Upcoming Events At Martinsville

This weekend, we'll be watching the paint scraping action at the classic paperclip short track, Martinsville Speedway.

The Nextel Cup action will take place on Sunday at 1pm on ABC.
The Craftsman Truck Series action will be on Saturday 2:30 pm, on SPEED.
ALL TIMES EASTERN.

There are 48 entries for the Cup race, and 40 entries slated for the Truck race.

The Current Chase Standings, as of Dover

Current Nextel Cup Chase Standings, after the Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Speedway! (Screen shot from www.scenedaily.com)

The Chase for the Cup - TV Schedule

Below is the TV schedule for the 10 remaining Chase for the Cup races.
All times are eastern!

09/16/07 Sylvania 300 New Hampshire International Speedway ABC/1 p.m.
09/23/07 Dover 400 Dover International Speedway ABC/1 p.m.
09/30/07 Kansas 400 Kansas Speedway ABC/1 p.m.
10/07/07 UAW-Ford 500 Talladega Superspeedway ABC/1 p.m.
10/13/07 Bank of America 500 Lowe's Motor Speedway ABC/7 p.m.
10/21/07 Subway 500 Martinsville Speedway ABC/1 p.m.
10/28/07 Pep Boys Auto 500 Atlanta Motor Speedway ABC/1 p.m.
11/04/07 Dickies 500 Texas Motor Speedway ABC/3 p.m.
11/11/07 Checker Auto Parts 500 presented by Pennzoil Phoenix International Raceway ABC/3 p.m.
11/18/07 Ford 400 Homestead-Miami Speedway ABC/3 p.m.

New Hampshire - Sylvania 300 LineUp

The front row for the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire will be
Clint Bowyer on the pole, and Martin Truex Jr. in row 1. They will be followed by
Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson in row 2,
Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart in row 3,
Elliott Sadler and Kevin Harvick in row 4,
Greg Biffle and Dave Blaney in row 5.

(Carl Edwads qualified 11th in a back up car!)

John Andretti qualified 26th, but failed inspection and was sent packing.
Boris Said is now in the show.

Going home will be Hornish jr., Mayfield, Lepage, Jarrett & Waltrip.

See the entire line up at FOXTRAX

NASCAR Chase for the Cup Last 10 Races

So here it is, the 2007 Chase for the Nextel Cup. Who's gonna take the championship this year? I don't really want a second Jimmie Johnson diecast in my collection, but the odds are on Jimmie, with his latest momentum and track record for this time of year that is hard to ignore.

Jeff Gordon has been here before, contending for a championship, and though he and his team hit their stride early on, missed it a bit in the middle then looks like they're coming on strong again, I don't feel confident in his opportunities, but barring performance woes, then I think he's the man to beat.

Tony Stewart can light it up and show everyone who's boss, but if Kurt Busch keeps the momentum he's got that got him back up into the top 12, then we could see a Kurt-peat performance. Face it, he can win the thing while still losing a wheel down the front stretch!!

Of course, Matt Kenseth could just as easily come in third every single race and show how consistency can make a difference as opposed to Kevin Harvick's, hot / cold performances.

I don't think Carl Edwards has the experience to do this in 2007, only because I've seen him get anxious in situations that he's new too, and his anxiety gets the best of him.

Denny Hamlin... Now Denny could be the dark horse because he's got the power plant to prove it, if he doesn't blow up. Again, it's that blowing up thing that keeps me guessing while everyone may still be contending with the unleaded fuel balances.

For one reason or another, I clump Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer in the same caboose, as these guys have taken 2nd fiddle to the others throughout the year.

I think Jimmie or Jeff is going to take this thing to the bank. Half the races are COT events and Hendricks has that platform down pat. But I sure would love to see one of my caboose choices barrel past everyone for the surprise trophy!!

Especially Clint Bowyer. He's been the quietest contender in the bunch and could literally sneak right on in there if no one is looking out for him.

Jeff Burton would probably be the most popular win of all these guys because I don't think anyone ever boo's Jeff.

Well, we now have 10 races to watch, wait, ponder, and hopefully not bite off too many fingernails, though as seems to be the case across the board with the media, this has the potential to be a close contest! And that is what NASCAR has banked this whole chase format on, close contests and better ratings.

CA NASCAR Cup Lineup

Today weather was not an issue, but clouds that crept in may have impacted the final results for the NEXTEL NASCAR Cup Sharp AQUOS 500 Race at California Speedway.

For the first bit, Ryan Newman had the pole, but he qualified under the sun and as the qualifying progressed, clouds moved in and the track cooled.

Whether that was the reason or not, Ryan got relegated back to 4th, as Kurt Busch took the pole by .001 seconds from Jimmie Johnson, followed by Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch and Elliott Sadler making up the front 3 rows for the Cup race.

