Tony Lumbis has headed the Marketing Department for Frontstretch since 2008. Responsible for managing our advertising portfolio, he deals with our clients directly, closing deals while helping promote the site’s continued growth both inside and outside the racing community through social media and traditional outlets. Tony is based outside Philadelphia.
Kyle Larson has been turning heads as a Sprint Cup Series rookie this year, nearly taking the win at Fontana earlier this season while remaining …
_J.J. Yeley has seen it all during his brief Sprint Cup career. In 2006, he was chosen by Joe Gibbs as the successor to the organization’s famed No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet after the team had parted ways with 2000 champion Bobby Labonte. It seemed like Yeley had a bright career ahead of him, yet just three years later, the Arizona native was out of the sport altogether, sidelined with a neck injury suffered in a Sprint Bandits Series race at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas._
_The road back has been a long and winding one for the now 36-year-old, who bounced from one team to another trying to find the right fit. If the start of the 2013 season is any indication, though he may have found it with Tommy Baldwin Racing. Yeley’s 10th-place finish in the Great American Race was his first top 10 since the 2008 Lenox Industrial Tools 301 in New Hampshire, a consistent run that reconfirmed their status as one of the sport’s top “underdog” organizations. The performance has both driver and team brimming with confidence as they head into the desert this weekend._
The combination of Mark Martin, Michael Waltrip and Brian Vickers did a solid job behind the wheel of the No. 55 Toyota, propelling the team to a 15th-place finish in the owner standings.
As I’m sure you all know, the past few weeks certainly have not been the most pleasant of my career. I was informed that I would not be back with the team and then found out with the rest of you that Kurt Busch would be in the car. I had an inkling that he was going to replace me, but that was for the team to talk about, not me. What did catch me off guard was the fact that I will be out of the car after Talladega. I would have expected to at least have been able to finish the season after all of my efforts, but it is not to be.
With that being said, I am already working on putting this disappointment behind me so that I can focus on the fact that I’ll be a free agent and I need to move forward. It’s late in the season and a lot of moves have already been made in terms of seats being filled, but those are the cards that I was dealt. I will do the best that I can to emerge from this in the best possible situation.
As drivers, there is always something to do in between races and this week was no different. On Tuesday, we were at Pikes Peak for testing. Overall, I thought things went pretty well. Some stuff worked, some didn’t. Any time we get to test, it serves as a good opportunity to gather information that we can apply anywhere. If I had to pick a specific track where I expect what we learned to especially benefit us, I would say Richmond more than anywhere else; Pikes Peak is just a little bit rougher. We’re also hoping some of the things we found could work at Bristol.
We used to get to Pikes Peak a lot but this is actually the first time since the end of last year that we were able to test there. I enjoy going there and if they got rid of some of the bumps, I think you would see a lot more teams crossing the country to test there. From a short track perspective, I think it’s one of the best venues in the nation to collect data and knowledge at. I think it’s a great facility and I have a lot of fond memories from when we used to race there.
I would like to thank everyone for your words of support for the firefighters and those impacted by the fires out here in Colorado. Fortunately, they’ve got all of them taken care of finally and we got some rain. It’s still a severe drought but at least it’s not the timber box that is used to be. The firefighters did a great job containing the fires so I hope we don’t have to worry about it the rest of this year. The closest one to us was probably the Boulder fire about 15 to 20 miles away so it was far enough where it didn’t have us too worried but close enough to keep an eye on it. We feel very fortunate.
The drug screening process in NASCAR has come back into the spotlight of late and a lot of people have shared their opinions on the system. I think as with any process, there are always ways that you can refine it.
FanVision has been a valuable asset to the spotters and it will be just a matter of time until other team members starting using the device as well.
Things have been starting to look better for the Furniture Row Racing team and I.
Our weekend at Talladega certainly did not go well for the Furniture Row Racing Team.
It’s no secret that the financial landscape of NASCAR is quite different than it used to be a decade ago.