RacingOne Community Members have the chance to win a RacingOne prize pack that includes an official TUMS Fast Relief 500 race program and 1:64-Scale track diecast with a correct answer to this Trivia Challenge.
How many NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races did Dale Earnhardt win at Martinsville Speedway?
Email your answer to press@racingone.com. One lucky RacingOne Community Member will be randomly chosen from the correct responses to win the prize pack. Only one entry is accepted per email address.
Send your answer today! The date to enter by is Oct. 27, 2009. The winner will be notified by email.
RacingOne Community Members have the chance to win a RacingOne prize pack that includes an official Chevy Rock & Roll 400 race program and 1:64-Scale track diecast with a correct answer to this Trivia Challenge.
Who was the last driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway from the pole position?
Email your answer to press@racingone.com. One lucky RacingOne Community Member will be randomly chosen from the correct responses to win the prize pack. Only one entry is accepted per email address.
Send your answer today! The date to enter by is Sept. 16, 2009. The winner will be notified by email.
RacingOne Community Members have the chance to win a 13 1/2" by 40" color panoramic shot of Atlanta Motor Speedway with a correct answer to this Trivia Challenge.
Which NASCAR Cup Series driver leads all drivers in Cup victories at Atlanta Motor Speedway?
Email your answer to press@racingone.com. One lucky RacingOne Community Member will be randomly chosen from the correct responses to win the panoramic shot. Only one entry is accepted per email address.
Send your answer today! The date to enter by is Sept. 8, 2009. The winner will be notified by email.
RacingOne Community Members have the chance to win a 13 1/2" by 40" color panoramic shot of Bristol Motor Speedway with a correct answer to this Trivia Challenge.
Who was the last NASCAR Cup Series driver to win the two Bristol Cup events in the same year?
Email your answer to press@racingone.com. One lucky RacingOne Community Member will be randomly chosen from the correct responses to win the panoramic shot. Only one entry is accepted per email address.
Send your answer today! The date to enter by is August 26, 2009. The winner will be notified by email.
Congratulations to last week's Community Trivia Challenge Winner, Lowell T. Ousley. Lowell was randomly picked from those who correctly knew that Bill Elliott captured four consecutive NASCAR Cup victories at Michigan International Speedway from 1985 through 1986.
Nobody could have anticipated Parker Kligerman's recent success in the ARCA RE/MAX Series especially fellow driver Justin Lofton.
Lofton himself would probably be running away with the championship points lead right now if it weren't for the young Penske Development rookie.
If Kligerman can keep up the pace, which has included five wins in the last six races, Lofton can do little to match him. But Lofton isn't giving up yet.
Heading into Berlin this weekend, he's trying a new game plan - one that involves not being cautious and just racing for points, but rather one where winning is the sole goal.
"I want to be the one who shuts down his win streak. I'm not gonna let him get six in a row," Lofton said as he sits 150 points out of the lead.
He's got a small advantage on his side that he already knows all the race tracks on the schedule. And he's got the drive for it.
I'm thinking it's going to be another great battle for the championship, a second year in a row in the series.
In a play to the 10-gallon hat and six-shooter tradition at Texas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway has a 25+ pound lobster presentation in Victory Lane.
Lobsters that big are thought to be about 80 years old and if evident by Kurt Busch's experience last year, the trip to Victory Lane for the local diner favorite must be a shock to the system.
Busch was presented with an equally sizeable lobster when he won at the track last year, but his heartstrings rang louder than his stomach grumblings when he decided to try and offer the lobster a home in a tank of water rather than a pot of water. Kurt and his wife Eva hoped to donate the crustacean they named Loudon to the aquarium in Boston but according to NHMS' public relations director Fred Neergard, “due to Loudon's age, we were unable to find an aquarium that would offer him a home.
"The folks at Makris (local restaurant that donated the lobster) kept him comfortable while we searched for a suitable marine environment. Loudon became very lethargic and ill, and there was no viable option other than to humanely euthanize him."
I can't imagine any other fate than death would come of a lobster that big and that aged if plucked from its environment for a photo opportunity. And since there was little talk of the lobster from Logano's camp and the media this weekend, I wonder what fate came of this year's "Loudon."
