Archive for May, 2009

It was announced on Tuesday that Richard Petty Motorsports plans to start running the new Dodge R6 engine no later than the May 31st Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway. RPM has been running the old R5 engine in its 4 cars this season, with little success. Their best driver, Kasey Kahne, currently sits 17th in the points standings. 2 of RPM’s other drivers, AJ Allmendinger(28th) and Elliott Sadler(29th), have been steadily falling back in the standings since Daytona. RPM’s other driver, Reed Sorenson(22nd), has been the only RPM driver to make any gains in the standings during [...]

There’s a lot to be said about a so-called mediocre driver who goes into a race and actually gains on the points leader. If the guy does it twice, maybe he starts turning some heads. But if a guy gains on the points leader steadily over the course of three races(dare I add on three totally different types of tracks; all of which the leader has won on before), then it’s time to start keeping an eye on that certain driver. Over the course of the past three races, there are 4 surprise drivers who have gained quite a few [...]

Call it a rule. Call it a procedure. Call It Good. Call it bad. NASCAR calls it Green-Yellow. I call it useless. If you watched Saturday night’s race at Richmond, you noticed that the race “started” under caution. The actual race itself did not start until lap 4. This was because NASCAR started the race using a procedure called “Green-Yellow”. When NASCAR starts a race under Green-Yellow conditions, they basically continue doing pace laps, only the laps count as part of the actual race. NASCAR usually does this after it has been raining, and the track isn’t dried off when the [...]

As the 10th race of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season approached, there was plenty of scrutiny surrounding the sport, as there had been for several weeks. Only this time, the complaint was much different than it had previously been. The complaint had been, for the past several years, that races were boring. And the fans had every right to say that. After all, the bumping, banging, and crashing many fans had grown to love was quickly fading out of the sport. And NASCAR races were, as the fans said, boring. Enter Talladega. The fans didn’t have to wait [...]