NASCAR Tickets - Brotherly Duo Is Double Trouble for Sprint Cup Series

23-year-old racecar driving prodigy Kyle Busch has been all the talk of the NASCAR world so far this season, but after the Kobalt Tools 500 race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in March, the spotlight shifted to the other Busch - 30-year-old Kurt. The Busch brothers have attracted flocks of fans and undying attention over the past several years as they have proven their place in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and the elder Busch's recent Atlanta victory has sparked speculation that Kurt and Kyle Busch are the next brotherly duo to dominate the NASCAR realm, perhaps even being one the best sibling pairs of all time to conquer the racing circuit together.

When it comes to Cup Series victories, the Busch brothers stack up as the sixth overall sibling combo with the most wins in NASCAR history, coming in behind some of the best family names in the history of racing. Kurt and Kyle Busch have collectively accumulated 32 wins in their racing careers, but there are still a handful of siblings who beat this remarkable record. The winningest family name in all of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is still the Allisons, as brothers Bobby and Donnie racked up an outrageous 94 combined wins during their reign over stock car racing.

Coming in as the second most winning sibling combination is the Waltrips, as Darrell and Michael have accumulated 88 wins in their joint careers. The Flock brothers (Tim, Fonty and Bob) are third on this list with 62, and Herb and Donald Thomas rank fourth with 49. Rounding out the top five are the Labontes, as Terry and Bobby have 43 victories under their belts. The Buschs are currently at sixth place, but because this brotherly duo is so young, Kurt and Kyle Busch have plenty of time to rack up several more wins on the NASCAR circuit before they retire from the sport, perhaps already making them the best brotherly duo to ever grace the racing scene.

As of the Atlanta race on March 8, the name Busch has taken the title of a Cup race for two out of the season's four races, with Matt Kenseth sweeping the first two races of the year. Kyle Busch was the victor of the Las Vegas race on March 1 (competing at his hometown track) and brother Kurt followed up the win with a March 8 victory at Atlanta. The Busch brothers are both currently in the Top 12 of the 2009 Sprint Cup standings, with Kurt Busch in third place while Kyle Busch is in seventh, the latter working his way up the totem pole after suffering an early race-ending crash triggered by Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. at Daytona.

While Kyle Busch is largely considered the favorite of the two Busch brothers, Kurt has proven in the last couple weeks that while he is proud of his brother he certainly won't give up without a fight. With NASCAR tickets you can see both Busch brothers battle for the 2009 Sprint Cup title in person, so browse your favorite online ticket reseller and make your way to the grandstands today to catch these young stock car drivers spin circles around their competitors.

This article is sponsored by StubHub.com. StubHub is a leader in the business of selling NASCAR tickets, sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and special events tickets.

Article Source: NASCAR Tickets - Brotherly Duo Is Double Trouble for Sprint Cup Series

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/247683/nascar-tickets-brotherly-duo-is-double-trouble-for-sprint-cup-series

Hubert Hahne Mike Hailwood Mika Häkkinen Bruce Halford

Send me your questions about F1 2011

Hello everyone,

What a start to the new Formula 1 season it has been! I am filming my first video blogs of the year on Monday. There's a lot to talk about and I'd love to hear your questions.

So if you have anything you'd like to ask me about the Formula 1 season so far, then please post your questions below.

All the best

Murray

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/murraywalker/2011/04/welcome_to_2011.html

Steve Wallace Tony Raines Tayler Malsam Mike Bliss

Lotus F1 row takes new twist

A new twist in the long-running row over the use of the Lotus name in Formula 1 has emerged with the announcement that the owners of Team Lotus have bought niche sportscar manufacturer Caterham.

Tony Fernandes and his partners see Caterham, which makes replicas of the old Lotus Seven two-seater open-top sportscar, as a company with historic links and "synergies" with Team Lotus that allows them to realise their ambition of diversifying into making road cars.

Their original plan was to do that with Group Lotus, the company that markets Lotus sportscars, but as Fernandes puts it: "That obviously didn't turn out very well."

What the Malaysian businessman, and owner of budget airline Air Asia, is referring to is the increasingly bitter dispute between him and Group Lotus that has ended up in the High Court.

When Fernandes and his partners first set up what was then called the Lotus Racing F1 team last year, it was with the blessing of Group Lotus, which licensed them the name. But in the course of 2010 Group Lotus's new chairman Dany Bahar decided he wanted to go his own way in F1.

He terminated Fernandes' licence, and switched instead to a sponsorship deal with the Renault team. Fernandes, seeing this coming, bought the rights to the historic Team Lotus name as a fall-back.

