Watch A NASCAR Video on The Championship Race

Check out the NASCAR NewsCast.
It's got a quick recap, and video snippets of interviews:

Breaking News, or Saved Tires: Testing Banned for 2009

NASCAR has banned testing for all three National Series (Truck, Nationwide and Cup) at all NASCAR sanctioned tracks next season. This decision has been made with an eye on trying to help teams save several million dollars in their 2009 budgets.

Here's where you need to shake your head: This moratorium also includes "preseason" Daytona 500 testing. I'm betting networks are scrambling to figure out time filler shows for the slots they reserved to cover the Daytona testing.

What this means is that no tests will be allowed to be conducted by any team where a Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series or Truck Series event is held.

~

Brilliant!

On one side of the coin, I say good job. You've saved the little team oodles of funds.

On the other side of the coin, I say, WTH are you thinking? You know testing is going to happen and you can't stop it. It's just going to happen at non-sanctioned NASCAR tracks.

You've just made it harder for the smaller teams or new drivers to get that valuable on-track experience needed while they test. Heck, Penske was going to build his own track a few years back. I'm guessing he might be rummaging through the drawers for those blue prints right after the announcement at Homestead this morning.

If you had to cap the practice sessions, I'd say limit the tests to the number of tests the smallest team conducts. In this fashion, if teams want to test, the racing community comes together and starts helping each other so they can get their tests and everyone makes out OK.

I guess this is going to mean more NASCAR Racing 2003 simulation testing for the young guns! It worked for Carl, Denny, Dale Jr and Truex, just to name a few. They've used the software to get familiar with different aspects of tracks they've either never been to or wanted to test new ideas on. Denny's first two wins at Pocono were credited by him to the simulation. Jr and Truex both were recanting how their on-track tactics were just like a mod in the game they used, that got them to the front.

There's no reason it can't work for the newbies. In fact, it's going to have to now.

Let's see if this detracts from ABC's blunder last weekend? (No, I'm not bitter and bringing it up every chance I get. Not me.)

Oh, by the way: This new restriction will put a premium on tire testing. Tire testing has not been banned... yet. Again, probably another advantage for the bigger, experienced teams.

Upcoming NASCAR TV Schedule for Oct 25th

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series will be at Atlanta on SPEED at 1 p.m. ET on Sat.
The Nationwide Series at Memphis will be on ESPN Classic at 3 p.m. ET on Sat.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series from Atlanta at 1 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC

Weather For Kansas

For once, we aren't going to be put off by any rain, at least according to Weather.com.

They're predicting highs in the 80's, no precipitation! Finally. Let's get a decent race weekend in this time around and see how the Cup Contenders fare this weekend!

NASCAR TV: 9-20 to 21-08

TV Times for the upcoming weekend:


The Nationwide Series is at Dover: 3 p.m. ET Sat. on ESPN2
The Truck Series is at Las Vegas. 9 p.m. ET Sat. on SPEED
The Cup Series is at Dover 1 p.m. ET Sun. on ABC

See you at the "track".

Sylvania 300 at Loudon, New Hampshire

Qualifying having been rained out, today's rain has subsided for now, and the field has been set by driver points.

Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards leads the field to the green flag start of the Sylvania 300 at Loudon, New Hampshire and by lap 5, Ewards takes the lead from Busch and pulls away.

Lap 10: 99, 07, 20, 18, 88, 24, 48, 31, 16 & 11

Lap 20: There's thought that Kyle Busch's car has issues... possible sway bar broken as the car rolls pretty badly. The LF is lifting way up in the corners compared to the other cars... dropping back spots every lap. While we're looking at this, the No. 20 Toyota moves into 2nd. The 18 team is waiting for the competition yellow at lap 35.

HOF racing car No. 96 with Joey Lagano was almost put a lap down just before the lap 35 competition yellow. Kyle Busch is 26th. The No. 18 car came into the pits while closed. They need the time to work on it. They change tires and he's away to do a circuit before getting more work done.

Lap 41 restart: 99, 20, 48 11 2

Kyle Busch will be down 2 laps due to a 1 lap penalty for running a lap and passing cars.. I think they said. The sway bar bolt was broken but he is still having problems.

Lap 55: 99, 48, 20, 2 & 11.

Lap 75: 48, 20, 2, 99, 88, 11, 07, 16, 31 & 9 lead the pack. The 18 car is 43rd, 2 laps down.

Lap 82: The 26, 6 and 18 cars have been in a wreck.

The 18 car spins coming out of turn 2, then the 6 and 26 got together and the 26 slid into the back of the 18 car.

Lap 89 restart: 48, 88, 99, 16 & 2 lead the field

Lap 110: 88, 48, 2, 16 & 11 lead the pack.

Lap 155: 88, 48, 16, 11, 2, 31, 99, 24, 07, 29 lead the pack as green flag pits start.

Lap 160: Tony Stewart speeding on pit road, drive through penalty.

Robby Gordon keeps pitting at an odd angle that blocks Jeff Gordon's exit from his pit that is right behind him.

Lap 214 Debris caution.

Lap 220 (80 to go) restart: 48, 11, 16, 99, 31, 88, 29 & 2 cars lead them to the green.

Is this the last pit stop for the day or setting us up for a gas mileage race?

