.11.2009 - 3:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Steve Park's last top 5 and top 10 in Cup. 11. ii posted: 09.30.2010 - 6:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ken Schrader's only top 10 in 2003. 12. Fish posted: 02.20.2011 - 10:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @ii Schrader was 10th at Martinsville too. Still, best finish for him in 2003 where he really struggled with the up-and-coming BAM Racing team. 13. Daniel posted: 05.24.2012 - 10:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) In using fastest 43: #4 Stacy Compton Out using fastest 43: #54 Todd Bodine 14. CBASS posted: 01.17.2013 - 7:38 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor updates #97 Rubbermaid/ Sharpie #21 Motorcraft Quality Parts #9/19 Dodge Summer Sales Drive #7 Sirius #37 Friendly's #30 AOL #45 Georgia-Pacific/ Brawny #43 Cheerios/ Betty Crocker #49 SEM #15 NAPA Auto Parts http://www.motorsport.com/nascar-cup/photos/main-gallery/?sz=2&r=1064&y=2003&s=5&p=3 http://archives.ciastockphoto.com/cgi/images.php?group=w0324 15. Sean posted: 02.07.2014 - 1:02 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Look at these top ten qualifiers: Lepage's #57 in 4th, Fittipaldi, Leffler, Blaney and Spencer. Also a good start for Labonte and Robby! 16. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 08.03.2014 - 11:48 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Withdrew #66 Carl Long Travis Carter Racing Travis Carter Ford #79 Rich Bickle SBC /Molykote Chevrolet John Conely #89 Morgan Shepherd Racing For Jesus/Red Line Oil Ford Morgan Shepherd #11 Brett Bodine Brett Bodine Racing Ford Brett Bodine https://web.archive.org/web/20030814004745/http://www.nascar.com/races/wc/2003/23/data/entry_list.html 17. OlivierPanis26 posted: 09.08.2015 - 3:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Steve Park's only top 5 of the season and his only one with the 30 car. 18. NASCARLover22 posted: 12.05.2015 - 4:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor updates: #79 SBC Smart Pages/smartpages.com #66 BELCAR Racing #57 Team CLR Racing 19. Nathan8848 posted: 03.27.2016 - 6:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Inches only count if you are playing horseshoes and hand grenades. - Kurt Busch 2003. 20. rm posted: 12.18.2017 - 5:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Morgan McClure was originally going to enter a second car with Johnny Sauter driving - the 04 - but instead showed up with just the 4 car being driven by Stacy Compton. 21. Bad Booking posted: 07.08.2018 - 8:41 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Rusty Wallace had a bad day. He had the collision with Dale Junior going into the pits. Then he proceeded to have the same type of engine failure that Ryan Newman had with the car going on fire. It wasn't as severe, but it served as symbolism on how bad the 2003 season was for Wallace. 22. JSPorts posted: 07.08.2018 - 9:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Penske had a lot of engine problems back in the day. But Rusty didn't quite have the speed Newman did in '03, when he was probably #2 on pure speed, but wasn't very consistent. Rusty was barely top-10 in speed that year, but also had lots of problems, which relegated him to a position outside the top 10 in points. 23. Anthony posted: 09.10.2018 - 10:15 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) After failing to qualify two races in a row, Schrader got himself a top10. Pretty nice! 24. Anthony posted: 09.10.2018 - 10:28 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Schrader finishes 8th after not making the show the previous two races. 25. Anthony posted: 12.23.2018 - 9:03 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) Michael Waltrip went from being 5th in points, to finishing 15th in the standings during the final 13 races. But I still consider 2003 a career year for Michael Waltrip because even though his best ever finish in points was 12th in 1994 & 1995, he was inside the top5 in points for 12 of the first 23 races, then the unfortunate factor occured when he suffered 6 DNF's from late August at Bristol through the season ending race at Homestead. On a positive note, he won two races & had a season career high 8 top5 finishes. 26. Tarheel posted: 12.23.2018 - 11:09 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Yup, Michael was having a good year, then had eight wrecks/blown moters/etc in the final thirteen races, and another in which he had a possibly winning car before getting black flagged for something. 27. Maverick19 posted: 11.27.2019 - 12:06 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Not sure which one is right, but the lap leader breakdown is way off from the results. If the breakdown is indeed correct, then the totals should be the following: Jimmie Johnson 61 Ryan Newman 43 Kurt Busch 43 Kevin Harvick 24 Greg Biffle 19 Dale Jarrett 5 Bobby Labonte 3 Jimmy Spencer 2 28. rm posted: 03.30.2020 - 12:50 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) Most of the lesser-heralded guys that had great qualifying runs here had trouble backing them up during the race. Kevin Lepage, notably, seemed to be the slowest car on the track that didn't spend any time behind the wall. A shame, the CLR cars always seemed to have terrific short-run speed, and between their crisp instantly-recognizable paint schemes & their appearance in the NASCAR Thunder 2004 video game the team has remained surprisingly popular