The Formula One World Series will have a new championship points structure for this season, with the driver scoring the most wins taking the title after the final race.
I'll have to commend them for making a change to a points structure that saw last year the driver with the most wins lose out on the championship to the driver with the more consistent record.
It was the first time since 1989 that the winner of the most races didn't also win the championship. That year, despite winning six of the season's 16 races, Ayrton Senna lost the championship on points after suffering six retirements and having one disqualification. Alain Prost won that year's championship with only four victories.
But the current points system has worked pretty well between those two years where the winner of the championship also won the most races. And last year, it would've been pretty fair for Massa to take the championship on the merit of having the most victories, as he only lost by one point to Lewis Hamilton.
However, what happens when you have a situation where a driver may win six races but also suffer six retirements in the same season and you see a driver who maybe finished with five races and more consistently in the points lose the title?
I think the WMSC should have gone with the team association's suggestion of changing the points to the winner receiving 12 points, second-place nine points, third place seven points and fourth on down staying at five and one less point to the eighth-place finisher.
Formula One teams are starting to realize that it pays to keep your fans happy.
The Formula One Teams Association announced today that they wanted to see changes in Formula One in order to whether the recent economic downturn and keep it as a viable sport for many more years.
The group surveyed fans of all types to determine what would be a good direction from the sport and, as a result, have decided to make the sport more fan friendly.
One move that I think is brilliant is to make the drivers participate in autograph sessions. Sure part of the draw of the sport is the elite nature of it, but that doesn't mean that the drivers have to be removed from its biggest shareholders - their fan base.
I think that this simple move will make the race experience 100 times more enjoyable for fans. More driver access has seemed to help NASCAR in the U.S.
Something as simple as an autograph can turn the slightest fan into a fan for life and will only increase the value of the sport for its fans.
The news that Peter Windsor and Ken Anderson were partnering to bring a totally-American built and based team into Formula One competition came as a pleasant surprise this week. With so many reports of teams shutting down or scaling back their operations, this announcement is welcome news for the American motorsports industry.
The two men are looking to house their whole operation in North Carolina, and should be able to find plenty of capable talent in the area. They are convinced they'll be able to put together competition that will rival, if not exceed, their European and Asian counterparts in the sport.
Hopefully, they'll be able to help Formula One transition into an even more dynamic, cost efficient sport in the process with a little infusion of the American way into the sport.
Early SPEED analysis of the new team thinks that the team will help Formula One gap the distance it has with its fans - to give it more of a openness to the people that support it.
I know it's peaked my interest a little more in the sport, just for the simple fact that maybe the U.S. will have a connection to the sport again. There hasn't been an American backed team in the sport since 1986, the country lost its Grand Prix in 2006, and there are no longer American drivers in the sport since Scott Speed left.
And it'll be pretty cool to be able to perhaps tour an F1 race shop along with the NASCAR shops that are in North Carolina.
The SuperBowl had a little bit of racing influence on it this year - in the commercials.
Three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was the opening athlete for a Gatorade "G" commercial, and was featured with other sporting greats like Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, John Maclaen and Usain Bolt. The commercial showed the athletes explaining what "G" means to them, but it isn't being considered one of the better ones of this year's superbowl.
Still it's gotta be a testament to racing, with Johnson being featured so prominently.
Another driver was also featured pretty prominently in superbowl ads - Danica Patrick. The IndyCar driver was in two GoDaddy.com commercials.
Both commercials attempted to be racy and sexy and teased viewers to try to get them to visit the GoDaddy.com site to view a "hotter" commercial.
If you're thinking it might be worthwhile to view the versions on GoDaddy.com, think again. I actually don't see why they couldn't have been played during the superbowl, save for the length of them.
I also no longer see how it's to GoDaddy's benefit to have Danica Patrick as their spokesperson any longer. After four mediocre seasons in the IRL, I would think the marketing draw of Patrick would've worn off by now. Especially for a company that banks on sex appeal to sell its product.
Needless to say, the commercials mentioned above weren't on many people's list of favorites.