NASCAR BLOG

NASCAR settled a $225 million lawsuit on December 3rd, the AP has learned. It is a big issue that we hadn’t heard all that much about until very recently. Mauricia Grant had complained that she had been subjected to sexual harrassment and other kinds of annoyance while working for NASCAR for two years. The racing organization told the media that they are dedicated to keeping the working environment  professional for all employees and they wish Ms. Grant the best in the future. They hope this will close the public part of this issue but hopefully they will continue their efforts to keep the working environment getting better.

There’s not a whole lot of news being reported from NASCAR.com, mostly end of the year recaps, photos, and memories. However, the article on the driver’s wierdest Christmas gifts ever holds some interest. Click here to read about the squeegee Kurt Busch received as a teenager, the “horrible flannel” that Clint Bowyer got, or the telescopic fork Ryan Newman got.

Chrysler has decided to take out part of their budget for NASCAR events. They had planned to have a shutdown over the holidays and into January anyway, hopefully not causing more job-loss. So a lower budget for NASCAR is not surprising. It will be an interesting year for NASCAR. This is one of many groups that have lowered their NASCAR and other budgets going into the 2009 season. It is unfortunate for the sport that the market has contracted the way it has, so places like Chrysler have much less money to put into other projects, including sports. People aren’t really buying cars so much, so it’s going to be a rough time for a little while. Stay tuned.

NASCAR will be unveiling a tougher drug testing policy than they’ve had in previous years. The program will text every driver at the beginning of the season, as well as randomly throughout the year. The old policy was just not adequate, as revealed by the fact that some drivers weren’t sober during race days. Aaron Fike, former Truck Series driver, admitted that he had used heroin during the season before, even on race days. While I for one am in full support of letting (even mandating) drivers take whatever they want before a race, safety calls for sobriety.

The votes are in, the results are announced. Tony Schumacher of the NHRA beat out a bunch of NASCAR’s great drivers to win the Driver of the Year award. Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards were the main competitors from the NASCAR circuit. Schumacher had a great 2008 racing year, winning a vast majority of his races. On the other side, no one in NASCAR was really dominant; Johnson was really good and he locked up the Sprint Cup very early, but he didn’t win all that much at the end of the season. Schumacher has had a great year and we should congratulate him, even though he’s not on the NASCAR side.

While the future couldn’t have looked brighter for the Labonte Petty connection half a year ago, the sad state of the times has forced Petty Enterprises to drop Bobby Labonte from the team. Petty Enterprises is now in talks with GEM for a possible merger. If this does not happen, Petty will most likely become a one car system in the 2009 Sprint Series.

The Wood Brothers racing team has decided to reduce their 2009 Sprint Cup schedule to 12 races.  They had the chance to run up to 20, but because of the down economy, decided that they wanted to run less. They will be running in Daytona and the mile-and-a-half tracks, because they have the best situation and chances in those. They have a great driver in Bill Elliott, who won in 1985 and he will be the leader of their team this year as well. It’s going to be a good year even if the Wood Brothers aren’t running as many races as they have before.

There is a column to NASCAR haters on ESPN.com this week telling those who think they are too good for NASCAR to just stop bashing the sport. NASCAR fans almost never bash the rest of the sports, so why should NFL fans or NBA fans bash the NASCAR scene? The column doesn’t try to convert people to become NASCAR fans, they just want to be left alone. And that’s totally true. Everytime I tell a friend that I’m going to watch this or that race, they start talking like a Hilbilly to me or something dopey like that. So I can completely understand where he’s coming from. Read his column here.