How about some in car action?

From a Car of Tomorrow test at Nashville Super Speedway courtesy of KHamlin Racing.

The News Dump: August 20th

Texaco leaving NASCAR: After sponsoring NASCAR teams for the last 20 years. Texaco Havoline has decided to leave the sport at the end of the year leaving Juan Pablo Montoya and the Chip Ganassi to find new sponsorship in 2009. [Scenedaily.com]

NASCAR handed down stiff penalties to the Joe Gibbs Nationwide Series teams for placing magnets under the throttle of their cars before a dyno test. Both teams have had thier crew cheifs, thier car chiefs and thier engine tuners, indenfietly susepnded. And both teams lost 150 driver and owener points [NASCAR PR via Jayski.com]

Ken Schrader will attempt to get the Hall of Fame racing team back on track Satuday night in Bristol [Scenedaily.com]

Current Indycar Points Leader Scott Dixon will join De Ferran Motorsports for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in October [Autosport.com]

The News Dump: August 19th

NASCAR- Newman in 39 for 2009: Last night on his radio show Tony Stewart said that his driver Ryan Newman will drive with the number 39 in 2009, not 4. Should make those crybaby Morgan-McClure boys happy. [Scenedaily.com]

NASCAR- 2009 Schedules Announced: NASCAR Announced the schedules for the three big series. The Sprint Cup Series Schedule had a big date swap as Atlanta Motor Speedway will have their second race on Labor Day Weekend. California Speedway will get a date in the chase in October and Talladega Speedway will get a new date in November.

Meanwhile, the Nationwide Series will visit the Iowa Speedway in 2009 and the Truck Series will have the Chicagoland Speedway as a new venue. [Scenedaily.com]

Too much, too soon?

Over the last few months we’ve seen and heard about the great talent that Joe Gibbs Racer Joey Logano has. Last year he took the Camping World Series East Championship and in May he won the inaugural Carolina 500 in the ARCA Series, all before his 18th birthday. In his third nationwide series start he took victory at the Kentucky Speedway becoming the youngest victory winner in any of NASCAR’s three big series. Now there are plans that young Joey Logano will inherit Tony Stewart’s vacant Sprint Cup seat next year. Which leaves me to wonder, is he ready for this big ride?

We’ve seen in the past how drivers that started racing in the Cup Series with very little seat time behind the wheel of a stock car have failed miserably. A notable example would include Casey Atwood who drove started driving in Sprint Cup with Ray Evernham at the young age of 19. After a ho-hum rookie season in 2001, he was moved over to a new ride that Evernham had teamed with Jim Smith, but the partnership dissolved and left Atwood with out a ride. Atwood has never found a new full time ride he still gets the occasional ride here or there.

A more current example would include Michael McDowell. McDowell finshed 2nd in the ARCA/Remax Championship last year and was tapped by Micheal Waltrip to drive his 00 car starting at the 6th race of the year in Martinsville. How was McDowell prepared for this big opportunity? He had one Nationwide start at Daytona. McDowell is now out of the 00 while hired gun Mike Skinner now tries to get the team back in the top 35 in points.

Even the new onslaught of open wheel drivers has had trouble getting adjusted to getting adjusted. Names like Dario Franchitti, Sam Hornish Jr, Patrick Carpentier and A.J. Allmendinger have all struggled getting adjusted to the Sprint Cup series and all have few starts in the Nationwide Series or the Truck Series. More starts would have helped them get used to handling these heavy beasts of a car.

So is Logano ready for prime time? Maybe. Being with an experienced team like Joe Gibbs Racing will help. All the other drivers listed in this little rant are not on the best of times. But certainly more track time could help and lets hope JGR has the horse sense to keep him in the Nationwide Series a little longer.

Tune in and tune out

Your Sunday afternoon tv schedule:

1 pm NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: 3M Performance 400 from Brooklyn, Mich. Definitely taping this race. *writes reminder on post-it note* [ESPN]

2 pm Moto Gp from Brno. Czech it out, while I'll show myself out. [CBS]

3 pm AMA Superbike: Big Kahuna Nationals from Hawaii Virginia. [Speed Channel]

10 pm NHRA: Toyo Tires Nationals. Yeah, the Olympics are looking good right about now. Oh, hey pre-season football is on! [ESPN2]

For your viewing pleasure....

<"Trust me, Carl. Chicks will dig you if you stop letting your mom hang out with you constantly."

Trust there isn't nothing really much on motorsport wise:

3 pm NASCAR Nationwide Series: Carfax 250 from Michigan. This race is really hot! Not really. [ESPN2]

6 pm NHRA Qualifiyng from Reading, Pa. I'm sorry folks, but if it's something that involves reading I'm staying away from it. [ESPN2]

But, hey if you don't like this lineup theres always the Olympics, am I right? Right? Guys?

