Stenhouse wins easily to take his first of the year. (Photo: Yahoo sports)

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. proved once again why you never bet against a champion.  He took the lead with 50 to go, the race stayed green and no one else had a chance.  icky took off like the rest of the field was standing still.  Stenhouse won with an almost five second lead over second place Mark Martin.

The rest of the top 10 finishers are: Elliott Sadler, Trevor Bayne, Brendan Gaughan, Cole Whitt, Austin Dillon, Justin Allgaier, Sam Hornish Jr., and Kasey Kahne.

Kyle Busch did not have an easy day of it.  He made a few highlight reel saves before the car just got away from him.  Kyle spun on lap 26 and tagged the inside wall.  He did come back out on the track 70 laps down, but his day was essentially done.  Kyle finished 33^rd.

The return to Las Vegas Motor Speedway was bittersweet.  The last we raced here, we lost Dan Wheldon.  We all know that he would want us to get back racing, so that is exactly what we did today.  We chose to remember Dan Wheldon with a Twitter hashtag tribute on Lap 77 with #RIPDan77.  That hashtag reached 3^rd on the trend list for the United States.  Bless you, Lionheart.  You are forever in OUR hearts.

» Continue reading “Nationwide Las Vegas: Winner 6 Easy”

Three dreams dashed in one wreck. Trevor Bayne, Danica Patrick, and Jimmie Johnson were three of the weekend's biggest stories.

Coffee, check.  Extra espresso shot, check.  More than five minutes of sleep after Monday’s Daytona 500, check check.

Good morning, kiddos.  Everybody semi-recovered from Monday’s mayhem?  I didn’t think so and neither am I so we’re all drifting helplessly in the same boat. 

Let’s talk Cinderella stories today, shall we?  Morgann, by what in the beard of Zeus are you talking about? 

Drivers that were favored to win the Daytona 500 but fell a little short and the ones I’m going to discuss fell a lot short on Monday night.

» Continue reading “Lap Two: One Wreck, Three Cinderella Stories Destroyed”

This Wisconsin native was the "Big Cheese" in Daytona tonight. (photo credit: Chris Graythen)

The race technically ended on the twenty-eighth day but who’s counting, right?  This weekend’s Daytona 500 kind of ran together in one, huge blur of weirdness that started way back yesterday around noon.

And just ended about five minutes ago.  No joke.

In twenty years as a race fan, this was the most unusual of them all.  Rain was our problem on Sunday and fire was our problem on Monday.  Go figure, right?

Unless readers sat and suffered through the more than two-hour long caution for a strange, almost  God-like act at Daytona trust me when I say readers have no idea.

Until tonight I thought I’d seen it all at the track…until the jet dryer nearly burned the track down.  Thanks, Juan.

Oh yeah.  And Matt Kenseth won the 2012 Daytona 500 with an overheating car and nearly zero radio communication.

» Continue reading “Daytona 500: And On The 27th Day…Everything Happened.”

Trevor is in the news today and I couldn't be happier. I'd still marry him.

Good afternoon on this insanely gorgeous day in the Chicagoland area. 

I’m in an unusually good mood because there is great NASCAR news to report from the fronts:  NASCAR.com has reported that Trevor Bayne has signed on with the Wood Brothers in Sprint Cup for 2012.

In the same stroke, Ford announced that Motorcraft will be the primary sponsor for twelve races in 2012 as well along with FordParts.com as an associate sponsor.

Why is this fantastic news?  Because it gives Trevor a chance to defend his 2011 Daytona 500 title  come February which I’m very much looking forward to. 

Don’t forget, the 2011 Daytona 500 was only Trevor’s second career Sprint Cup start!  He can absolutely do it again, doubters beware.

There was a rumor floating around out in NASCAR world that Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. would take over Trevor’s No. 21 ride in 2012 but that quickly fizzled out.

It’s expected the team will run around the neighborhood of eighteen races in 2012, the same number that was ran in 2011.

Just think, if he wins this year he can party properly as he’ll turn twenty-one in February.  At any rate, the weekend is here and Trevor Bayne is in the news. 

This race fan is a happy girl today.

Dear Santa: I have a few things on my NASCAR wishlist I'd like to see you take care of -- like pronto.

For the offical record it does not include our current 2011 Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart tied up and wrapped in a big red bow underneath my Christmas tree.  However, that would be very nice in case anybody is thinking of me, won’t lie.

Good morning, everybody.  Since we’re officially dead in the middle of racing withdrawl season, I’m taking an opportunity to address issues, concernes, grievances and things I’d like to see either changed or improved for the upcoming 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup series.

This can be anything from track and safety conditions to driver rides and penalty enforcement changes as well.

So take a ride with me and we’ll see if Santa is nice enough to check my list twice because I’ve been a good girl this year so I deserve at least something, right? 