Both issues - the termination of the licence and the ownership of the Team Lotus name - are wrapped up in a court case that was heard last month, with a verdict expected early in May.

Fernandes is widely expected to win the rights to continue to use Team Lotus. He bought it legitimately from its previous owner, David Hunt, brother of the late world champion James, and Group Lotus has always acted in the past as if it knew it did not own the name.

Nevertheless, buying Caterham does provide Fernandes with an interesting fall-back option should the court case go against him. Now he owns his own car company, he could re-name the F1 team after it should he want to.

Lotus F1 cars and the Caterham Seven

Team Lotus owner Tony Fernandes now has Caterham in his business portfolio

For now, though, he says that is not an option. Fernandes told BBC Sport that he is "absolutely not" going to change the name of Team Lotus. Although he does add: "Obviously we have to wait for the verdict to see exactly what has been decided. But we see a very natural link between Team Lotus and Caterham, and they can be synergistic and promote each other, and there is some DNA between the two anyway. It's not like we've bought a brand that has no association with Team Lotus at all. It's just the opposite."

The Caterham name will, though, soon appear on the Team Lotus F1 cars - although exactly when and how has yet to be decided - and the company will eventually contribute to the Lotus budget as a sponsor.

Assuming he retains the rights to Team Lotus, that still leaves Fernandes in the sticky position of providing free promotion to a company with which he is in dispute and has no links.

Unsurprisingly, he did not want to get into that on the day of his big announcement, but he could not resist a little snipe or two at Bahar.

Fernandes says he sees Caterham as very much following the legacy of the late Lotus founder Colin Chapman. "In some ways," he says, "we have reunited the Chapman history. Lotus is all about lightweight, more is less. That is all the terminology we like, and it fits with F1. We feel there is a huge opportunity for Caterham in a market no one is really looking at right now."

By that, he means lightweight, affordable sportscars that are within reach of ordinary people. This was Chapman's approach, and one which, Fernandes says, "certain people have abandoned". That is a reference to Bahar's plans to take Lotus upmarket and challenge Porsche and Ferrari with his mooted five new Lotus models by 2015.

So far, the dispute between the two Lotuses has not reached the race tracks of F1.

Team Lotus started this season with chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne setting ambitious targets of catching Renault by the end of the season, but that looks out of reach for now - Renault have started the season strongly enough to set their own difficult goal, of beating Ferrari to third place in the constructors' championship.

But Team Lotus have also started the season well. The car has had reliability problems, but it also has underlying pace, and in the last race in China they beat established teams for the first time since entering F1 at the beginning of last year, with Heikki Kovalainen finishing ahead of a Sauber and a Williams.

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Kovalainen's performance is a clear indicator that Lotus's more realistic target, of scoring points and mixing it with the established teams, is achievable.

Fernandes himself has his feet firmly on the ground. "You build things properly and with the right structure and things will fall into place," he says. "My target this year was to maintain 10th, and hopefully sneak a few points along the way. That is still my target.

"It is beginning to feel more realistic now, but one can't build a challenging F1 team in two years. We are competing against guys who have been there for 30 years but obviously the team smell big steps of improvement. They smell points.

"I never want to kill confidence, I encourage it, but I am also a realist and we are competing against nine guys who have been doing it for years and are very good at it.

"But if you'd asked me do I think at Turkey (the next race on 8 May) you'd be where you are, I wouldn't have believed it.

"We've got a good package and good people, we have put all the infrastructure in place.

"We're working on a new wind tunnel; that's the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, and I think if you put all the pieces of the puzzle together then the results will come in good time."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2011/04/lotus_f1_row_takes_new_twist.html

Carl Edwards Copart Ford Denny Hamlin Kyle Busch

Early History of NASCAR

Shortly after the invention of the automobile, Americans fell in love with car racing. Europe started the tradition of setting speed records, but starting in the 1920s America started setting many of these speed records. In fact, most of these world records were being set in Daytona Beach.

That's right, even in the early days car racing centered around Daytona Beach. Racing fans from all over the United States and the rest of the world started coming to Daytona Beach to watch the Daytona Beach road course. For those of you who don't know you NASCAR, the Daytona 500 is the biggest race in NASCAR today.

As many know, stock car racing spawned out of America's Prohibition period. The bootleggers needed fast cars to out run the police when they were transporting illegal whiskey throughout the south and in particular the mountains of Appalachia. These bootleggers started to modify their cars to increase their speed and performance. In order to out run the law, you needed to have a great car. And, as the bootleggers upped the ante, the police did so too. These suped up cars eventually turned into the stock cars that we recognize today. The real life game of cops and robbers turned into the sports that millions of Americans love today.