Newman to drive for Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009

So it will be Ryan Newman that will drive the 4 car for Tony Stewart in 2009. Well, no surprise there as Ryan had been pretty much the driver Tony has been eyeing his fellow Hoosier for this ride during the past few months. So the announcement this morning at the Micihigan International Speedway pretty much confirmed it.

Of course they’re just glad to be teaming up with each other. "It's just a great opportunity," Newman said. "I think a lot of Tony from a personal standpoint as well as a driving standpoint. Talking to Tony and his people, it seemed to be the best decision for the right reasons."

“The thing that impressed me the most about Ryan was he asked me all the right questions from day one," Stewart said. Sponsorship for Newman’s car has yet to be determined at this moment, but those dominoes will fall soon enough.

Dumb driver of the week

This is a new weekly feature we will have on Going Around in Ovals we hope you will enjoy it:

This weeks winner is a Grandmother from Marathon, Fl (which is in the Florida Keys) who decided to give her 3-year old granddaughter a ride of a lifetime by leting her ride on the roof of her car. The grandmother now faces child abuse charges.

Story [Miami Herald]

Carl Edwards used to date her

Yes, once upon a time Carl Edwards use to date Olympic swimming goddess Amanda Beard. Eventually they went their separate ways (I think it was because Carl kept bringing his mommy to all their dates and Amanda found to that be very creepy). So what is Amanda up these days?

Well when shes not choking up at the Beijing Olympics to people twice her age. She can be found teaming up with PETA campaigning against the use of fur in fashion. Well whoopity freaking do. Hey, we're on top of the food chain, you animal hugging freaks, deal with it! While I may support naked chicks, I surely don't support animal rights groups. Animals don't have rights, you know why? Because they don't have the brain power to get up and make a stand, but I'm sure they will in the near future.

So for now take advantage of our furry little friends while you can before they learn to strike back. I know I will and let us hope that Carl will stop listening to his momma's rants about how girls are "the devil" and bag him a nice one. Now excuse me while I go and make myself a nice bacon and turducken sandwhich. Mmmm, taste like america!

Note from your friendly editor

Hello all, long time, no post. Yeah, life for me lately has been a bit busy so getting to work on this blog has been hard to do, but I'm back and ready to work again. As you may notice the name of this place has change and the format will change as well. I won't be posting news as much as I use to, instead I will focus more on writing articles and rants and the news will come through link dumps instead. But the good news is that the theme and the author of this blog will remain the same and that is all that really matters.

Your Random F1 News update for July 29

Glock's crash caused by faulty part: Toyota’s F1 team determined what happened to Timo Glock’s car that caused it to crash during the German Grand Prix back on July 20th. The team had said a part on the right rear suspension that was damaged during the British Grand Prix two weeks before was used again at the German Grand Prix. The team has now changed their inspection policy to make sure that this never happens again.

"Following Timo Glock's incident during the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, Toyota Motorsport initiated a thorough investigation," the team said in a statement. "This initially established that a rear toelink (trackrod) gave way causing Timo to lose control of the car, but confirmed that there were no exceptional circumstances before or during the incident in the German Grand Prix. Further investigation has established that damage sustained in the British Grand Prix two weeks earlier was the cause. During that race Timo suffered several incidents.

"As is normal practice, some parts from the British Grand Prix were carried over to Hockenheim, including most of the rear right suspension. Although the parts were subjected to the normal test and screening process following the Silverstone race and passed fit for use at Hockenheim, it has become apparent that it did not identify an issue which subsequently led to the incident at Hockenheim. As a result of this investigation, Toyota Motorsport has revised its inspection processes to include such cases and is extremely confident there will be no repeat."
Well, lets hope so. God knows we don’t need any more injuries caused by silly mistakes.

Toyota determine cause of Glock's crash [Autosport.com]

Renault boss says F1 needs makeover: Flavio Briatore says F1 needs a major overhaul to get the fans back love in with the sport. Briatore believes that Max Mosley’s sex scandal problems has damaged the sports reputation and have also hurt the teams along with the fans.
"His absence is felt as there's no project for F1. The teams feel abandoned," Briatore told Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper. "The Concorde agreement, the number of races, the costs, the spectacle, the imperative increase of revenues. Formula One needs to be re-designed. I feel that it should be down to the teams to decide, by electing in turns a director of operations. A guy who does things, not a PR person. On top of that, we need to decide with a 51% majority, not unanimously like now, otherwise we'll carry on being stuck."

