Dale Earnhardt Jr. Opens Up About Team Shake-Up and His Popularity

Filed under: , ,

LAS VEGAS -- The only suspense in Thursday's announcement of NASCAR's 2010 Most Popular Driver Award rested with the winner. For the eighth consecutive year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. claimed the honor -- tops among the 1.5 million fan votes -- once again proving his popularity is soaring even if his on-track efforts have fallen flat.

"Oh yeah, I was surprised,'' Earnhardt claimed moments after accepting the award during NASCAR Champion's Week. "You just never know. There's the performance factor we've suffered from on the race track, there's the new guys coming into the sport all the time. You never take it for granted.''

The same could be said for winning.

Earnhardt hasn't won a race in nearly three seasons and hasn't even been consistently competitive in the No. 88 National Guard-Amp Energy Chevrolet, while his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson will be crowned champion for the fifth consecutive year in Friday night's lavish NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Awards Banquet at the Wynn Las Vegas.

The juxtaposition isn't lost on the third-generation driver, son of the late seven-time champion, Dale Earnhardt. The 2004 Daytona 500 champ and 18-race winner is hoping a three-way crew chief swap at Hendrick will infuse new life into his career. And it can't happen soon enough.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/12/02/dale-earnhardt-jr-opens-up-about-team-shake-up-and-his-populari/

Keith Greene Masten Gregory Cliff Griffith Georges Grignard

Turkish Grand Prix 2010 Race gallery


Lewis Hamilton won the 2010 Turkish Grand Prix with a bit of a luck from the collision of the Red Bull mates, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton's first win of the season. His team mate Jenson Button finished second and Mark Webber who was leading the race before the incident, finished thirdhttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_f2dCclIT9q8/TAP6axiLoVI/AAAAAAAAGRY/nT0P8oc4FBA/s1600/Turkish+Grand+Prix+2010+Race+gallery.jpg


Credit : Daylife, F1Fanatic

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/F1InsightAFormula1Blog/~3/rpr_vaitc98/turkish-grand-prix-2010-race-gallery.html

Post 9 11 GI Bill Chevrolet Martin Truex Jr NAPA Brakes Toyota Joe Nemechek Washington

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon Part of Hendrick Crew Chief Swap

Filed under: , , , , , , , ,

Hendrick Motorsports may have won its fifth-straight championship just last Sunday, but it took only a matter of days for the organization to make some of its biggest changes in years.

"This will improve us as an organization, across the board," team owner Rick Hendrick (right) said Tuesday.

Save for champion Jimmie Johnson, each of the three other drivers in the Hendrick stable will have new crew chiefs for the 2011 season.

Steve Letarte, the crew chief on Jeff Gordon's No. 24 since the end of the 2005 season, will now oversee Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 team. Meanwhile, Gordon will now have Alan Gustafson managing his team in Daytona.

Gustafson leaves the No. 5 team and driver Mark Martin, who will now have Lance McGrew in his ear for the 2011 season. McGrew has spent part of 2009 and all of 2010 as Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/23/earnhardt-gordon-part-of-major-hendrick-crew-chief-swap/

Scott Speed Red Bull Toyota Kyle Busch M and M s Toyota

Marcos Ambrose Is NASCAR Crash King With 19 Incidents

Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Marcos Ambrose, NASCAR's Aussie driver, did not let a mid-season surge in futility by Elliott Sadler deter him from capturing the season 'championship' in yellow-flag crashes and spins.

Coming on strong during the final eight races with seven spins or crashes, including a final spin (at right) during the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Ambrose easily outdistanced the competition in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series to post a season-leading 19 incidents and win the title by two.

Sadler, meanwhile, found uncommon consistency in the final stretch, chalking up only a single yellow flag in an incident at Martinsville Speedway during the last eight races. That brought his season total to 15, a number easily surpassed not only by Ambrose, but by hard-luck Sam Hornish Jr., who reached the second-highest total of 17 after the misfortune of four more incidents in the final eight races, including two in the Martinsville race.

Kyle Busch and Joey Logano were tied for fourth in our exclusive FanHouse crash and spin roundup, with 14 incidents apiece.