Dale Earnhardt Jr is starting 7th, Tony Stewart is starting 22nd. (I guess he needed Toyota power?) And Jeff Burton, in the naked AT&T car is starting 15th.

Scott Riggs, Ward Burton and Dale Jarrett did not make the race.

See the entire lineup at nascar.com

Race / TV schedule for Labor Day Weekend

NEXTEL Cup: ESPN, Sunday, 7pm ET
NASCAR Busch Series: ESPN2, Sat, 9:30pm ET
NASCAR Craftsman Trucks: SPEED, Sat 5 pm ET.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Is Nike backing away from NASCAR?

Starter, whose goal was to make its brand synonymous with NASCAR, has decided not to pursue more deals in the sport.


Starter, Nike's value brand of footwear and apparel, claims to provide 70 percent of the footwear worn by NASCAR crews, and it had pledged to strengthen its position in the sport last January when it signed a three-year contract with Joe Gibbs Racing.


But seven months into that relationship, Nike executives have decided not to continue seeking business deals in NASCAR. A Nike spokesman said Starter will fulfill the terms of its deal -- providing uniforms, footwear and apparel -- with Gibbs Racing through 2009. No financial terms were available.


Hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come or maybe they're signing on with Earnhardt Jr like other brands have been!! Who knows...


Read the whole article at nascar.com

Series Title Name Change Announced to Sprint

Well, in 2008 the Cup series will have yet another name once again.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

It was announced Saturday at Daytona that this name change will be effective January 1, 2008.

http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/headlines/cup/07/07/sprint.cup/index.html

Point Standings After the Pepsi 400

The top 12 did not change and in fact, the only changes in the top 12 were amongst 6 through 10.

Here are the too 15 in points:
Pos, change, Name, Points, Pts Behind Leader
1--Jeff Gordon, 2773, Leader
2--Denny Hamlin, 2496, -277
3--Matt Kenseth, 2390, -383
4--Jimmie Johnson, 2366-407
5--Jeff Burton, 2345-428
6+1Carl Edwards, 2308-465
7-1Tony Stewart, 2234-539
8+2Kyle Busch, 2190-583
9-1Kevin Harvick, 2172-601
10-1Martin Truex Jr., 2157-616
11--Clint Bowyer, 2142-631
12--Dale Earnhardt Jr., 2040-733
13+1Jamie McMurray, 1991-782
14-1Ryan Newman, 1979-794
15--Kurt Busch1919-854

See the whole list at http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2007/data/standings_unofficial.html

Pepsi 400 Notes, Results, Recap

The Pepsi 400, at Daytona International raceway started, and this writer watched with intrepidation, worried about any chance of rain, Jeff Gordon led the field of 43 cars across the start finish line for July night racing, under the lights, sparks flying, paint schemes swapping fenders, for 160 laps.

Early on, the fan favorite to win, Tony Stewart took out his team mate, and of course, blamed Denny Hamlin for running through him. This incident also took Dale Earnhardt Jr out of contention as he got caught up in the crash splatter.

On Lap 34, Jamie McMurray was black flagged for passing someone with his left side tires ON or below the yellow line!

On Lap 56, Juan Montoya slid up into Kevin Harvick, taking him into the wall, and out of contention.

With 29 to go, Reutimann slid up into the wall, and as Bobby Labonte ducked below him, Juan Montoya drove through Labonte, taking him out of the race.

With 20 to go, I thought I saw Kyle Busch do the same thing passing someone the way Jamie McMurray did when he got black flagged, but no penalties. No mention. I could have seen wrong.

In the last 30 laps, we saw 3 yellows. The top 10 in the pack were all over each other, as Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle were like one big mass in those closing laps, and in the end, with Jamie and Kyle side by side for the last couple of laps.

IN a last lap push, side by side, Kyle moved up into Jamie to suck the draft off of him coming off of turn 4. I thought Jamie was done, but in so doing, Kyle lost his brothers push draft for just long enough, and Jamie McMurray, with Carl Edwards behind him, drove to the 2nd closest finishing win in NASCAR history (Since they started electronic timing in the 90's. BTW, Kurt was involved in the closest timed finish ever, losing to Ricky Craven at Darlington. The Busch brothers are officially in the record book!)

These last few laps were as intense a set of laps this writer has ever watched, with so many cars at each others throats, all of them, a potential winner in a few laps.

Jamie McMurray, recovering from his pass through penalty, wins the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer (On his wheels this time!), Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne rounded out the top 10 unnofficial spots!

The time span between 1st and 29th was 2.7 seconds, with 30 cars on the lead lap! This was a great restrictor plate race, the last one, for this era car. An excellent closing statement for this body type.

