Race Weekend Central

Thompson in Turn 5: 5 Good NASCAR Role Models

It seems like every couple of weeks during the season, the headline the day after a Sprint Cup event announcing the race winner is shared by either the newest physical altercation, one driver “trash talking” another, or unnecessary rough driving being committed by a competitor. Although I do believe NASCAR attempts to keep behavior at …

Read more

Bubble Breakdown: On Groundbreaking Weekend, Teams on NASCAR’s Top-35 Bubble Attempt Breaking Away From the Pack

The Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta may have made history at the front of the field – with Toyota claiming the first victory for a foreign-born manufacturer since 1954 – but it also featured a number of drivers trying to prevent history of a different sort at the rear. With just one race remaining before …

Read more

Driven to the Past: John Potts

I grew up in Louisville, Ky., and my father and mother started taking me to what they called the “hardtop” races at the Jeffersonville (Ind.) Sportsdrome when I was 10 years old – in 1949. I was hooked from the start. Those hardtops were mostly 1939 and ’40 Fords and Mercurys, with an occasional ’39 …

Read more

Happy Hour: Do Hard Hits Make NASCAR Drivers Consider Retirement?

Shortly after Rusty Wallace announced his impending departure from the NASCAR traveling circus at the beginning of the 2005 season, he had to correct a motorsports media that suggested he was scared to get into a racecar. Wallace clarified that it was not that he was scared to get behind the wheel… racecar drivers can’t …

Read more

Fanning the Flames: Palm Sweat, Las Vegas Blackjack & Taking Your Chances with the NSCRC

Lesson learned the hard way last weekend: When a casino changes dealers on you, just get up and walk away – no exceptions, no questions asked. This is now one of Taliaferro’s Cannon Laws; well, after I kissed that hundo goodbye in a heartbeat. Our esteemed Managing Editor managed to get out of Las Vegas …

Read more

Fantasy Picks ‘N’ Pans: 2008 Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta

After a weekend in Sin City, there are always those select few who fly home happy after hitting the jackpot… and just as many who wind up empty handed after going bust. Case in point: if your fantasy team last week had Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth on it, you’re probably feeling a bit …

Read more

Mirror Driving: Tires Making You Pout? Will Carl Edwards’s Penalty Have Some Clout? & Mark Martin Spinning Someone Out?

Carl Edwards’s win was tainted with word that an oil-tank cover was left off the car following Las Vegas. Is it time for NASCAR to strip a win?