Race Weekend Central

Happy Hour: Hey Race Fans, It’s Time for NASCAR’s Annual Big Points Giveaway!

Greetings race fans and welcome once again to NASCAR’s Fifth Annual Big Points Giveaway, where we find 11 NASCAR drivers without the points lead and furnish them with a brand new points total and wipe away those lesser performances! (Playing of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away”) You heard right everyone! Every year before …

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The Big 6: Questions Answered After the 2009 Sharpie 500 at Bristol

Who… gets my shoutout of the race? Everybody knows he can run a road course, but the man who was introduced to Men At Work’s “Land Down Under” on Saturday night showed he could handle one of NASCAR’s toughest tracks with ease. Marcos Ambrose started 25th at Thunder Valley but had a real shot at …

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Happy Hour: From 207 Points Up to 74 Points Down; What’s Wrong With NASCAR’s Picture?

20 laps into the 27th race this season, an enigmatic driver, who had been wiping up the floor with most of the competition for 26 races, had his season more or less destroyed. Eight wins in 26 races meant only that he’s eligible for the title – one faulty sway bar bolt in one race …

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Happy Hour: Would the Chase Critics Just Shut Up & Go Away? No… We Won’t

When NASCAR finally took us at Frontstretch in, recognizing us as part of their esteemed “Citizen Journalist Media Corps,” I finally felt as though I had achieved something that I had been striving for since high school: acceptance. I was finally part of the “in” crowd, no longer a misfit. I couldn’t remember what it …

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Happy Hour: NASCAR Wins Leaders Both in Danger of Missing Playoffs?

Remember the good old days when we didn’t care who was fighting for 12th place in the standings too much? Those days are gone, even for me. Kyle Busch and Mark Martin, two great drivers on opposite ends of NASCAR Nation’s polarization spectrum, battled to one of the best finishes of the year in Bristol …

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Happy Hour: Another Speedway Race, Another Chink in NASCAR’s Armor

Never in my years of being a follower of the sport have I witnessed the state of near-panic that NASCAR is in right now. They’re changing rules that had been in place for half a century, opening the press doors to people they once considered irrelevant, installing suggestion boxes for drivers and practically begging fans …

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Voices From the Heartland: Studies Have Shown NASCAR is ‘Full Of It’

Over the last couple of weeks, ever since the rumors started flying about the demise of Tony Eury Jr. as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief, the ‘media’ has reported several times, in various ways, that “studies have shown that when Jr. isn’t running well, NASCAR’s ratings are down.” NASCAR of course, actually likes to hear …

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4 Burning Questions: What’s Next for Erik Jones?

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(Photo: NASCAR Media/Getty Images)

What’s next for Erik Jones? It was reported by Fox Sports and later confirmed by Joe Gibbs Racing itself on Thursday evening that Erik Jones would not return to the No. 20 Toyota in 2021. .@JoeGibbsRacing confirms that it won't renew @Erik_Jones' deal after 2020. ?Joe Gibbs: "We appreciate all Erik has done for Joe …

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Nitro Shots: A Video Is Worth 1,000 Words

Zmax Dragway Carolina Nationals Brown And Kalitta Launch 2014 Mike Neff 093

(Photo: Mike Neff, Frontstretch)

It’s been mentioned in this space before that television just does not accurately convey what it’s like to be at an NHRA event. No matter how high you turn the volume up, even with surround sound, it’s still not like hearing those 10,000 horsepower beasts in person. It’s more than just the sound, though. Not …

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