Here are the unofficial results:
http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2007/18/data/results_unofficial.html

by Bruce Simmons, the Fan Reporter.

NASCAR Sponsor Battles

As potential suitors line up to replace Anheuser-Busch as the title sponsor of NASCAR's second-tier series, Sprint Nextel has this warning: Buyer beware.

When Nextel paid $700 million to replace R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s Winston brand as the title sponsor of NASCAR's premier series, it believed it was receiving a fertile platform to peddle its cell phones and service. Now its attention is divided between racing and the federal courts.

So, should a title sponsor that pays $70 million per year to help finance and promote the sport expect some protection against its rivals? NASCAR believes so, and it's willing to go to court to prove it.

"Exclusivity isn't new in sports. AT&T has done the same thing with American Idol. They have done the same thing with the NCAA Final Four. You pay a premium for that, and there are rights and privileges that go back to you."

Sponsor conflicts aren't new to NASCAR, but none has been at the $750 million level.
Two years ago, NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. had competing sponsorships from Gatorade and Powerade. Although NASCAR and ISC are owned by the same family, Gatorade was the official drink in Victory Lane at all ISC tracks, and Powerade was the official sports drink of NASCAR. That meant every car pulling into Victory Lane at half of the racetracks in the sport had to display Powerade bottles and Gatorade banners.

Jimmie Johnson, who represents Gatorade, once was fined $10,000 for knocking Powerade bottles off the top of his car in Victory Lane, and Jeff Gordon was warned for not driving to Victory Lane at Indianapolis Motor Speedway - presumably to avoid having any Powerade bottles placed on his car until television cameras were turned off. Powerade became tired of the controversy and dropped its deal with NASCAR last year. (Ouch, and that was nice piece of insight that, to the common, watch on weekends fan, did not know about.)

See the entire article at www.jacksonville.com

The Pepsi 400 - No More?

David Poole posted this article:

Next weekend’s Nextel Cup race at Daytona may very well be the last Daytona race called the Pepsi 400.

Sports Business Daily reported Friday that Coca-Cola is close to signing a deal to give it pouring and marketing rights at Daytona. That would end an almost 50-year relationship between Pepsi and the track.

The report says Pepsi’s deals with other International Speedway Corporation tracks at Phoenix, Talladega, Watkins Glen and Darlington will be dropped as they expire over the next few years.

Boo - I'm a Pepsi guy at heart, but it is what it is, and the show and all it's underlying contracts must go on!

ThatsRacin

Here's a link to the SportsBusinessDaily site, but you have to be a registered user to see the whole deal.

The Weekend Starting June 30 '07

The Trucks are on Speed, Saturday, 8:30 pm, ET.
The Busch Series is on ABC, Saturday, 2:30 pm, ET
The Cup Series is on TNT, Sunday, 1 pm ET.

THIS DATE: June 28, 1998 -- Jeff Gordon gets his first win at Sonoma. His five wins on the California road course are tops among Cup drivers.

All info courtesy of www.nascar.com

NASCAR Television Ratings

NASCAR's television ratings have continued to decline this year, despite their moving our TV schedules back to merge viewership and help ratings.

Yet, network executives are encouraged by gains in the younger demographics.

Fox reported a 7 % improvement (3.1 rating from 2.9) in the male 18-34 demo on its Cup broadcasts, and ESPN2's coverage of the Busch Series has produced a 2 percent increase (182,827 viewers from 179,446) for that group on cable.

But this is the first year Nielsen is incorporating out-of-home viewing in its numbers, and he thinks viewership from college dormitories accounts for some of the gain. So do the nnumbers really go up, or are we just covering more homes which bolsters the numbers, but not really having an improvement in viewership?

For the rest of the in-depth article, go to SceneDaily

What to do with Infractors, an Article by Bruce

Yea, it's a new word. It's a play on infractions, and those who accumulate them.

But in all seriousness, it's a pickle that NASCAR is in as to what to do about it. At the moment, they are being as stern / strict as they've ever been with uncovered violations, and there is some anticipation that Knaus will get an even stiffer penalty than the others because of his past digressions.

I've heard radio talk shows where the callers say send the whole team home for a race, or even 6 races!

As much as I'd like to see violators given the proper "stick", let's think about this for a moment: Say you bought tickets to go to New Hampshire a few months ago. Now say one of the main reasons you are going, your team that you like rooting for, isn't going to be there.

In my past, when my guy gets taken out of a race, I feel like, what's the point if I can't scream and yell in support of him every time he goes by? Now I have 42 cars I somewhat don't care about. (I think my seat neighbors would get tired of me randomly yelling out supporting cheers for a car that isn't even on the track!)