among fans (myself included!) Of those small teams that qualified well, Jason Leffler and Jimmy Spencer had that speed translate over to the race. Not particularly unusual for Spencer - though that's very obviously not what anyone remembers about him from this race - but Leffler was punching way above his weight with a team that scored just its third top-20 finish of the year the weekend before. Leffler was able to stick around just outside the top ten for most of the early part of the race and had driven back up into the top ten when the car broke on pit road. They got the car back out there but they finished well below where they had been running. That was a recurring theme for the early Cup days of the Haas-CNC team. All of their Cup drivers from 2002-2005 had an average finish that was worse than their average start, Leffler included. 29. rm posted: 03.30.2020 - 12:59 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Something else to note from the broadcast of this race: Matt Kenseth did a pre-taped interview with the TNT/NBC crew and addressed the slowly-growing chorus of complaints regarding his dominance in the standings with just a single win to his credit. Kenseth responded that he wasn't sure of the point that some of the other top teams in the garage had been trying to make, since most of them hadn't won much either. Sure enough, six of the top seven drivers in points entering this race had just one win on the year, Kenseth included. The outlier was 4th-place Jimmie Johnson, who wasn't much further ahead himself with two wins. 30. Foote posted: 03.30.2020 - 4:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @28 Why did CLR close its doors following this race, or what happened to them. 31. Steve posted: 03.30.2020 - 6:20 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) Griping for the sake of griping; people complaining about Kenseth's massive points lead apparently forgot about Jeff Gordon building up a big point lead just 2 years earlier. Whether the lead was over 300 ponts or just 3, it made no difference in the racing. Races were terrific in this era, even on tracks that today are considered boring. 32. Steve posted: 03.30.2020 - 6:20 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Postrace standings show Michael Waltrip 5th in points, 208 ahead of 11th place Tony Stewart, and Bill Elliott 17th, 312 behind Robby Gordon in 10th. By season's end, their fortunes swapped. Except for a 37th place at Richmond, Bill was no worse than 16th for the rest of the year. But Michael, other than his Talladega win, 5th at Phoenix, and 14th at Charlotte, could finish no better than 26th! After Homestead, Elliott finished 153 points ahead of Kurt Busch in 11th, while Michael's miserable slump dropped him 228 behind 10th place Terry Labonte. 33. Onion posted: 03.30.2020 - 6:42 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) @30 They didn't shut down after this race, they were doing a very limited schedule. From what I can find, they attended a test at Charlotte with Scott Riggs driving, for whom they made a move, but couldn't get. Their 2004 plans were a partial ARCA schedule and a few Busch races with Shane Hmiel. Eventually they ended up becoming a pit crew for hire, working with BAM Racing and Arnold Motorsports amongst others. For 2005, they were still looking for a driver with backing. They appear to have ceased operations only in mid-2005. 34. rm posted: 03.30.2020 - 9:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Their last attempt that I can find was with Brandon Whitt in the 2006 ARCA race at Daytona, and they failed to qualify. 35. Anonymous posted: 04.01.2020 - 9:56 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Boy for Steve Park and Ken Schrader those runs in this race were HUGE!!!!! Both missed at least once race I mean Park hadn't had a Top 5 since he came back from injury in 02, and Schrader hadn't had a Top 10 at that time since 2001 at the southern 500 But they got em! 36. Foote posted: 04.02.2020 - 6:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) After 23 races in 2003, Mike Waltrip was 5th in the point standings and fairly close to 2nd in the points (Kenseth was uncatchable in the points lead). In the final 13 races, he had 10 finishes outside the top 25 and fell 10 spots in the standings to 15th. 37. WindowsME posted: 04.11.2020 - 7:09 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anyone know what the deal was with Carl Long in the #66? 38. Mile501 posted: 07.17.2020 - 8:59 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) I am surprised that no one has mentioned that this was a fuel mileage race, due to the last caution that came out with 58 laps to go and was 8 laps long to clean up after Bobby Labonte's engine blew. With 20 laps to go, the top 5 were Busch, Jarrett, Marlin, Elliott, and Newman. But most of them, along with Spencer (who was having a great run in 6th), Johnson in 8th, and others had to pit for fuel. Ryan Newman was able to hold on for the win, but that explains why all 3 RCR cars (known for getting good fuel mileage) finished in the top 6 and why some other teams got better-than-usual finishes as well. 39. Rich posted: 12.10.2020 - 3:59 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Allen Bestwick, Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach were the commentators. Matt Yocum, Marty Snider, Bill Weber and Dave Burns were the pit road reporters. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: