Barrett's father won't race in Mexico City

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor | Saturday, April 19, 2008 3:00 AM EDT
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MEXICO CITY – It was supposed to be a day where father and son could share the spotlight, but Stanton Barrett will likely replace his father, Stan, with Kenny Hendrick in the No. 31 Stanton Barrett Motorsports car for the Corona Mexico 200 this weekend at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Hendrick qualified Saturday for the Nationwide Series race and will start 38th. Stan Barrett, 64, had not competed in a NASCAR event since 1990.
 
The father-son duo will now attempt to make the race together in Montreal in August.
 
“My dad wants to focus on practicing some, testing, going to Montreal and race and not get in a race situation with not knowing the car really well,” Stanton Barrett said Saturday afternoon. “We’ve really got to go test. We’re a little bit more behind than we thought.

“In Montreal, we had a really good car there, the same car Kenny is driving. It was fast. But every track is a little different and people are learning stuff every day.”
 
Stanton Barrett was disappointed the father-son tandem wouldn’t race.
 
“It bummed me out a lot,” Stanton Barrett said. “Not being acclimated with the track and getting enough seat time is really hard, not knowing what your car is gong to do. … I had really hoped we would both be in the race and have a good time and give him the opportunity to race.
 
“We will go do another one and give him more time to test. We went through a lot with NASCAR and our transmissions being wrong – they had problems with our system – and that put it behind. Then we had a braking problem and missed the whole first practice. That wasn’t fair to him. But it’s not the end of the world.”
 
Hendrick, who has 12 career starts in the series, builds shocks for teams and competed in four Craftsman Truck series races last year.

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