Race Weekend Central

Five Points to Ponder: Saturday Night Lights, New Arrivals and Triple Centuries

ONE: Triple Century for Hamlin Denny Hamlin joined an exclusive club of drivers this past Sunday, not just for his first win on the high banks of Talladega Superspeedway but also by becoming only the fifth driver to win his 300th start at the Cup level – his 24th overall victory. The previous four were …

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Five Points to Ponder: Surprising Names Off To Solid NASCAR Starts

ONE: What a Season So Far In the seven years I’ve been a weekly NASCAR columnist it is fair to say that there have been many more reasons to be critical than to be effusive. Sinking TV ratings, the car of sorrow, empty stands, mind-numbing races, Jimmie Johnson winning everything — you name it, and folks, to …

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Five Points To Ponder: NASCAR’s Take-A-Breath Moment

Time For a Breather: After a frenetic first eight weeks of the mammoth ten-month NASCAR season we get our first moment to breathe this weekend as the engines go silent in honor of Easter. And so far, even the strongest and most vociferous of critics would have trouble denying it’s been anything other than a fantastic start …

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Five Points To Ponder: Keselowski Rivalries, Titans, And Short Track Success

ONE: WE’RE OFF TO A GOOD START Six races down, 30 to go and it’s fair to say we’re off to an excellent start in 2014. Three of the races have been classics — the Daytona 500, last Sunday’s race at Martinsville and the previous week at Auto Club Speedway — while Las Vegas and Bristol were both very …

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Five Points to Ponder: Five Winners, Fontana In The Chase And The Real Deal

ONE: Five Winners in Five Weeks So that’s five winners in five weeks, with Kyle Busch joining Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards among those locked into the Chase — or so goes the conventional wisdom. But there’s a bit of trouble brewing with that philosophy. History had shown us that …

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Five Points To Ponder: NASCAR Gambles, And So Do Teams With Vegas Looming

Nascar Sprint Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400

Steve Letarte, with his No. 88 car all but locked into the Chase will have no problem taking risks on strategy this season.

ONE: NASCAR Teams Gambling Already No, I’m not talking about Las Vegas. It’s clear the new Chase format, rewarding race winners, is going to have a significant impact on the pre-playoff portion this season. We saw it take effect already this past Sunday, when Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s team was comfortable with making, had they needed to, a …

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2014 Sprint Cup Predictions: Our Staff Tells All

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Five Points to Ponder: Pole Conspiracies, Smoke Rising and the Great American Race

ONE: And We’re Back The NASCAR offseason is just about the shortest in all of professional sports. So why does it always feel like ages between the checkered flag at Homestead-Miami Speedway and the start of Daytona Speedweeks? I’ll leave that answer to those more qualified in the study of neurosciences in the human brain, …

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Five Points to Ponder: Firsts, Families And Failing Pit Crews

What a weekend it was for Regan Smith who not only won the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega with a thrilling last ditch push, but also established a 27-point lead in the battle for the Nationwide Series crown; the first time in his career he has led the standings. Smith was in seventh place coming to the white flag before a push from Kasey Kahne made all the difference.

“Coming down the backstretch I thought, ‘Ah, we’re going to take fifth or sixth.’ I thought that’s the way it was going to go. I can’t even tell you the order of the guys who were leading,” said Smith. “I just saw cars at that point. They got all jammed up, we had a run and I made a move. I wasn’t really sure if I was clear, but I figured it was the only chance I had to win the race. I wanted to make that move to see if it was going to pay off for us, and it did.”

Five Points to Ponder: Politics Surrounding Short Tracks, Injuries, And Jeff Burton

*ONE: Build More Short Tracks*

A lot of what you read on Twitter is not much more than garbage, but there was one tweet late Saturday night from USA Today NASCAR beat writer Jeff Gluck that really hit the mark.

“The longer I’m around this sport, the more I’m convinced additional short tracks would be the solution to many of NASCAR’s problems,” “tweeted Gluck.”:https://twitter.com/jeff_gluck/status/328595945480654848