"Nowadays [Bernie] Ecclestone takes 50% of all revenues,” he added. “But we are supposed to be able to reduce our costs by 50%. How? Starting from the engines. Making them more environment-friendly, accepting Mosley's challenge of reducing fuel consumption by 50% by 2015, while cutting the high costs of the engine themselves and also cutting the staff. The problem is that us, Renault, have stuck to the letter of the current regulations on frozen engines, and we've been buggered: others didn't do that and are far ahead, while we suffer. It's not fair."

Briatore says F1 needs an overhaul [Autosport.com]

Your Random NASCAR News Update for July 28th

Adios, Mexico: After four years of racing south of the border, the NASCAR Nationwide Series will not return to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in 2009. Attendance at the race in Mexico has dropped every year since the series started racing south of the border in 2005.

"This was never about a single event. The big idea was to strengthen motorsports in Mexico," said Robbie Weiss, NASCAR’s vice-president of its international efforts. "We didn't create racing in Mexico and it has a long heritage, but in reality the racing market down there was very fragmented.

"The idea was could we help relaunch and strengthen the Mexican motorsports community with the big idea of launching a national championship that would be the most significant championship in the country."

And so far the idea of launching a National Championship has worked with the NASCAR Corona Mexico Series, which is holding 14 races this year. Unfortunately holding major series race down there has not worked. In my opinion, I think the lack of drivers from Mexico up in the Nationwide Series running is probably what keeps the race in Mexico from being any more successful.

The Nationwide Series will race at a new venue in 2009 to replace the Mexico race and the most likely candidate to take its place is the Iowa Speedway.

NASCAR removes Mexico City from schedule [thatsracin.com]

Petty taking another weekend off: Kyle Petty is taking another week off from driving his Cup car, but with usual fill-in driver Terry Labonte driving for Evernham Motorsports this week means that the Petty Enterprises team will have to find another driver to fill in for Petty. Most likely Chad McCumbee, who failed to qualify with Petty’s car, may be that driver. This move is making some people speculate that Kyle Petty’s career as a driver may be slowly coming to an end. Petty has not been behind the wheel of the 45 car since the Coca-Cola 600 back in May.

Petty out at Pocono [ESPN.com]

Newman not on Joe Gibbs Racing’s wish list: Ryan Newman is leaving Penske Racing at the 2008, but don’t count on Joe Gibbs Racing to be his destination in 2009. JGR President J.D.Gibbs said that Newman isn’t the person they’re looking for to replace Tony Stewart’s empty seat in 2009.

"It would be hard," Gibbs said before the Sprint Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. "Another time, another day, maybe. He's a great individual. You would love to have him on your team. It’s just all those ducks aren't in a row."

Gibbs also denied the possibility of JGR expanding to four teams in 2009.

Newman’s most likely replacement at Penske Racing, David Stremme, is feeling pretty upbeat about maybe driving the 12 car in 2009: “We’ve talked,” Stremme told NASCAR Scene on Saturday at O’Reilly Raceway Park. “Obviously, I’m doing testing for them. But there are a lot of opportunities open, too.

“Who wouldn’t want to be racing for Roger Penske? He’s very successful in motorsports. I like how they do their program,” Stremme continued. “I just want to run good, and I want to be around people that want to race and perform,” Stremme said. “I can get right back in there and be competitive. I’m in the cars about every week testing.

“It’d be cool to get to drive for him - or another organization. But it’d be neat really for him because his reputation in motorsports and the success he’s had.” Stremme has talked to

Newman's List Getting Shorter [ESPN.com]

Stremme has talked to Penske Racing about driving No. 12 in 2009 [Scenedaily.com]

Dr. Stewart and Mr. Tony

If its one thing you have to know about Tony Stewart is that he is not one to mess with when hes having a bad day. Just look at him during the altercation with the USAC official last Thursday night. Boy, was he pissed:



But the amazing thing is that even with the debacle on Sunday, Tony was in good spirits. I was expecting, and I'm sure a lot of other people were expecting, for Tony verbally tear someone a new one as soon as the race ended on Sunday, but instead he had this to say:

"Just a tough day," Stewart said in a statment via his PR person. "There are really no other words to describe it."

Maybe, Tony was just choosing his words carefully to avoid the possible firestorm he would receive from the press and NASCAR had he gone off about how crappy the tires were on Sunday.

Who knows. Hopefully, Tony can keep his cool like this more often.

Stewart Mum on Tires [Tampa Tribune]

Dandy Dixon wins in Edmonton

Scott Dixon took his first road course victory of the year at Edmonton on Saturday. The Indy 500 winner held off championship rival Helio Castroneves and Justin Wilson to take his fifth victory of the year. Amazingly Dixon didn’t win this race on the track itself; instead it was the quick stops made by his Target Chip Ganassi crew that won him the race.