You also threaten the sponsorship contracts. Why would someone want to sponsor a team or driver that may miss any number of races due to their proclivity to cheat? And sadly, our beloved sport is based on a certain amount of relationship based, financially supportive advertising that allows us to see our drivers on tv, in print, and in the ever growing output of the newspaper, as is evidenced by the coverage Montoya's win got last weekend.

Bruce's take:
Start suspending random crew members. Take a teams primary tire changer out for a race. We've seen that suspending the crew chief doesn't seem to impact the team much. One race suspensions are good for everyone. Crew members, drivers, what not. Multi-race suspensions will only hurt the business.

Heck, since we're suspending people, we might as well dole out community service! Hey Jimmie Johnson, get up to the end of pit road and operate the entrance light next race. Or Jeff Gordon, track the scoring loop data. Have a penalty box behind the stands that the drivers / chiefs / crew have to go to, and sign autographs or babysit all day during race day. Yea, I'm on a roll now..

Which is my clue to stop. writing and hit my publish key. Thanks for dropping by.

By Bruce Simmons, the Fan Reporter

Gilliland and Stewart

Well, after lambasting Gilliland on his national radio show, we are wondering about Tony Stewart this year. Ok, maybe not, but when Stewart plowed Gilliland in a practice incident at Michigan, Stewart pointed out on his radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio that Gilliland was slowing down and gave no hand signal to indicate that.

After running into Gilliland, here is a quote from Stewart:
"... this is twice now that he's crashed us, and both times he doesn't have an answer for why. That's the part that scares you as a driver."

"He checks up at the end of the straightaway, and we run into him," a frustrated Stewart said. "It's really, really easy to see it. They've got two different cameras views of it, and he never stuck his hand out of the window [to signal he was going into the pits]. It really screwed up a really good racecar for [Sunday]. It didn't need to happen. It shouldn't happen." (NASCAR.com)

Are we sure that someone on much older tires needs to 'cue' everyone around him, especially people on fresh tires, that they are going slower?

Ricky Rudd points out that: The wreck "wasn't David's fault" and the "videotape clearly shows what happened and Tony screwed up." (latimes)

I think Tony keeps wanting it his way, as he plays Calvin-Ball* on the track. He makes noise that there needs to be give and take, but then doesn't give when others want to take, because conveniently, he is now racing them as they race him. I don't dislike Stewart, I just don't like his ever changing perspectives.

*Calvin-Ball: From Calvin and Hobbs. As Calvin and Hobbs would play a ball game between them, Calvin would constantly create new rules to support something that he just did to make a point.

The Free Market System in NASCAR

"It's a free-market system," said Cary Agajanian, who represents many of NASCAR's top drivers at Motorsports Management International. "It always has been. It has wrongly been labeled free agency forever.

"That's what's so good about this sport. It's not controlled by the unions or anything else."

Not Everybody agrees.

That's the teaser snippet for an article I found over on ESPN.com, if you're intersted.

NASCAR Point Standings

Here's a quick recap of the points standings in

CUP:
1 Jeff Gordon 2392 Leader
2 Denny Hamlin 2128 -264
3 Jimmie Johnson 2055 -337
4 Matt Kenseth 2044 -348
5 Jeff Burton 1919 -473
6 Carl Edwards 1905 -487
7 Tony Stewart 1903 -489
8 Kevin Harvick 1794 -598
9 Clint Bowyer 1774 -618
10 Martin Truex Jr. 1772 -620
More

BUSCH:
1 Carl Edwards 2534 Leader
2 Dave Blaney 1833 -701
3 Kevin Harvick 1798 -736
4 David Reutimann 1764 -770
5 Regan Smith 1744 -790
6 David Ragan* 1713 -821
7 Greg Biffle 1647 -887
8 Marcos Ambrose* 1638 -896
9 Bobby Hamilton Jr. 1629 -905
10 Jason Leffler 1603 -931
More


TRUCK
1 Mike Skinner 1708 Leader
2 Ron Hornaday 1595 -113
3 Todd Bodine 1508 -200
4 Travis Kvapil 1443 -265
5 Rick Crawford 1424 -284
6 Ted Musgrave 1420 -288
7 Johnny Benson 1264 -444
8 Aaron Fike* 1232 -476
9 Jack Sprague 1205 -503
10 Matt Crafton 1184 -524
More

Race Lineup For Michigan

JJ Yeley gets his first Cup pole! Congrats to JJ...

Here's the top 10 qualifiers:
1 J.J. Yeley
2 Jimmie Johnson
3 Kyle Busch
4 Ryan Newman
5 Joe Nemechek
6 Jeff Gordon
7 Denny Hamlin
8 Martin Truex Jr.
9 Jeff Burton
10 Kurt Busch
See the rest of the lineup at nascar.com