NASCAR on TV this week

After Move to No. 22, 2013 Could Seal Joey Logano’s Future In Sprint Cup

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On Tuesday of this week, NASCAR’s Silly Season came to a head with Matt Kenseth’s long-awaited announcement that he would move to the No. 20 at Joe Gibbs Racing. Just a few hours later, the current driver running that Toyota, Joey Logano, announced his move to Penske Racing and the No. 22. On the surface, Kenseth’s and Logano’s choices look similar, basically lateral moves from one high-profile ride to another.

But look underneath, and they couldn’t be more different.

Dakoda Armstrong Driver Diary: Tough Breaks, Iowa’s Excellence And NFL 2012

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I didn’t think we were going to be too bad in Atlanta when we unloaded, but the track just got slowed with the more rubber that got put down. Everyone was fighting the same thing with being a little free. We never really got it perfect and we definitely didn’t have the speed we needed for qualifying, either, and that hurt us. When we got in the race, I was off a little bit and there was so much green flag racing that there wasn’t a lot of an opportunity to pit and make adjustments. It was just a night where we never really hit it off and we struggled a little bit. We were definitely looking for a good run. After Michigan (finished third), we had bad luck at Bristol and then didn’t have great luck at Atlanta, either. It’s disappointing for sure.

Four Burning Questions: How Much Is Denny Showing His Hand? Wild Cards & More

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*Regardless of who gets in on the wild card spot, does it really matter?*

Love it or hate it, the wild card race has been the main focus both last year and this year when Richmond rolls around. Introduced to the series at the beginning of 2011, it made wins the most important thing to getting in the Chase for those who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. Awesome, right?

Sort of. Yes, of course it’s great to have the focus on winning. But have we ever considered there is a reason those drivers aren’t there in the first place?

Voices From the Cheapseats: It’s On the Internet So It Must Be True

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Don’t you just LOVE press releases? Here is my favorite from this week but be forewarned, the follow clinch scenarios were found on the BSNews editor’s floor so don’t be surprised if some of the information therein is erroneous. (That means “wrong” in case you were wondering)…

Richmond Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Clinch Scenarios (corrected);

Below are the 2012 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup clinch scenarios for Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway, the final race before the Chase field is set. Nine drivers have clinched top-10 spots in the Chase: Greg Biffle, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick. Tony Stewart, currently 10th, has clinched at least a Wild Card spot.

Nuts For Nationwide: Danica-Mania Leaving Travis At The Altar

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In this day and age of NASCAR, when each well-known rookie is given so much hype they’re a blockbuster before ever setting foot on the track it’s near-impossible for someone to overachieve. Rarely, now does someone come along that raises your eyebrows with so much predetermined by money, equipment, and previous experience.

Beyond The Cockpit: Engine Guru Doug Yates On NASCAR Past, Present & Future

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_Doug Yates has been around racing his entire life. He’s the son of a legendary engine builder and has made a career out of making horsepower. He now heads up the operations at Roush Yates, a collaborative effort established in 2004 between two former engine building rivals who decided to team up and share their expertise._

_The result was an instant success, as Kurt Busch claimed the Cup Series title in the first year of the collaboration. The company has been expanding their reach beyond the upper levels of NASCAR and is now serving a broad variety of racing endeavors around the globe. Frontstretch sat down with Yates before the ADVOCARE 500 in Atlanta to talk about growing up in the sport, learning about business from a legendary father, and hopes for the future._

Truckin’ Thursdays: 11 Winners Down, Who’s Next?

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Ty Dillon’s victory in last Friday night’s Jeff Foxworthy’s Grit Chips 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway marked the 11th different–and sixth first-time–winner in the Camping World Truck Series this year. The current record for most wins in a single season sits at 14–set in 1998 and 2005–and with eight races left on the schedule, it’s a mark that could be broken.

But the question that remains: who might break through and add their name to the list of victors?

At Talladega anyone could make a trip to victory lane in that race – assuming all 36 trucks aren’t wiped out in a massive wreck. After all, remember what happened at the last superspeedway race the Truck Series had in Daytona this February. John King executed an ill-timed bump on Johnny Sauter, sending him spinning and ended up snagging the victory. But that wild card aside, there are plenty of drivers that have yet to win this year and could easily do so before season’s end.

Professor Of Speed: The Last Lap Of A Long Season

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Labor Day is always a melancholy holiday for me. It’s not because the weekend marks a symbolic end to summer, nor is it because it marks the beginning of a new school year (the moans of children are often difficult to hear over the cheers of their parents). What makes Labor Day so depressing to me is the fact that this was the time of year when Virginia Howell – my mother and one of the most dedicated NASCAR fans I ever knew – died from lung cancer at the age of 69.

I’ve written at length over the years about the role both of my parents played in my life-long relationship with NASCAR, but it was my mother who taught me about the meaningful (and sometimes quite complicated) nature of the driver/sponsor/fan triumvirate. Her loyalties were legendary within my family, and the example she set went on to inspire others once they discovered this thing called stock car racing.

Potts’ Shots: Rainy Days in ASA, Kenny’s Cussing, and Butch’s Bad Break

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With a phone call this week, somebody wanted to know what was the longest distance I ever drove only to be rained out.

That would have to be one of the ASA races we ran in Atlanta. Woke up Sunday morning with the pouring rain like it was coming out of a bucket, and it stayed that way until we pulled out at 3:00 p.m. Rex Robbins asked if I was giving up on it clearing up. I said I wasn’t so much worried about that as the track filling up with water. This was back when Atlanta was a “pure” oval and a bit bowl-shaped like Dover. I loved it that way. We don’t have enough tracks like that nowadays…