"I'd sort of envisioned making a move on [Oriol] Servia early in the race, but it wasn't on." said Dixon. "He was quite a bit slower in race conditions than qualifying, so that enabled me to just stay behind him and save a lot of fuel. When the pit stop came we didn't need as much fuel as he did and so we got around him. It was kind of the same thing with the Penskes. I got behind Helio and Ryan, saved fuel and jumped them on the pit stop. That was the key moment of the race."

The race itself was not very interesting featuring very little battles up towards the front, but there were a few noticeable incidents including one in which Marco Andretti punted off his teammate Danica Patrick. Oh, how I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the Andretti-Green transporter on Saturday evening especially when both Andretti and Patrick were chastised by the team for not letting thier teammate Tony Kannan by who was trying to work in an alternate stratgey.

Paul Tracy who made his return to the Indycar Series on Saturday finished a respectable 4th with a team that was pulled together only a few weeks ago.

"I'm just super excited for the team," said Tracy. "They prepared this car in about a week and a half and I gave it a first class effort. With a little more practice and me not sitting on the couch for the last six months, maybe we could do better!"

With another win Dixon now pads his lead over Castroneves to 65 points, but Dixon knows that the fat lady hasn’t sung just yet.

"There four races to go and a 65 point lead is not that big when you get 50 points for a win," he said. "But it is a big margin if we're still running at the end of every race. And if we can win one or two more, that'll really put the final nail in the coffin."

The Indycar Series next race is on Saturday, August 9th at Kentucky Speedway.

Dixon beats Castroneves in Canada [Autosport.com]

Johnson wins a depressing Brickyard 400

Well folks, I don’t know what to say. In my mind yesterday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was one of the most that was one of the most pitiful races I ever watched. Sure, Jimmie Johnson had a great car and captured his second Brickyard win along with the 48 Lowe’s team, but what I saw yesterday was definitely not a race. If you were living under a rock yesterday and missed the race, you were probably one of the lucky ones. The tires that Goodyear brought were totally terrible; they couldn’t even last more than ten to 15 laps before blowing out. The tires looked the same every time they were pulled off with the cords showing due to severe wear. The rubber wouldn’t even stick to the track instead it became dust that blew away in the wind. This pathetic race was just mind blowing, but now everyone wants to know who is to blame?

The finger of course was pointed towards NASCAR and Goodyear for not handling the tire situation in a logical fashion. The first mistake that NASCAR made was not to have an open test at Indy this year like they do every year instead they only had a little tire test in which they only invited three teams to participate. They could have also used a different compound come race time, but they decided to stick with unreliable tire.

NASCAR VP of competition, Robin Pemberton said after the race on Sunday to Autosport.com that many of the solutions thought of wouldn’t help out one bit. "I think when you have an open test things like that have already been decided," Pemberton said. "I don't think an open test here would've done enough for us, it wouldn't have helped, I don't think.

"You may have had enough issues that you'd have gone back and redesigned the tires, but I don't know if we could've gone with that in time. Hindsight is always 20/20, I think we'll just learn from this experience and try to do a better job next year."

Other people tried to blame the abusive track surface at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the problems that were occurred on Sunday, but Pemberton denied that as a cause for the problems, instead he thinks that racing with the Car of Tomorrow for the first time at Indy may have caused the issues.

"This isn't the first time we've raced here with the surface the way it is, and in the past we've been able to accomplish what we need to accomplish," Pemberton said. "So to pick on the surface wouldn't be fair. I think the new car, and probably not having a test here, probably didn't help us at all. You can say that surface is abrasive, but we have been able to accomplish a full fuel run here in the past."
"We have to anticipate where the tires and the competition are going to meet on Sunday afternoon," he added. "We have challenges when we develop tires here because you have such a dramatic change in surface grip as the track rubbers in. You can make everybody happy on Friday, miserable on Saturday, and really miserable on Sunday, or you can come back and work best at trying to achieve the right grip when it comes to Sunday afternoon."

Pemberton also believed that not having any support races at Indy was the cause to the problems either.

Problems pushed aside a few good things did happen on Sunday, A.J. Allmendinger got his first career top 10 in NASCAR Sprint Cup competition, getting he and his Red Bull team ever closer to the top 35 in owner points. Elliot Sadler and Jamie McMurray got their best finishes of the season finishing 4th and 6th respectively. And with Johnson’s win Hendrick Motorsports got their first win of the season that didn’t involve fuel mileage, (with the way race was run, fuel mileage wouldn’t have been a factor anyway). The Sprint Cup Series moves on to Pocono where they and fans like I will hope that the memories of this race will disappear like a bad television series.

NASCAR to learn from tyre debacle [Autosport.com]