NASCAR BLOG

A.J. Allmendinger will be driving the Dodge for Richard Petty when the season begins, and for at least the first 8 races this year. He drove for another group during the end of last season, but he’s moving on. He’s a good driver with lots of potential, but he’s not the best. But he has a chance to do well for the team. It is his third season in NASCAR, so perhaps he’s getting better and better. He has room to grow and these companies keep declaring some confidence in his ability to really drive now.

David Donohue won the Rolex 24 this weekend. In one of the first competitions of the season, Donohue was able to break one racer’s streak and create one of his own. There isn’t all that much to discuss with this particular race. It’s mainly a good beginning to the season and there weren’t any major wrecks or anything. We’ll have to see what’s going to happen. Daytona is coming up and we’re getting ready to see a really amazing race in Florida!

There were some strange rumors recently that Brian France, the man who inherited the title of President of NASCAR, was going to leave the sport in the not-to-distant future. Why? He made some comment that people interpreted as saying “I’m going to leave and do these other things”. But on Thursday, he attempted to clear the air, by saying that he is actually in this sport for a longer period of time. His family has been in possession of the sport for many decades and so it’s hard to imagine the sport with some other family at the helm. Here’s the whole text.

Jeff Burton has come out talking about the quality of the cars that he’s been driving lately. And his concern is that the cars simply don’t have enough speed. “In racing, speed is darned important” he claims, which does make a bit of sense. Obviously, it’s not everything, because without adept drivers and so on, you can’t win either, but still, speed is very important too. Anyway, his concern is that the cars that his team has aren’t fast enough by design, so he’s going to go back to the drawing board a little bit. He needs to hurry up, if he’s going to retool. Daytona is barely a month away and it’s going to be hard to get much better before then. But these guys are always working hard at improving their cars, sometimes with just a week between races. Sounds like fun though.

When the drivers aren’t on the oval track of any speedway, they find quite a lot of pleasure in going out into the wilderness with their dogs for a nice walk…and gunning down some quails if they come across them. David Ragan, for example, likes to spend a week in his lodge down in Adel, Georgia, where he and his friends compete in seeing who can extinguish the flame of life from the most quails as possible. Last month, Ragan and his partner were able to eliminate all brain processes of 50 quail in about three hours. Read more about how NASCAR drivers make birds cease to exist by clicking here.

Humpy Wheeler, a major name in professional and NASCAR racing has decided to help out some people. There have been a large number of layoffs and general job loss in the NASCAR world the last year, especially in the last few months. Now Wheeler, who knows what it’s like to suddenly lose your job, has decided he wants to help those people as best he can. He’s not sure if it will work, but at least it’ll be a good resource for those in the biz. It is the Motorsports Employment Taskforce. This is an organization that will help people deal with unemployment insurance, resume writing and general help when you find yourself out of a job suddenly. It’s a good idea, and more industries should probably be doing this kind of thing.

Petty Enterprises and Gillett Evernham Motorsports are no longer separate entities. They been bound by the immutable and irrevocable laws of NASCAR in a full-throttle matrimony. Announced on Thursday, Petty and GEM have formed a new Cup team co-owned by Richard Petty, Petty Holdings, and GEM. However, while it has been decided that they will form a partnership, the full details of the arrangement will not be solidified until the end of January.

NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports Inc. have bought a new track in northern Kentucky. The track’s name is Kentucky Speedway, and will probably put in a Sprint Cup race there. It’s not certain if that’ll happen this year or next. There is an anti-trust lawsuit that they have to deal with first, because it is closely relevent to this issue. It is about the suggestion that NASCAR and International Speedway have conspired to keep a Sprint Cup race out of Kentucky. This seems to be resolved now, but the correct legal channels have to be followed and we’ll see what’s going to happen.