NASCAR on TV this week

2013 NASCAR Fantasy Preview: Old Favorites And Diamonds In The Rough

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*Come back every Thursday, to the website to get Jeff’s advice on who to pick for your team, all season long and see if you can beat your favorite staff members! More special announcements about this league to come.*

Daytona is just around the corner, so it’s time to rev up that NASCAR fantasy engine again. When it comes to playing fantasy sports, we all like to think we have some inside secret, or maybe some unique idea that can shoot us to the top. We like to think we know more than the other people we’re playing against.

But having played in many a fantasy league in many a sport (baseball, football, basketball, hockey, NASCAR) more often than not, having success is more about not making the huge mistake than coming up with a sleeper pick who comes up big consistently. So whether you are in league that limits drivers to a certain amount of races for the 36-race season (Yahoo gives drivers nine) or a where you have drivers for an entire season, one of the key factors is to not mess up that early “sleeper” selection.

Truckin’ Thursdays: Bring on 2013!

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Well fans, it’s that time again. Time to shake off the winter rust and look forward to yet another exciting Camping World Truck Series season. Here we are, just a little over a week away from the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, typically the most exciting race on the schedule! So for those of you that have completely disconnected from NASCAR during the break, I’m here to ensure you’re all caught up in time for next Friday night’s NextEra Energy 250 with a full season preview.

Plenty of changes have occurred since the last time we saw the Trucks in November. Kyle Busch Motorsports leads the way with a brand new lineup for 2013.

Speeding Through Summer: Weekly NASCAR Fan Q&A Includes MWR, J.J., More

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Finally, we are here. Gone is the hype and hoopla of the Super Bowl. Now, we’re staring face first into the motorsports giant and that Great American Race – the Daytona 500. But first, we have this week’s “preseason” warmup: the Sprint Unlimited, formerly known as the Budweiser Shootout. After an offseason filled mostly with stories about drivers’ (ahem … Danica) personal lives and some random bits about the Gen-6 cars, it’s been a mostly uneventful one compared to years past.

We’re back, however, and just as ready to hear those engines roar as the rest of you. New cars, new drivers in new places, and, as an added bonus, new rain delay technology! Mother Nature vs. Air Titan, Round 1. I can’t wait!

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Mirror Driving: Offseason Reflections, NASCAR Diversity And Unlimited Rule Changes

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*Saturday night was the induction ceremony for this year’s NASCAR Hall of Fame class… but only two of the five being honored were alive to receive their award. With so much history to catch up on, this sport seems to be in a pickle to induct many of their living legends before they, too pass away. Is it important for inductees to still be living when they receive this honor and, if so, how do the powers that be solve this problem? *

Summer: I’ve heard several people say induct as many as ten per year, but that would take away from the prestige, I think.
Amy: It’s more important for the most deserving people to be inducted. I think ten would have been the way to go the first year, maybe even the second, but not anymore.

Side By Side: Does A Pair Of Drivers Dating Matter?

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_Welcome back to Side By Side. There are always two sides to every story, and we’re going to bring them both, right here, every week. Two of our staff writers will face off on an important racing question… feel free to tell us what you think in the weekly poll and also in the comments section below!_

*This Week’s Question: Does a pair of drivers dating one another actually matter?*
_Who’s right? You decide!_

Marc Lemay, Frontstretch Webmaster: When It’s Danica, It Matters

It’s bigger than just “dating a fellow driver” when it comes to Danica Patrick. Yes, I am going to make an example of Danica, simply because she is, for better or worse, the torchbearer for future women coming into NASCAR.

Tech Talk: Tony Gibson Dishes on Preparing for Gen-6 at Daytona

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_Tony Gibson has been around the sport of stock car racing for a long time. He’s seen three or four generations of the race cars in the Cup Series and now, he prepares to climb aboard the pit box for one of the most well-known female drivers in the history of the sport, Danica Patrick. As he takes on that new role, he also has to take on the task of learning how the latest iteration of the Cup car will react to the subtle nuances that crew chiefs throw at it in an attempt to make it faster. Gibson took a break from all that complexity, plus preparing his team to head to Daytona to speak with Mike Neff about the challenges that teams are facing as they head to the World Center of Speed in this season’s first installment of Tech Talk._

Mike Neff: *You went down to Daytona last month for the big test with the new car. How much did you learn and when you unloaded down there, were you in a 500 setup or were you testing specific things with the car?*

Tony Gibson: We were pretty much in race mode. I know it sounds strange to say single-car runs, but we weren’t in any kind of qualifying mode.