Search Results for: Ty Gibbs

What To Know Heading Into 2013: NASCAR’s Media Tour Hits And Misses

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The Sprint Media Tour is a four-day trek through the racing landscape around the greater Charlotte area. It allows media members the opportunity to eat better than they will for the next month, drink more than they do the rest of the year and are told the “inside information” inside each team for the coming year — depending on how many insightful questions they come up with. But in the end, media and fans learn far too little, hear a lot of the same answers, realize every team thinks they’re going to win the championship and end up wondering what would Brian France do without a teleprompter.

With all that being said, there are still a few small observations you pick up along the way. Here’s some of mine that didn’t fit within the confines of a “normal” column…

Pace Laps: Media Tour Takeaways And NASCAR Sponsors, Good And Bad

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*Sprint Cup: Sponsorship Headlines 2013 NASCAR Sprint Media Tour* Last week’s NASCAR Sprint Media Tour Hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway featured several teams and drivers from NASCAR’s top division, and one common thread in discussions was sponsorship. While several teams added new backers, some high-profile ones still have open races just a month before the season begins with the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona. Tops on the list is perennial Most Popular Driver award winner Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who still has up to 13 unsponsored races.

Unlucky Seven: Drivers Who Must Ramp It Up In 2013

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NASCAR is a sport driven by performance. What a driver accomplishes, or fails to accomplish, on the racetrack affects not only his personal gratification but his team’s — and even his sponsor’s — bottom line. Sure, some give more leeway than others, and some drivers are more likely to get the benefit of the doubt. But the bottom line is no different than that of any other employer. If a driver doesn’t live up to expectations, eventually, his job could be on the line, his failure trumpeted not just by his team but by others. Race fans can be brutal, the media can be even more relentless, and there are plenty of drivers in the garage holding pink slips and looking for work. Don’t overlook that personal desire to be competitive, either; sometimes, a driver’s worst enemy in trying to fix weeks worth of failure is himself.

From Crazy To Crazy Good: MWR Is A Contender Now

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One year ago, people were wondering just how crazy Clint Bowyer was. Bowyer, who had three top-10 points finishes in six full seasons with Richard Childress Racing, had announced that he would leave RCR for a third Michael Waltrip Racing car in 2012. Not only was Bowyer facing an uphill battle by signing on with a brand-new team, he was making a move to an organization that had never had anyone finish higher than 16th in points throughout its existence. In fact, in those five years, the organization had just two wins, noted more for its failures (think: 2007 jet fuel disaster at Daytona) and its uncertain future. There were rumors of sponsors leaving, and even if they didn’t, MWR was considered capable of no better than middle of the pack — period.

Preseason Thunder Testing Provides A Glimpse Of The Season Ahead

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January is one of my favorite months of the year. With it, you have the start of a fresh new year, which inevitably represents a fresh start. It’s also my birthday month. That’s kind of nice.

But I’m certainly not the only one who embraces the clean slate that January brings each and every time around. The drivers and teams of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series use the month of January to test for the Daytona 500 in a series of festivities known as “Preseason Thunder.” And this year, more so than any other in recent memory, Preseason Thunder was immeasurably important.

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Pace Laps: NASCAR Can Build On This, Open-Wheel Offseason Antics And As The Busch Turns

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_Did you see all of the race action this weekend? Or, like a lot of busy fans, did you miss a late-night adventure, a Friday controversy, or a juicy piece of news? If you did, you’ve come to the right place! Each week, The Frontstretch will break down the racing, series by series, to bring you the biggest stories that you need to watch moving forward. Let our experts help you get up to speed for the coming week no matter what series you might have missed, all in this edition of Pace Laps!_

*Sprint Cup: We Can Build On This! NASCAR Unlikely To Make Major Rules Changes After Test* After the three-day Preseason Thunder test session at Daytona International Speedway, NASCAR and the teams who participated found the 2013 cars successful enough that few, if any changes will be made to the superspeedway package before Speedweeks next month.

Did You Notice? … We Need To Shake NASCAR’s Offseason Awake?

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*Did You Notice?…* The snoozer of a NASCAR offseason to start off 2013? Of course, last year’s circuslike atmosphere (Kurt Busch’s firing, the resulting musical chairs, Kasey Kahne’s breastfeeding “boo boo,” Greg Zipadelli joining old buddy Tony Stewart) comes around oh, about once a decade. But this time around, even with the new Gen6 car there’s been more excitement surrounding “the girlfriend”:http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8825207/aj-mccarron-girlfriend-katherine-webb-spotlight-bcs-title-game of a college football quarterback in the sporting world than stock car racing. You can bet number two on the list of New Year’s Resolutions for Brian France (behind “find some way, _any_ way to keep my divorce records sealed) is for some giant piece of news to pop out of the sky between now and Daytona Speedweeks.