Mike Neff: *You’re 46 years old, brother! How much longer are you going to do this?*
Jeff Agnew: I really don’t know. My boss, Eddie Asbury up in Bluefield, he loves to race and we all love to race. If we can keep going out and be fairly competitive, and put on a good show, I really don’t know. We’ll just keep going as long as we can go.
Happy Halloween! How many drivers do you think are “scared” after last weekend’s crazy race at Martinsville? I can tell you Jimmie Johnson is nothing but confident with three races left, though the margin between he and Brad Keselowski should at least make him slightly nervous. The sixth-place result from the No. 2 team, a career best from their driver leaves the two-time Chaser within striking distance.
Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, the small corner of Frontstretch where race telecasts take center stage. This week, the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series appeared at the small Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.
*Kroger 200*
On Saturday afternoon, the Camping World Truck Series returned from another couple of weeks off to go racing. Krista Voda, who missed the last Setup due to working an NFL game for FOX, hosted the show this week.
By JEFF WOLFE Jimmie Johnson felt good about his chances before he stepped into his No. 48 Chevrolet Sunday afternoon at Martinsville. He was feeling a lot better after winning his seventh career race at the half-mile paper clip oval. Johnson led 193 of the 500 laps, including the final 15, for his fourth win …
Kansas went really well. We practiced in second spot, but we were tied with Paul Menard, so they listed us third. We backed it up by qualifying fourth. It’s a pretty special car, you know? People will ask, “well, how come you qualify twelfth to fifteenth then all of a sudden, you qualify so good?” My best qualifying run of the year was third at Phoenix. When I’m in the car, we usually qualify in the top 11, let’s say; I’ve got a couple of eleventh-place qualifying runs. So it was a really solid qualifying effort.
_For 23-year old Ricky Taylor, things are looking pretty decent. Entering Lime Rock, he had won two races (the rain-shortened event at Homestead, and at New Jersey Motorsports Park) and two poles (New Jersey and the short course at Watkins Glen). Recently, Taylor took a break from his busy schedule to sit down with our own Phil Allaway._
Phil Allaway, Frontstretch.com: Can you give our fans an idea of what it’s like to drive around [Lime Rock] in the wet?
Ricky Taylor, driver, No. 10 SunTrust Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP: It’s a handful. It’s a lot of work. There’s not a lot of runoff here, and when you do go off, it’s all grass, which gets super slippery. So, the margin for error is really small. The track isn’t very wide, so there isn’t a lot of room to explore different lines. [As a result], you’re stuck on one line. If that line is super slippery, then you’ll have to deal with it. You have to be very sensitive with the throttle and the brake. You have to be very precise with all of your movements with the car.
Admit it. You laughed when you heard people say that Kansas would be the “wild card” in this Chase. Well, we don’t think that the mechanics back at the shop are laughing now — especially those fabricators charged with rebuilding sheet metal. Heck, even the car in Victory Lane was damaged after Sunday!
Matt Kenseth’s Ford, its chassis bent and bruised had what amounted to a “Kansas stripe” in Victory Lane but still took home the trophy anyway in this race of survival.
Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, where race telecast criticism is our grandmaster plan. This past weekend, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series were each at Kansas Speedway for a cavalcade of wrecks, and some racing as well.
However, before we start, there are a couple of motorsports-related news bites that must be mentioned. On Friday, the ARCA Racing Series announced that they have reached a multi-year agreement with Fox Sports Media Group to continue airing a minimum of ten races a year on SPEED and/or Fox Sports 1 through at least 2014 on a live or same day, tape-delay basis. This decision shores up the deal for a series that just a little while ago appeared to be falling off of television as a result of the changeover.
By Jeff Wolfe Matt Kenseth seems to have the skill of taking a less than ideal situation and turning it into a pretty good one. Earlier this season, it was announced that the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver would be leaving the only team he’s known, Roush Fenway Racing, for Joe Gibbs Racing next season. Still, …
_The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is immersed in a tight championship battle, with James Buesher and Ty Dillon at the forefront, each battling for his first series title. Buescher knows how intense the heat of the battle is; he was a contender in 2011 as well, finishing third–could that, along with his four wins, give him the edge this year? Buescher was in Charlotte last weekend, racing in the Nationwide Series, and he took some time to sit and chat with our Amy Henderson to discuss his beginnings as a hobby racer, growing up on the track, racing smart in the championship hunt…and much more._
Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, where race telecast critiques are the name of the game. This past weekend, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series each raced at Charlotte Motor Speedway. A nice home game for most.
However, there is TV rights news that must be mentioned before we start. “The Sports Business Journal is reporting”:http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2012/10/15/Media/NASCAR-TV.aspx that FOX has officially re-upped with NASCAR. The extension is eight additional years, beginning in 2015 at a cost of slightly over $2.4 billion. This allows FOX to keep rights to the first 13 point races of the Sprint Cup season, the Budweiser Shootout, Budweiser Duels, Sprint All-Star Race and the Camping World Truck Series. It’s currently unclear whether the current amount of programming will remain, or if the potential re-branding of SPEED would affect it in any way.
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