After the end of Prohibition in 1933, Americans did not want to give up their fast cars. Many Americans living in the South East of the United States started to set up races featuring their tricked out cars. Once these races started being held, the fans started pouring in to watch the car races. From this moment, stock car racing was born. The birth place of these early races was North Carolina. To this day NASCAR is huge in North Carolina.

Today, NASCAR is popular all across the country. While many of the nascar drivers still come out of North Carolina and Tennessee, many more are coming from states like California, New York and Indiana. No longer is the sport just enjoyed in the south. Cities like Philadelphia are now some of the largest markets for television viewers of the sport. Race tracks have been built in Las Vegas, New Hampshire and many non-southern states.

While the South East region of the United States was the birthplace of NASCAR, today the sport is loved throughout the county. Today there are race tracks all across America and it is the fastest growing sport in the country. Despite its regional roots, NASCAR is today the most popular sport in the United States. Every Sunday during race season, over 100,000 screaming fans show up to see the NASCAR drivers start their engines. Not bad for a bunch of bootleggers.

Find out more about NASCAR at Nascar Diecast Cars. Nascar diecast cars make great collections. Check out these great Dale Earnhardt Jr Diecast cars and these Carl Edwards Diecast cars.

Article Source: Early History of NASCAR

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/61045/early-history-of-nascar

Rudolf Krause Robert Kubica Kurt Kuhnke Masami Kuwashima

Corporate Sponsorships Aid NASCAR Diversity

Despite the popularity of the sport, NASCAR has often been described by critics as a White man’s sport. With the exception of a few trailblazers, such as ESPN NASCAR analyst and former NBA All-Star Brad Daugherty, most coverage of racing includes very few faces of color or women.

However, NASCAR diversity has been at the top of the sports agenda for the past six seasons as a result of its Drive for Diversity initiative. The program seeks to develop minority and female drivers and crew members and give them the opportunity to compete against established NASCAR talent.

One such individual taking advantage of NASCAR diversity is 19-year-old racing sensation Michael Cherry, who is in his second year in the Drive for Diversity program and recently received sponsorship from Nationwide Insurance.

“It’s an honor to support Michael Cherry as he works his way up in NASCAR,” said Nationwide agent Carlo White. “This sponsorship is a good opportunity for Nationwide to support diversity in racing, and that’s something that is very important to us. Michael is a very promising young racer and will be a great representative of the Nationwide Insurance brand.”

Despite the efforts of Nationwide, NASCAR diversity has become a critical issue since fired NASCAR employee Mauricia Grant filed a $225 million lawsuit against the racing league in 2008, claiming racial and sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination.

Grant, a Black female, said of her NASCAR experience: “I loved it. It was a great, exciting, adrenaline-filled job where I worked with fast cars and the best drivers in the world. But there was an ongoing daily pattern [of harassment]. It was the nature of the people I worked with, the people who ran it, it trickled down from the top.”

After Grant filed the lawsuit, NASCAR spokesperson Ramsey Poston emphasized the dedication to NASCAR diversity and a zero tolerance policy for any form of harassment. “As an equal opportunity employer, NASCAR is fully committed to the spirit and letter of affirmative action law,” Poston said. And they are optimistic that the Drive for Diversity initiative and Nationwide’s sponsorship of Cherry will accomplish their goals of diversity.

“We’re pleased to see Michael, and promising young drivers like him, earn the opportunity to take their racing careers to the next level,” said Max Siegel, CEO of the managing group in charge of the diversity initiative. “The goal of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity initiative is to create meaningful opportunities for a wide range of drivers to compete in NASCAR. Nationwide Insurance will be a great partner for Michael because they have a proud tradition of supporting NASCAR and diversity in general.”

Cherry, a Valrico, Fla. Native, finished fourth in the point standings during his rookie year in 2008. He will race for the Addis Motorsports at Greenville-Pickens (S.C.) Speedway. Cherry said, “It’s truly an honor (to) represent Nationwide Insurance. The addition of their sponsorship to our Addis team and the Drive for Diversity initiative really makes this an unbelievable opportunity for me. I definitely plan to make the most of it.”

In addition, the world of auto racing plans to make the most of NASCAR diversity and become a sport everyone can enjoy and celebrate.

Todd A. Smith is the web master for ; Regal Mag The preeminent Online Magazine for African American Men. For more information on this subject visit our ; Sports Section To read about ; NASCAR diversity

Article Source: Corporate Sponsorships Aid NASCAR Diversity

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/228771/corporate-sponsorships-aid-nascar-diversity

Danica Patrick Clint Bowyer Jeff Burton Kevin Harvick