Race Weekend Central

Happy Hour: What Should Be Done About NASCAR Multi-Car Teams?

In Kansas this last weekend, the top-five finishing cars drove for Roush Fenway Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. Those two teams also produced three more drivers in the top 15, for a total of eight drivers from two teams. Of the remaining seven, five were from Richard Childress and Red Bull. One week before at Dover, …

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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: 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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Happy Hour: If Locked in the Chase, Why Race at Richmond?

When the Chase for the Cup was initially conceived (although “conceived” probably isn’t a good word for it… maybe “implemented over a cosmopolitan” works better), the only advantage for a team that had built up an insurmountable lead in points during the regular season was that they could take chances on different equipment or setups …

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Happy Hour: Tony Stewart & Ryan Newman Should Enjoy the Honeymoon While It Lasts

A two-car team with established veteran drivers behind the wheel, quite a few wins between them, one a former Cup champion. Sharing engines and chassis with one of the top outfits in the business. Luring away a capable mechanic from Hendrick Motorsports, a fellow who performed more than adequately sitting in as a crew chief …

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Happy Hour: NASCAR Gets 1 Right – No Mas in Ciudad de Mexico

NASCAR announced last week that they will not be running Nationwide Series races at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in Mexico City next year. Finally, a change in the schedule we can applaud. Granted, it’s only the Nationwide Series, but we’ll take whatever victories we can get. It would probably be an understatement to …

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Happy Hour: Networks Prop Up NASCAR’s Chase; Real Fans Reject It

In four years of the worst playoff system in recent history to be forced down sports fans’ throats, I still haven’t seen or heard anything resembling a viable argument in favor of the Chase, even from professionals who write about NASCAR for a living. Last week, Terry Blount of ESPN and our own Vito Pugliese …

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Happy Hour: What is Ryan Newman (or Roger Penske) Thinking?

Most all of us at some point in our lives have been dissatisfied with where we are in life – in a job, where we live, with our cars. And if things aren’t perfect for us now, it’s natural to think things could be better elsewhere. Sometimes that leads us to make decisions we end …

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