Weekend Preview: March 3rd

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, but this week has been nightmarishly (is that even a word?) busy. But enough about that, let's get into it.

Jerry Bonkowski of Yahoo Sports poses a great question about the length of some Nascar races.

Danica Patrick overcame a bout of illness to climb to the top of the speed charts on the second day of IRL testing at Homestead.

Here's the lineup for today's Sprint Cup race.

Mark Martin wins at Las Vegas....Nationwide Series that is.


Don't know if you saw, but there sure is a lot of different faces in the top 10 lineup for today's race.

Johnny Sauter.....what can I say. I feel for the dude I really do. I just wish he could get in a cup race. He failed to make the race in the Wood Bros. car that, until this weekend, was driven by Bill Elliott. Put him in a good car and he's a champ-caliber driver.

Weekend Review

Great news for fans of open-wheel racing. The IRL and Champ Car World Series have reached an agreement to unify the two series for 2008. Can I just say it's about time! It will be nice to finally have the best open-wheel driver in North America on the same series. I'm glad Nascar now has some viable competition. Competition will only make both the new IRL and Sprint Cup a better product.

Aracracing.com has a new myspace-type of friend network for fans of the ARCA series. Follow this link for more information.

Nascar batted just above .300 for the weekend, having only the Craftsmen Truck Race completed as scheduled at The Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. The Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series were postponed due to wet conditions on the track.

Yahoo! Sports columnist is reporting that Cup Champion Bobby Labonte might be on the move to Richard Childress Racing in 2009. RCR is looking to add a fourth full-time team beginning next year.

Midweek Roundup

Here's some news to get you through to the weekend.

Jerry Bonkowski of Yahoo! Sports responds to emails regarding the Daytona 500.

For those of you interested, IndyRacing.com has a contest for a signed Danica Patrick swimsuit poster. This will help melt away the winter blues.

Bob Margolis of Yahoo! Sports jumps into the open-wheel consolidation debate.

Nascar.com asks if Toyota and Dodge can do it again.

They're back. The Rolex Series begins testing next week in Homestead.


Stay tuned for more updates throughout the week.

Daytona 500--Picking up the pieces

Random thoughts from the 500:

Penske 1-2....who would have bet that this time yesterday.

Tony Stewart was a mile away from winning his first Daytona 500. Will he be the new Dale Earnhardt, multiple winner of the Daytona 498 and 499? Let's hope Smoke will eventually get his time in victory lane like Dale Earnhardt.

My bold prediction for Furniture Row Racing to finish in the top 20 went to hell in a handbasket, finishing 41st and 43rd respectively.

I'm usually not that guy that whines about TV coverage, but FOX was shocking with their coverage of the race. It seemed that every yellow flag occurred during a commercial. After the break, I heard no mention of what caused the caution. To top it off, with under 20 laps to go, FOX breaks off right as the action on the track was hitting a crescendo. You just felt that someone was gonna cause a wreck. Sure enough, as soon as FOX was back on the air, the first image I see is Jimmy Johnson skidding down the backstretch. The producers of the FOX broadcast have no concept of how to capture racing momentum. They'd rather show a bumper cam instead of a pass for the lead. Anyone pissed off about that?

What do Casey Mears, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth have in common? They all finished 35th or worse.

Here's what I don't understand: Kyle Petty ended up 34th in the same equipment that teammate Bobby Labonte finished 11th. The CoT sure does tell you how teammates stack up to each other in regards to talent.

Finally, did anyone catch Ryan Newman's press conference? Newman described the feeling he got when he crossed the finish line as, "...I got that tingly feeling, I mean, you only get that with certain things." After a few chuckles from the media, Newman blurted out, "I didn't get it there! Just down my back." Never heard the feeling of winning the Daytona 500 described like that. Good one Newman.

Photos

Check out myspace.com/speedwayinsider to see the photo gallery.

Daytona 500: Penske Returns to Victory Lane

Ryan Newman wins after being pushed to the front by teammate Kurt Busch to give Penske racing a one-two finish at the Daytona 500. When asked about how he got to the front, he replied, “Kurt was the push from heaven that made it all happen. Without a doubt, he could have easily gone three-wide and split us through the center and made one heck of a mess there. But he chose to be a teammate, and that was the most honorable thing that he could do.”

In victory lane, Newman's dad interrupted the FOX interview to embrace the Daytona 500 winner with a tearful hug. Team owner Roger Penske was thrilled with the result, “We’ve been working here for many years. Certainly Kurt and the teamwork was just unbelievable. It’s a big day in our life and for our whole team.”

Here's how the rest of the field finished.

Keep checking SpeedwayInsider.com for more reaction from Daytona.

Rolex Series News

Here's the news from around the track.

Michael Annett wins at Daytona. Annett, who drives for Bill Davis Racing, now sits atop the ARCA points race as well as the Hoosier Tire Superspeedway Challenge.

Nothing on TV? Then head to SPEEDtv.com to watch a season long documentary on KONI Challenge Series rookie James Hunt.

VIR races now have a sponsor. Bosch Engineering will become the sponsor of all Grand-Am events at Virginia International Speedway.

I'm sorry about the lack of material on the site as of late. I do a lot more work than just write about racing. Trust me, if I had the time, I would post more material.

For those of you new to the website, I primarily cover Grand-Am Racing (Rolex and KONI series), ARCA and some Nascar. There are a lot of well-informed media outlets that cover Sprint Cup better than I can, because they do it full time. While I pay out of pocket and take vacation days to go to the track. On my Links page, there are plenty of websites that give you (and me) all things Nascar. Check 'em out.

However, I live in Ohio and I plan to go to Nascar events that are in the area. Primarily, I will focus on Grand-Am and ARCA, but I won't be limited to just those racing series. I hope all of this babbling makes sense. Well, I gotta get to work, but I will be posting this weekend so check back for more news.

Later,

Derrick from SpeedwayInsider.com

Rolex Series: MSR recap

Michael Shank Racing has their own recap of what went on during the race.

Grand-am.com takes a look back on the Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates Racing three-peat of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Rolex Series Standings after the Rolex 24.

Wanna drive like the pros? Check out the Mid-Ohio driving school at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

This is a dead week for Rolex Series news, I will look to get some interviews with the teams soon. Check back frequently for updates.