Race Weekend Central

It’s another walk to Victory Lane for Bowyer

By JEFF WOLFE Clint Bowyer doesn’t care how he gets to Victory Lane, even if it means going by foot rather than car. Bowyer won the third time this season in a fuel-mileage saving effort to take Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was Bowyer’s eighth career win and significantly …

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Dakoda Armstrong Driver Diary: Sponsors, Championship and Football

Just days after our last diary, I was released from ThorSport Racing. I knew we didn’t have all of the season funded and we were trying to work on it. It just got to the point where it’s hard to get more sponsorship in the middle of the year. We got to a point where we needed to hire the rest of the guys on the team and write their contracts out for the rest of the year and we couldn’t commit. We only had enough for one more race and that’s how the deal with Turner came about. Instead of just dragging it out for one more race, everyone wanted to get ready to do their own thing. I guess it worked out up there because there were some of the guys that got new jobs, so a lot of my guys got to go to the No. 88 or the No. 13; that was good.

Couch Potato Tuesday: Sunspots Detract from Race Broadcasts

Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, where race telecast critique is the name of our game. This past weekend, the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series were both in action at Talladega Superspeedway. High speeds and close quarters were definitely on tap.

Last weekend was the 50th running of the *Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.* As you probably noticed, we didn’t get it live this year on SPEED, which officially bites. SPEED decided not to put up the money to send a crew down to Bathurst for the race like last year. They even admitted that springing for airfare back to the U.S. in between Bathurst and Surfer’s Paradise was a terrible idea and that if they returned, they’d stay over during the break.

Matt McLaughlin’s Thinkin’ Out Loud: Talladega-2 Race Recap

*Key Moment* – Matt Kenseth entered Turn 3 of the last lap a sitting duck – even though he was leading the race. Seconds later, he exited Turn 4 the only car still standing in a 500-mile event that could have easily been run as a 1-lap Demolition Derby.

*In a Nutshell* – A spectacular, heart-stopping final 20 minutes of side-by-side drama turned into an eyesore of an ending. Drivers left angry, owners lost millions, officials are lucky no one was killed, and the sport wound up with a virtual punch in the face.

Kenseth avoids record-setting crash for Talladega victory

By Jeff Wolfe The wait was long, but the result was sudden. As is often the case with NASCAR Sprint Cup races on restrictor plate tracks, the anticipation of the potential big one, the accident that takes out several cars in one fell swoop, creates a different atmosphere than at most other tracks. The big …

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Regan Smith Driver Diary: The End of an Era and a New Beginning

As I’m sure you all know, the past few weeks certainly have not been the most pleasant of my career. I was informed that I would not be back with the team and then found out with the rest of you that Kurt Busch would be in the car. I had an inkling that he was going to replace me, but that was for the team to talk about, not me. What did catch me off guard was the fact that I will be out of the car after Talladega. I would have expected to at least have been able to finish the season after all of my efforts, but it is not to be.

With that being said, I am already working on putting this disappointment behind me so that I can focus on the fact that I’ll be a free agent and I need to move forward. It’s late in the season and a lot of moves have already been made in terms of seats being filled, but those are the cards that I was dealt. I will do the best that I can to emerge from this in the best possible situation.

Beyond the Cockpit: Chad McCumbee On A Possible Change In Career Arc?

_For Chad McCumbee, his career up to this point has been a little unorthodox. Around the time he made his “rather spectacular debut in the ARCA Re/Max Series”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ri0zfKI1mE, he appeared in ESPN’s 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story, an unauthorized biopic of the seven-time champion as the screen version of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (the film premiered months after his ARCA debut, but was likely filmed around the time he debuted)._

_Since then, McCumbee has had a couple of stints in the Craftsman/Camping World Truck Series, along with ten starts in the Sprint Cup Series with a best finish of 17th, and multiple seasons in ARCA. However, for 2012, McCumbee decided to blaze a new trail and moved over to the Street Tuner class of Grand-Am’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge to drive what was originally a Mazdaspeed 3 for the season (early in the year, the team switched to a Mazda MX-5). Recently, McCumbee sat down with Frontstretch’s Phil Allaway at Lime Rock Park to talk about his season, his transition to sports car racing, and his continuing presence in NASCAR._

NASCAR Sprint Cup Power Rankings: Top 15 After Dover II

Frontstretch Power Rankings
While Talladega is still ahead, it seems that the championship players have clearly been set. Not only are we seeing a repeat of 2010, with a Denny Hamlin vs. Jimmie Johnson championship fight, but the third dog in play, Brad Keselowski, is proving to be more than just a darkhorse candidate. He’s ahead of both drivers in the standings and has won two out of the last three races. Call me crazy, but I think we have a fight on our hands!

Couch Potato Tuesday: Shrunken Lead Lap Equals Shrunken Focus for ESPN

Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, where race telecast breakdowns are the name of the game. This past weekend, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series each raced at Dover International Speedway, while the Camping World Truck Series raced Saturday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Before we start, “here’s an example of what not to do on an ESPN3 live feed.”:http://deadspin.com/5947950/in-least+professional-broadcast-ever-espn-announcers-mock-wrecked-rallycross-driver-as-hes-taken-to-hospital This is from ESPN3’s coverage of the Global Rallycross Championship race in Las Vegas, held after the Smith’s 350.

Track Testing Enables Ford Teams to Gather Crucial Data for 2013 NASCAR Fusion as Countdown to Daytona Continues

DEARBORN, Mich., October 1, 2012 – While advances in computer simulation models and wind tunnel technology have given race teams the ability to predict what conditions they may encounter on any given weekend, there’s no real substitute for actual on-track testing. As the countdown towards February’s Daytona 500 and debut of the 2013 NASCAR Fusion continues, Ford …

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Keselowski a fuel-mileage king in first win at Dover

By Jeff Wolfe Brad Keselowski went from just trying to stay on the lead lap, to being the leader at the right time to win Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover International Speedway Sunday. Keselowski won his fifth race of the season, and for the second time in three races in NASCAR’s Chase for …

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