NASCAR on TV this week

Going By the Numbers: Retaining Daytona 500 Magic Isn’t Easy

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In 1982, the Daytona 500 was run at the very beginning of the NASCAR Cup season, rather than as its second event. The date stuck, and the Great American Race has been run as the first points race of the year ever since.

For all drivers running a full season (which is to say most), the 500 is the first etching on an otherwise clean slate. And when the eventual winner rolls into Victory Lane, things only look up for him or her. The points lead, a jump on the competition, a potential early favorite for the title – what could go wrong?

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Couch Potato Tuesday: Did ESPN, FOX, SPEED Cover Larson’s Crash Right?

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Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, where race telecast breakdowns are the main subject of interest. This past weekend was supposed to be one of the greatest weekends of racing all year. However, the crash that happened at the end of the Nationwide race overshadowed everything else, good and bad. Ultimately, I have to look at the telecasts under that lens. Because of that, the Camping World Truck Series event will not be covered in this critique. Quite simply, under the current circumstances, I would not be able to do SPEED’s telecast justice. However, it will covered later this week in the “Critic’s Annex,”:/notice/9557/ a piece which can be found every Thursday in the Frontstretch Newsletter.

Numbers Game: Daytona 500

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Numbers Game: Daytona 500 0 Laps led by Carl Edwards in his last 13 Cup races, compared to 5 wrecks he’d been involved in with …

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5 Points To Ponder: Edwards’ Early End, Bowyer-Gordon And Old Habits Die Hard

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=After all the hype of what was ultimately a pretty disappointing Great American Race, it’s back to the start of the “real” unrestricted regular season with a trip to the desert and the one-mile flat track of Phoenix International Raceway, which is exactly where I’ll start this week’s edition of Five Points to Ponder.

*ONE: A Return To The Scene Of The Crime: Round Two*

For Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon, in particular, the trip to the desert is a return to an ugly/entertaining flashback – depending on your point of view. “Rewind back with me to the unforgettable penultimate race of last season when Gordon took out Bowyer”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxAEnmOLXdQ – who still had an outside shot at the championship – in a bush league move.

NASCAR’s Gen-6 Stumbles Out Of the Gate At Daytona: Can It Be Fixed?

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The time and effort that has been poured into the rollout of the Gen-6 Cup car is probably more than the GDP of most Third World countries. The manufacturers have cooperated with each other in unprecedented fashion, and NASCAR has worked with all of them to make the cars as equal as possible while still maintaining the characteristics of the street cars they represent. The release has been forced down the throats of the fans, media and drivers to make sure everyone is on the same page as NASCAR tries to move back to the head of the sports landscape, or at least in the passenger’s seat next to the NFL. Unfortunately, after the first eight days of exposure on the racetrack in competitive events, the report card is somewhere between a C- and an F.

Pace Laps: Toyota’s Dominance Turned Disaster, Gauging Larson’s Psyche And Solid Starts

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*Sprint Cup: Camrys Go Kaput At Daytona* Heading to 50 laps to go in Sunday’s Daytona 500, it wasn’t a question of _if_ Toyota would be the first foreign manufacturer to win the race but _who_ would have the honor of holding the trophy. At one point, the top six drivers were all running Camrys, pulling away from the pack in a rare display of one make’s dominance over the field. Would Matt Kenseth stay on cruise control, dominating the race to the tune of 86 laps led and win the 500 back-to-back? Or how about Kyle Busch, recovering from a jack problem on pit road to run solidly inside the top 5? Could the third man in the Joe Gibbs Racing trio, Denny Hamlin, snooker them both? Or would one of the three Michael Waltrip Racing entries, driven by Mark Martin, Clint Bowyer, or Martin Truex, Jr. take control?

New Beginnings: Why This Weekend Might Change Things Dramatically For NASCAR

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It was a wild weekend for NASCAR. The span of a few days has rarely generated so many talking points, so much controversy, and such a wave of emotions. From Larson’s controversial move in the inaugural Battle at the Beach to a lackluster Daytona 500, and everything in between, we were never without discussion and speculation.

What came with all of those storylines, however, was a largely unanticipated step by the sport back into the “real world,” or, as some call it, “mainstream.” For the most part, this transition began with Danica Patrick’s pole-winning run a week ago for Daytona 500 qualifying. Though Patrick had already generated quite a bit of buzz outside of the walls of the NASCAR garage, it wasn’t until she actually pulled though with some results that everyone, and I mean _everyone_, began to take notice.

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