NASCAR on TV this week

4 Burning Questions: Carl Edwards, Edwards & Jeff Gordon the Favorite

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*Did Carl Edwards make the right decision in re-signing with Roush Fenway?*

After months of rampant speculation about where Carl Edwards would be driving in 2012, the 2011 Sprint Cup Series points leader opted this week to stay loyal to Roush Fenway Racing and remain with the organization, spurning Joe Gibbs Racing. Edwards and a potential Home Depot sponsorship at JGR may have certainly been appealing, but when it comes to winning races, this was a no-brainer. In seven full seasons with Roush Fenway, Edwards has amassed 19 wins, 79 top 5s and 126 top 10s while becoming the face of the organization and one of the most appealing drivers for fans and sponsors alike.

Holding a Pretty Wheel: You Can’t Mandate Class – Where’s the Sportsmanship in Today’s NASCAR?

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Racing is a sport of emotion. Passion runs deep, emotion often runs deeper, feelings get hurt, egos get bruised. That’s as old as the sport, and hopefully it will never change.

However, there is a fine line between racing passionately and racing without scruples. It’s a line that drivers will sometimes cross unintentionally in the heat of battle, and when they apologize and move on, can occasionally be forgiven for. But it seems like that line is being crossed quite often lately, without remorse or consequence. And NASCAR not only allows it, it seems that at times, when it suits their purposes, they condone it.

The line has a name. It’s called sportsmanship.

Tearing Apart the Trucks: A Halfway Checkup & a Veteran’s Return

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After what was an agonizingly slow start to season–as usual–suddenly the Camping World Truck Series has already hit the halfway point of the season. With just 12 races remaining, the 2011 campaign has already shaped up to be one of the more competitive ones in a few years.

Following the Lucas Deep Clean 200 at Nashville Superspeedway two weeks ago, Johnny Sauter held a 42 point lead over third place James Buescher, but that lead closed up considerably after last week’s visit to Lucas Oil Raceway. After waiting too long to change out a tire going flat, the driver of the No. 13 Chevrolet broke a swaybar and was forced to limp his way around the track to a disappointing 23rd-place finish. As a result, the top 7 are now separated by just 46 points with 12 races remaining.

MPM2Nite: So What Happened While I Was Gone?

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There’s nothing like a week down the Jersey Shore to refresh an aging soul. Yeah, it was quite hot here in the Northeast while I was away, but generally along the shoreline it was pretty comfortable and if it got a bit hot there were always cans of liquid air conditioning at hand. The sand, the sea, the breezes and girls in their summer clothes. I had to come home, but I know I’ll be back next year and every year after that until I am too old and decrepit to carry a rolled up rice mat and a six pack cooler to the waterline.

It wasn’t that many years ago (OK, it was a few) the annual trek east to the Shore involved a complete disconnect from NASCAR and related news. Nowadays, everybody (except me) has some sort of portable digital device that retrieves information from the web with the alacrity of a Golden Retriever puppy sent after a tennis ball. Thus I was able to keep up with what was going on though whether that’s a blessing or a curse I don’t know.

Professor of Speed: Don’t Assume Anything

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After years of rolled eyeballs and harrumphs of disdain, NASCAR Nation could only shake its collective head and watch the scene unfold – Jeff Gordon scrambling after a late fuel stop in an attempt to catch the No. 27 Chevrolet of Paul Menard as the laps wound down in the Brickyard 400. With three laps remaining, Menard roared past defending winner Jamie McMurray and went on to cross the line of bricks to end what had become a better-than-thirty-year family quest to win at Indianapolis. The tears shed by Paul Menard’s father – the billionaire, John Menard, who owns a chain of Midwest-based home-improvement stores – said it all: all good things come to those who wait – despite what assumptions we in the grandstands (and the garage area, and the media center) had.

And don’t forget to add that good things come to those who work hard, as well, because getting to Victory Lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has not been easy, regardless of the vast Menard fortune

Voices From the Heartland: The Writing on the Wall at Nashville… & the Art of Writing Pure BS

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“We’re moving forward like normal,” Camp said, when I asked him to address many fans’ fears of the speedway closing down. “We’re planning for events in 2012 and trying to do anything we can to get butts in the seats and get more fans to come and see races here at Nashville Superspeedway. We are not alone in this softness in attendance, it has affected all NASCAR tracks, so we are just working hard to get people out here and are optimistic that 2012 will be an improvement on 2011 and we’ll get this ship turned around and headed in the right direction.”

Liar! OK, maybe that is a little harsh. I ‘spose they are planning for _some kind_ of events at Nashville, but Camp damn sure knew it wasn’t going to be NASCAR, as yesterday’s announcement of (essentially) Nashville’s closing clearly demonstrates.

Potts’s Shots: The Future of Lucas Oil Raceway

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Really can’t attribute a question to anyone specific this week. I’ve gotten a LOT of phone calls, e-mails, etc. from people wanting to know how I feel about NASCAR’s decision to move the Nationwide race from Lucas Oil Raceway to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

I’ve touched lightly on this subject once, but just for a sentence or two, and I think the topic deserves its own column. All of those who contacted me assumed, correctly, that I did not look favorably on this decision. That’s putting it mildly. I have to believe a very good friend of mine who covers motorsports for The Indianapolis Star was correct in his question-and-answer blog this week. He said he believes everyone involved in making this decision will come to regret it.

Frontstretch Fantasy Insider: Jeff Gordon Has Momentum Entering Pocono

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Entering 2011, *Trevor Bayne*, *Regan Smith* and *Paul Menard* had combined to score just two top-5 finishes in 244 starts. Twenty races later, they have more wins (three) than they had _top-5s_ before this season in what’s been a watershed year for first-time winners. These three underdog drivers, in particular have shined, sweeping arguably NASCAR’s biggest three races — the Daytona 500, the Southern 500 and Sunday’s Brickyard 400.