NASCAR on TV this week

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

_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.

25 NASCAR Questions For 2013: Gordon, Stewart, Harvick, Kenseth, Hamlin

*Jeff Gordon*
*2013 Ride:* No. 24 Drive to End Hunger/DuPont Chevrolet (Hendrick Motorsports)
*Season With Team:* 21st
*Crew Chief:* Alan Gustafson

*Burning Question:* Will Gordon ever win another title?

It’s hard to believe that Gordon hasn’t won a Cup title in 12 years, but it’s true. The only driver to go that long between championships was his former teammate at Hendrick, Terry Labonte, who won his first in 1984 and beat out Gordon for his second in 1996. Gordon put up strong bids to win his fifth championship in 2004 — the first year of The Chase — then three years later, setting a modern-era record for top-10 finishes (30) to go along with ten wins but fell short to others on both occasions.

Largely Absent from Chase Headlines, Stewart and Kahne Poised to Make Waves

Look at the headlines this week, and you might think they tell the story of the early weeks of this year’s Chase. First Brad Keselowski and then Denny Hamlin grabbed attention for their winning efforts at Chicago and New Hampshire, respectively, and each was touted as the title favorite after the victory. And then, of course, there’s Jimmie Johnson, the five-time Chase champion who is the overwhelming favorite to win this weekend at Dover and who also happens to have the points lead.

And then there are the drivers on the opposite end of the spectrum: Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick…and the speculation about what has gone wrong, why they’re done and why they think they’re not. Throw in a couple of props to the Michael Waltrip Racing team and how they’ve flown in under the radar and are poised to make the team one of NASCAR’s elite. That about sums it up, right?

Pace Laps: Sizzling Stewart-Kenseth Feud, Bump-And-Buzzkill & IndyCar Tests

*Sprint Cup: What Effect Will The Stewart-Kenseth Feud Have On The Chase?* Bristol featured plenty of beating, banging, and crashing, but perhaps no incident had the potential to grow into something more than the one that occurred between Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart as they raced for the lead with 167 laps to go. Stewart made a move to the outside of Kenseth, who parried by pinching Stewart by the wall. Stewart then appeared to turn into Kenseth in an attempt to gain some racing room, sending both the No. 14 and the No. 17 into the inside SAFER barrier. Each driver blamed the other for the incident, with Stewart waiting for Kenseth on pit road and hurling his helmet at his rival’s car.