» Continue reading “88 Days And Counting: A NASCAR Christmas Wishlist”

Stay with your buddy! Kahne/Vickers of Red Bull Racing. Bowyer/Burton of Richard Childress Racing.

I feel like I have almost sufficiently addressed how much I cannot stand the current “racing” that we have at both Daytona and Talladega.  Almost.

Team Orders.

I hate those words so much that it’s almost painful to type.  Team orders need to be banned from racing events.  Why can’t we just let the events unfold as they will and go back to racing?  Please leave the politics to the interviews, the closed door meetings, and the blowhards in Washington.

I’m not kidding myself.  I realize that team orders have been in place for years now.  We hear some form of team orders almost every race.  Let your teammate around you to lead a lap for the bonus points.  Stay with your teammate and push them to the victory.  When a battle between teammates gets a little heated, the team owner will get on the radio to calm it all down.

But, at Talladega?  These team orders just got completely out of control.

» Continue reading “Monday Meltdown: Let Me Tell You Where To Stick Those Team Orders…”

Clint Bowyer picks up a win for Richard Childress Motorsports. Too bad he'll be driving for Michael Waltrip next season.

NASCAR!  You need to figure out how to get the racing back at the plate tracks.  This two-car draft racing style is absolutely ridiculous.  I feel like I’m watching some weird NASCAR/2-man bobsled hybrid.  Let me point out the main flaw of the 2-car draft.  This should be so painfully obvious to the powers that be….

THE FIELD IS 43 DRIVERS!

This means that someone is left without a dance partner from the beginning of the race.  That poor driver, Denny Hamlin in today’s fiasco, is left running alone until the right amount of other cars wreck or start and park to leave them a partner.  Denny, a Chase contender, was a lap down before a wreck freed up a car to run with him.

This isn’t racing.  Daytona and Talladega hasn’t been racing in quite a while.  You have top tier drivers spending their day logging laps at the back of the pack because they are terrified to get caught up in someone else’s mess.  They lie in wait until about 25 laps left and decide it is go-time.  That is when the racing begins and we two by two they push to the front.

» Continue reading “NSCS Talladega: NASCAR, You Have Some Work To Do”

If he wasn't so cute, I'd be mad at him. But who can be mad at that adorable face? (photo credit: www.hardcoreracefans.com)

Okay, so Talladega is on the plate this weekend for the Sprint Cup series.  This is no secret.

However, what is a secret (most of the time) is who drafting buddies are during the race leading right up until the drop of the green flag on race day.

Not today, friends.  You all know my love for Trevor Bayne.  I hold the dude up on a pedestal and worship the ground he walks on.  He’s just wonderful.

Today he pissed me off when I ran across an article at NASCAR.com where he indicated who he plans to work with and help at Sunday’s race.

Really, Trevor?!?!  Since when do we reveal drafting partners at Talladega?  Oh let’s see.  Never, until yesterday when he let the cat out of the bag for the entire world to behold.  Doah!

» Continue reading “Paging Trevor Bayne: Why Do You Irritate Me So?”

If Kyle Busch enters his name on the NNS race, chances are he'll walk away with a trophy. Sorry, kids.

I learned a valuable lesson in race predictions on Friday night:  If you don’t want the driver to win the race, don’t pick them to win.  Oh yeah, I totally picked Kyle Busch to win Friday night’s race in Thursday’s Weekend Hot Pass and I couldn’t have been more irritated to see him in Victory Lane after the checkers dropped for his 51st career Nationwide Series victory.

And by the way, Sprint Cup regulars have won 14 of 27 Nationwide Series races so far this season.  Chew on that for a midday snack, folks.  Kind of makes you a little sick to your stomach, doesn’t it?

For Kyle Busch, this win is his third win in the past five starts he’s made.  So no matter how much you hate the dude’s guts, he’s one hell of a driver.

Did Kyle have the car to beat all night?  He sure didn’t but a costly error in the pits on the last round of stops by Carl Edwards (who did have the car to beat all night) ended up being his demise and the reason he lost Friday night’s NNS Virginia 529 College Savings 250.

» Continue reading “NNS at Richmond: Shrub’s speech, Trevor’s shenanigans and Stenhouse still single”

Paul Menard being congratulated by his father for his first career win.

Daytona 500 winner: Trevor Bayne

Southern 500 winner: Regan Smith

Coca-Cola 600 winner: David Ragan

Brickyard 400 winner: Paul Menard

The races listed above are considered the biggest races of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season.  The names you expect to see listed as winners of the three Crown Jewels and the Brickyard are Johnson, Gordon, Stewart, Edwards, Busch, and Kenseth.  How could we have possibly dreamed that the biggest races of the year would be first time wins for drivers?

» Continue reading “The Brickyard 400: It Pays to be a First-Timer”