Race Weekend Central

Beside the Rising Tide: There’s Nothing New Under the Sun

2016 Talladega I Cup Pack Racing Mathew T Thacker Nkp

(Photo: Matthew T. Thacker/NKP)

One of the few benefits of getting older is a hard won acceptance that some things just are as they are. That’s not always such a great thing. As the Speaker relates in the Book of Ecclesiasticus “All is wearisome. There is nothing new under the sun.” (OK, more formerly: All things are wearisome; Man …

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Beside the Rising Tide: Fine, Be That Way

2016 Richmond I Cup Tony Stewart Danica Patrick Racing Nigel Kinrade Nkp

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade/NKP)

Thursday, most fans of the sport were delighted to hear that three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart had recovered well enough from a back injury suffered in an OHV accident that he could resume racing again. NASCAR welcomed him back with the now near-obligatory waiver of the requirement to run every race to potentially make …

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Beside the Rising Tide: In the Heat of the Moment

2016 Bristol I Nxs Erik Jones Kyle Larson Racing Nascar Via Getty Images

(Photo: NASCAR via Getty Images)

Those of us who grew up attending races at the dirt and asphalt bull-rings peppered around the country had great expectations concerning Saturday’s XFINITY Series race. Of course like in Dickens’ Great Expectations, assigned by many a sadistic high school English teacher, the reality wasn’t as fine as we’d been told to expect. For the first time in …

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Beside the Rising Tide: It’s Always Something

2016 Texas I Cup Kyle Busch Burnout Russell Labounty Nkp

(Photo: Russell LaBounty/NKP)

Well, it was bound to happen eventually. Since all NASCAR races are run out of doors, sometimes it’s going to rain. It’s just unfortunate it had to happen prior to the season’s first night race, one already starting late here on the East Coast due to Texas’s Central Time Zone location. Having a race end …

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Beside the Rising Tide: Taking One for the Team

2016 Martinsville I Matt Kenseth Pack Racing Matthew T Thacker Nkp

(Photo: Matthew T Thacker/NKP)

While only the driver’s name goes on the trophy NASCAR is and always has been a team sport. With rare exceptions over the last sixty years, even the best drivers haven’t been able to score victories in substandard machines, and few lackluster drivers have ever gotten to winners’ circle because of a vastly superior mount. …

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Beside the Rising Tide: Busch’s Radio Nowhere

2016 Fontana Nxs Kyle Busch Daniel Suarez Racing Nigel Kinrade Nkp

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade/NKP)

This is Radio Nowhere Is there anyone alive out there…. Something odd, almost unprecedented as of late, actually happened Saturday at Fontana. Kyle Busch was entered in an XFINITY Series race but didn’t win! Oh he gave it the old college try and almost pulled it off, but a bizarre set of circumstances unfolded that …

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Beside the Rising Tide: How Long Has This Been Going On?

2016 Phoenix I Cup Pack Racing Behind Nigel Kinrade Nkp

(Photo: Nigel Kinrade/NKP)

Somehow I missed the memo. There’s a rapidly expanding effort to hand the world over to the millennials and great efforts are being made to cater everything to their tastes,whims and needs. Living out here in the vast rural wasteland outside any known WIFI zone (and having thought until recently WIFI was a local classic …

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Beside the Rising Tide: Blowin’ in the Wind

2016 Las Vegas Cup Michael Mcdowell Pack Racing Matthew T Thacker Nkp

(Photo: Matthew T. Thacker/NKP)

And now, collection of random thoughts in the wake of Sunday’s Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Yes, meteorologically, Las Vegas offered a little of everything on Sunday: sun and showers, wind and rain (presumably blowing in and out the window, like a moth before a flame… but I digress.) Some pundits insist on …

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Beside the Rising Tide: The More Things Stay the Same In NASCAR The More They Change

Looking at the box score after Sunday’s Atlanta Cup race one might think it was a case of Déjà vu all over again. Jimmie Johnson won this race last year and won again on Sunday. Last year Johnson had to overcome having his qualifying effort tossed out for a technical infraction on Friday relegating him …

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Beside the Rising Tide: There’s a Rule to Every Exception

Hopefully over the next few days the busiest guy in Daytona will get a few hours off to catch his breath. No I’m not talking about Alan Gustafson, who prepped Chase Elliott’s car well enough to claim the pole with a rookie driver at the helm. Nor am I talking about the various team’s body-men …

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Beside the Rising Tide: Ending With a Whimper, Not a Bang

The sun sets over the 2015 Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

(Photo: CIA Stock Photo, Inc. ©2015)­­

Say what you will about the 2015 Cup season, and a lot of you have had some very unkind things to say about it this year, but inarguably, it’s over. Sunday’s season finale probably won’t make many fans lists of “greatest races” ever, but at least it signaled the end of another season, a year …

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