Drivers involved in 13 spins or crashes in the 36-race schedule, or one every three races, were Kurt Busch, Kasey Kahne, Brad Keselowski and Juan Pablo Montoya.

In our tally, we count an incident on a driver's tally if his car is listed as being involved in a spin or a crash that brings out a yellow flag. Caution periods caused by stalled cars, engine failures or debris do not count, unless a spin or crash was involved and a car number listed.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/28/marcos-ambrose-is-nascar-crash-king-with-19-incidents/

Jason Leffler Great Clips Toyota Paul Menard Richmond Menards Ford

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon Part of Hendrick Crew Chief Swap

Filed under: , , , , , , , ,

Hendrick Motorsports may have won its fifth-straight championship just last Sunday, but it took only a matter of days for the organization to make some of its biggest changes in years.

"This will improve us as an organization, across the board," team owner Rick Hendrick (right) said Tuesday.

Save for champion Jimmie Johnson, each of the three other drivers in the Hendrick stable will have new crew chiefs for the 2011 season.

Steve Letarte, the crew chief on Jeff Gordon's No. 24 since the end of the 2005 season, will now oversee Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 team. Meanwhile, Gordon will now have Alan Gustafson managing his team in Daytona.

Gustafson leaves the No. 5 team and driver Mark Martin, who will now have Lance McGrew in his ear for the 2011 season. McGrew has spent part of 2009 and all of 2010 as Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/23/earnhardt-gordon-part-of-major-hendrick-crew-chief-swap/

Al Herman Hans Herrmann François Hesnault Hans Heyer

Speeding Penalty Derails Kevin Harvick's NASCAR Title Run

Filed under: , , ,

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Kevin Harvick and his team owner, Richard Childress, were diplomatic in the moments following Sunday's Ford 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Diplomatic, but not satisfied. Harvick was not happy.

Harvick, who entered the final race in third place in the championship -- 46 points behind Denny Hamlin -- had positioned himself to make a heroic, if unlikely run at his first title, dethroning four-time champ Jimmie Johnson and capitalizing on Hamlin's Sunday afternoon of misfortune.

After racing near the front all day, Harvick exited the pits in first place for a restart on lap 188 of the 267-lap race -- only to be penalized for speeding on pit road (right).

NASCAR said his No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet was too fast entering the pits and he was sent to rear of the lead-lap cars, dropping him back to 29th place. Harvick was understandably livid on the team radio when he received the news and still maintained after the race that he was directly behind a car -- on its bumper -- and therefore couldn't have been speeding.

"I don't think that penalty will ever settle in my stomach,'' Harvick said in a post-race press conference. "When you read me off of my pit road times of 49.6, 49.4 50.8 and then 49.6; and there's only a handful people that get to see them, I won't ever settle for that.

"I don't know how you can be speeding when you're on the bumper in front of you and if the other guy is not speeding. So that's about it. ''

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2010/11/21/speeding-penalty-derails-kevin-harvicks-nascar-title-run/

Dan Gurney Hubert Hahne Mike Hailwood Mika Häkkinen

F1: Team Lotus still bullish over name

Team Lotus still bullish over name By Matt Beer Wednesday, December 8th 2010, 12:38 GMT Team Lotus chiefs Tony Fernandes and Mike Gascoyne have responded defiantly to the announcement of Group Lotus's entry into Formula 1 with Renault. The two organisations are currently battling over the use of the Lotus brand in F1, with Group Lotus and its owner Proton insisting it has sole rights over the name, while Fernandes' squad is adamant that the car company and F1 team were separate in the original Lotus days so its purchase of Team Lotus rights from David Hunt is valid. In messages on their Twitter pages this morning, both Fernandes and Gascoyne signalled that news that Group Lotus had become a partner of Renault and Genii Capital would not deter them from fighting to use Team Lotus next year Related posts:
  1. F1: Proton: Team Lotus name not allowed Proton: Team Lotus name not allowed By Jonathan Noble Monday,...
  2. F1: Lotus insists it can use Team Lotus name Lotus insists it can use Team Lotus name By Pablo...
  3. F1: Lotus Racing vows to end war of words Lotus Racing vows to end war of words By Pablo...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Source: http://doxcar.com/f1-team-lotus-still-bullish-over-name/