The 78 car gets tapped by Regan Smith and wrecks on the front stretch. This puts Tony Stewart back on the lead lap in 21st place after his pit road speeding penalty!

Denny Hamlin is the ONLY one to pit. Tony Stewart pits for gas as he gets his lap back.

Restart with 73 to go: 48, 16, 99, 31 88.

Big wreck before the lap complets. Many cars collected.

The No. 77 goes below the limit line and makes it 5 wide... he slides up into the No. 45 car which then gets turned loose, hits 17 and they collect the 96, 38, 83 and 5 cars. The track is red flagged to get clean up done.

Observation: Joey Logano is 39th, 3 laps down. This answers the question if HOF has good equipment or not.

Restart with 66 to go: 48, 16, 99, 31 & 88.

The 88 is racing the 31 hard... down inside of the 31... they be rubbin' a bit but for the moment, the 31 car pulls away from him.

Kyle Busch is 36th now!

52 to go: Johnson held off Biffle and pulled away. 48, 16, 99, 31 & 88.
Stewart is up to 12th.

Caution with 35 to go: A.J. Allmendinger smacks the outside wall in the front stretch after coming up on the No. 00 car.

Restart with 30 to go: 48, 16, 99, 31 & 88 lead the pack.

At that last pit stop, a few folk pitted, including Tony Stewart.

Caution with 20 to go: No 6 car spins, launched by the No. 55 car. The racing was getting pretty intense throughout the field.

The 07 pits, he was having issues so nothing lost here.

Restart - 18 to go: 48, 16, 99 and big crash in turn 2 as the 7 and the 10 get together.

Restart - 13 to go: 48, 16, 99, 31 & 88. Should I go out on a limb and guess who's going to win this one?

Biffle gets under Johnson and takes the lead with 11 to go.

It looks like Biffle was saving something!

5 to go: 16, 48 & 99

3 to go: 16 & 48. Biffle cannot make a mistake. Johnson is a few car lengths back, but he ins't going anywhere.

Today, there was no bad luck for Greg Biffle as he wins the Sylvania 300.
He was followed across the line by
Jimmie Johnson(48), Carl Edwards(99), Jeff Burton(31), Dale Earnhardt Jr.(88),
Kurt Busch(2), Martin Truex Jr.(1), Tony Stewart(20), Denny Hamlin(11) and
Kevin Harvick(29) rounded out the top 10 finishers.

Congratulations to Greg Biffle, who held back, saving gas until those last 10 laps!

This Weekend's New Hampshire TV Schedule

The Nationwide Series takes a break until the 20th when they show up at Dover, so we've got two shows to look after this weekend coming from NASCAR:


NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Loudon | 2:30 p.m. Sat. | SPEED
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Loudon | 1 p.m. ET Sun. | ABC

Enjoy!

NASCAR TV Schedule for Sept 5-6 2008

Hi all,

It's time to plot your TV couch time with NASCAR racing:

(UPDATED TIMES DUE TO STORM)

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Gateway | 2 p.m. ET Sat. | SPEED
NASCAR Nationwide Series Richmond | 7:30 p.m. ET Fri. | ESPN2 (7PM Sunday)
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Richmond | 7 p.m. ET Sat. | ABC (1PM Sunday)

Enjoy and see you at the races!

NASCAR Cares - And Gives

There are many ways for NASCAR to give back to the world we live in and the success their fans have made possible for them.

Many drivers have contributed to the Pettys Victory Junction Camp, a special camp for special kids with health care needs.

Richard Childress, the owner of Richard Childress Racing, has just committed On July 30 $5 million to start what they plan to be the nation's most comprehensive institute for pediatric trauma in association with Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

As if that's not enough, there's an additional $20 million ready to be applied when it's needed to see it through.

It came to the Childress' attention that there was no centralized pediatric trauma focus in the medical world and they were rather surprised that this hadn't happened before now, in these days.

Rather than complain, they did something about it.

I guess they subscribe to the premise of being either part of the problem, or part of the solution. They created a solution. Kudos to the Childress'.

For more details you can check out the article at NASCAR.com

Chevron Says 'Later! to NASCAR

After 20 years of being in NASCAR, Ganassi has ticked off Chevron and away they go!

OK, that might be a bad joke, but this can be chalked up to more signs of the times. One more, thought to be mainstay sponsor of NASCAR is taking it's leave or changing how it's spending it advertising dollars, to be more exact after the close of their 2008 contract.

Chevron said it would pursue new marketing strategies for its Texaco and Havoline brands, with a focus on local and regional marketing programs.

Ouch, and here I thought national exposure would be the kicker. Actually, from what I've learned of recent months is that some oil companies actually have regionally demographic named products that don't even seem related, but they are.

For instance one company has Chevron, Texaco and Caltex.
Then there's Exxon, Mobil and Esso.

These are the mainstream names... a few months back I came across an article, and I can't for the life of me remember the company, but they market under a couple of different names per region in one state, so I guess we gotta accept the deal and hope everyone makes out OK in the long run.

I guess that means that the most dedicated sponsor supporting fan base gets to take their business to Sunoco or Shell... then we'll see where Chevron stands after this decision. My guess, they'll be back in late '09 or 2010.


source