When Bruton Smith talks, everyone listens; and Sunday was no exception. Popping up just prior to his track’s main event, Smith spoke to the media as newly purchased New Hampshire Motor Speedway prepared for the first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event under the Speedway Motorsports Inc. banner. As usual, all ears were in Smith’s direction …
NASCAR might as well be racing Sherman tanks. To hear the teams, media and fans lately, that doesn’t seem to be far from the pervading sentiment. While the new car does need to see some changes, there are also some perceptions that are simply not supported by the data we have. Some of the perceptions …
It had to happen, really. Petty Enterprises’ announcement on Wednesday that they had sold a portion of the family business that has been around as long as NASCAR has been on the track was not really a surprise. But on some level, it is a disappointment. Boston Ventures, by all accounts, is a wealthy, stable …
I was reading through some old (and not-so-old) racing columns and found one that I wrote last year that got me thinking. Actually, it was the comments that I got that got me thinking. I wrote about some of the issues that were making NASCAR less than popular with the fans. You can read about …
It’s the unofficial start of summer, but things heated up weeks ago in the NASCAR world. Much of the swirl of discussion has been predictable; what driver will go where, who is living up to expectations, when will Junior win, the same things that go around every summer. But there are a couple of stories …
It was very nearly perfect. Stock car racing returned to the too-long-silent Rockingham (formerly North Carolina) Speedway last week on a picture perfect early summer day. All eyes were on Joey Logano, the rookie phenom who won easily from the pole in his ARCA Re/Max Series debut, but it was a veteran who truly epitomized …
You had a driver on the radio, nerves plain in his voice in the closing laps despite his lead. The driver may be a champion, but he needs the win badly and he’s a nervous sort anyway. You had a crew chief talking his driver through those laps, knowing they had to run smart. Any …
Author’s note: I wrote the original incarnation of this column over four years ago. I found it earlier while looking for something else and was surprised to see how little things have changed, even as racing has metamorphosed to an unbelievable degree since March 2004. Although the majority of the original content has been left …
How many times did your mother tell you to treat people the way you want to be treated? You probably laughed and stuffed your little brother in the laundry chute anyway. Maybe you went outside to play in the yard a few days later, and stepped right where the same brother walked the family dog …
It may be only five races into the NASCAR season, but there have certainly been a lot of things to think about: Toyota’s surge from backmarker to contender to winner; last year’s absolute domination of Hendrick Motorsports turning into not even being a serious contender to win in ’08; the Car of Tomorrow; Robby Gordon‘s …
Over the years, the sponsor landscape has changed drastically, from one of small, mostly local automotive-driven businesses to one of billion-dollar international corporations who pump millions into the race teams for the right to paint their logo on the hood of a racecar. And in return, they get a polite, smiling racecar driver to come …
Remember The Scarlet Letter? The novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne in which young Hester Prynne is sentenced to wear a scarlet “A” on her clothing, a constant reminder to all that she had committed adultery, the utmost sin in her Puritan lifestyle? You probably read it in high school and possibly vowed never to read another …
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