Alan Dennis Kulwicki Travis Wade Kvapil Robert Allen Labonte Terrence Lee Labonte

NASCAR Tracks - The Talladega Superspeedway

Talladega Superspeedway is one of the fastest, most exciting tracks on the NASCAR schedule. Talladega Superspeedway stands out among all the great tracks of NASCAR. Its 175,000 capacity makes it among the biggest of tracks. Buy Talladega tickets and watch 43 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series stock cars storm around the 2.66 mile, high banked speedway three-wide at 200 mph - the only place on the planet where you will see such intense racing.

Talladega Superspeedways grandstand tri-oval is banked 16.5 degrees and the north and south turns are banked 33 degrees. The superspeedways layout is unique in racing as it places the start/finish line after the pit exit. Talladega Superspeedway is the biggest, fastest and most competitive super speedway in the world. Holding records for the fastest 500-mile stock car race at 188.354 mph and the most lead changes in a race with 75, it is widely known as "NASCAR's Most Competitive Track". Talladega Superspeedway security: One soft-sided cooler or insulated bag, 6 x 6 x 12 inches or smaller, is allowed per ticket holder. One clear plastic bag, 18 x 18 x 4 inches, is also allowed.

Talladega Superspeedway offers a variety of other 2-day packages, as well as single-day event tickets for Saturday and Sunday. Talladega Superspeedway tickets sell quickly, so act quick and purchase your tickets! Talladega Superspeedway has upped the ante by adding a fan element to their part of the tour. Fans will be allowed to view a question and answer session between media and drivers from a designated viewing area.

Talladega Superspeedway is home to many records including Buddy Baker who became the first recorded driver in the history of NASCAR to break the 200mph barrier when he turned a lap at 200.447 mph on March 24, 1970. Paula Murphy also set a record for a closed course run for a female at 171.499 mph on August 20, 1971. Talladega Superspeedway is one of the fastest, most exciting tracks on the NASCAR schedule. Buy Talladega tickets and watch 43 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series stock cars storm around the 2.66 mile, high banked speedway three-wide at 200 mph - the only place on the planet where you will see such intense racing.

Talladega Superspeedway is the biggest, fastest and most competitive superspeedway in the world. Holding records for the fastest 500-mile stock car race at 188.354 mph and the most lead changes in a race with 75, it is widely known as "NASCAR's Most Competitive Track". Talladega Superspeedway has upped the ante by adding a fan element to their part of the tour. Fans will be allowed to view a question and answer session between media and drivers from a designated viewing area. Talladega Superspeedway is home to many records including Buddy Baker who became the first recorded driver in the history of NASCAR to break the 200mph barrier when he turned a lap at 200.447 mph on March 24, 1970. Paula Murphy also set a record for a closed course run for a female at 171.499 mph on August 20, 1971.

For NASCAR Merchandise, Up to the minute News, and everything NASCAR including RaceCar jacket or Nascar Racing Shirts we have them at the best prices everyday!

Article Source: NASCAR Tracks - The Talladega Superspeedway

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/193966/nascar-tracks-the-talladega-superspeedway

Derrike Cope Carl Edwards Juan Pablo Montoya Target Chevrolet

Turkish Grand Prix 2010 Qualifying gallery


Mark Webber claimed his third consecutive pole position and made it seven pole positions from seven attempts for Red Bull at Istanbul Park. Lewis Hamilton secured second position making it a McLaren front row start for the first time this season. Sebastian Vettel completed the top threehttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/_f2dCclIT9q8/TAK1m8Jr7iI/AAAAAAAAGQg/ik6eBZf1ZR4/s1600/Turkish+Grand+Prix+2010+Qualifying+gallery.jpg


Credit : F1Fanatic, iTV, Daylife

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/F1InsightAFormula1Blog/~3/Gc_iwwZl--A/turkish-grand-prix-2010-qualifying.html

Jeff Burton Caterpillar Chevrolet David Ragan UPS Ford