Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie

Bench Racing Contest - Win the 50th Daytona 500, sort of

The Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog wants you to have your very own copy of the new A&E Home Video production of “Daytona 500: 50 Years of the Great American Race”.  All you have to do is be one of the winners of our little caption contest right here.

That’s Bruton Smith with Las Vegas Motor Speedway president Chris Powell.  I’m thinking…

“It’s a quarter to three, there’s no one in the place, except you and me…. so set ‘em up Joe….”

But that’s just me.

We have a few copies of the new DVD, so for every 15 answers, we’ll give away one copy of this great prize. The winners will be  determined by The Pit Crew. The contest ends Monday April 21, 2008 at noon PDT. Post your captions in the comment section of this post. You can answer as often as you want but please, only one answer per comment. We reserve the right to end the contest early if we detect abuse. Have some fun. Win a great prize.

Update:  The first comment made had three answers.  I don’t care if you give ten answers - just make ten separate comments.  Please.

Photo credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc.

Comments should be made here.

Is Tony Stewart headed for Cup team ownership?

How much more interesting would the Sprint Cup Series be if Tony Stewart were to become a team owner?

According to Fox Sports’ Lee Spencer that possibility was the hot rumor around the Phoenix International Raceway garage on Friday.  It seems that Tony may be talking with Haas CNC Racing and Chevrolet about a partnership that would return Stewart to the Bow-tie fold as a driver-owner.  And where there is Smoke - there is news.

Lately a few of us had speculated that that Stewart might be a candidate for the #33 seat and General Mills sponsorship at Richard Childress Racing.  Others, like my buddy Steve, think that Stewart’s relationships with Joe Gibbs Racing and various pals will stop any potential defection.  I wonder if Chevrolet felt that way about their JGR connections before the Coach and the kid said sayonara?

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

NASCAR Non-News Now

I feel so used.  Sucked in by the implied respectability of network television coverage of our beloved sport and the desperation of one of the biggest players in NASCAR media to invent stories when they are tough to find.  Nice job ESPN.

I admit it.  I bit.  Shortly before leaving to get to our ON PIT ROW broadcast location Tuesday, I saw a blurb about MRN stalwart and Sirius Satellite radio host  Dave Moody checking on a report that ESPN the Magazine was breaking a story about some Toyota team being caught red-handed with a top-secret Jack Roush Racing part. 

Now we broadcast the show from our winter home,  a sports bar called Frickers, just outside the right field wall at Fifith Third Field - the home of the Toledo Mud Hen’s and like all respectable sports bars, it’s full of TV’s - and one radio show that’s full of….itself.  Just before our scheduled air time,  ESPN’s NASCAR Now was on the tube, with a “special breaking news” report from Terry Blount.  My suspicion level  began to tick upward.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

All in all it was a classy day in Thunder Valley

 

Dale Jarrett’s last Sprint Cup Series race didn’t go as well as he and his fans hoped.  His 37th place finish in the Food City 500 was disappointing.

But he did hand over his #44 UPS Camry with 34th place owner’s points - a critical accomplishment for his employer, Michael Waltrip Racing.  DJ was the epitome of class to the end. Scene Daily had this quote…

“Well, it wasn’t the finish I would have liked,” Jarrett said. “I’m able to go out with the best sponsor in the business in UPS, and I would have liked to have had a better day for them, but I really can’t be too upset when you take into consideration the kind of career I have been fortunate to have.”

The win went to another of the classiest members of the NASCAR circus, Jeff Burton.  Burton has been running around up front all year and the win at Bristol was no stunner.  Maybe the fact that Jeff Burton was the driver to capture Chevrolet’s first 2008 victory was a surprise.  Richard Childress Racing Impalas finished top three in a race led mostly by two Joe Gibbs’ Camrys.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Will Junior get the first 2008 Hendrick win at Atlanta?

Only the most blindly rabid Dale Earnhardt Jr fan would have predicted that Junior would be the Hendrick Motorsports driver with the most series points after three races. Finishing strongly in two of the three 2008 events has been a mark of consistency that Earnhardt’s teammates at the House of Hendrick have not been able to match. 

Two time defending Sprint Cup Champ Jimmy Johnson bracketed his second place finish at

California

with a wreck in the Daytona 500 and a very so-so run to 29^th place at

Las Vegas

. 

Jeff Gordon has two DNF’s to go with a third place run and Casey Mears sits 34^th in points, only 19 points ahead of missing the top 35 cutoff - with only two races left for him to live on his 2007 owner’s points.

Earnhardt Jr won the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade 150’s at Daytona in February but it’s been awhile since he’s won a regular Cup race. Atlanta Motor Speedway is a place where his winless streak could end. He has one career win and seven top five finishes at AMS and Loop Data Driver Rating of 100.2 which is fifth best. He also has 410 Green Flag Passes, second most and a series-high 210 Quality Passes, which are passes of cars in the top fifteen, under green flag conditions.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Robby’s Season has Hope–Again

NASCAR overturned much of the penalty assessed to Robby Gordon Motorsports for an unapproved part prior to the Daytona 500.

Holy Cow! Can you believe it? NASCAR did the right thing.

What is going on here? The powers that be have overruled fines and penalties in what seems like wholesale lots in the last week. In the process of these landmark decisions, Robby Gordon has his season back.

Robby was facing the prospect of having to qualify his way into races, after NASCAR slapped his race team with points penalties that sent him to thirty-seventh in points. On Wednesday, The National Stock Car Racing Commission, rescinded the points penalties to Gordon and to Robby Gordon Motorsports. They also reversed the suspension of crew chief, Frank Kerr, while keeping him on probation for the remainder of the season and increasing his fine to $150,000, from one hundred thousand dollars.

Gordon, happy with the ruling for the most part, had this to say:

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Bench Racing caption contest - win a Boris Said hoodie

Come up with the best caption for this picture taken of Mark Martin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday, prior to winning the Sam’s Town 300 and I have a great prize for ya.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Jack Roush ain’t afraid of the rice burners

A big deal was made during the Daytona 500 weekend about the comparative horsepower results from NASCAR’s post Dual 150 dyno tests of Sprint Cup Series cars.

Most of the noise was - depending on which side you listened to -  either crowing or complaining about how the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas had up to a 30 hp advantage over the Chevy teams.  I never did see any definitive numbers for Dodge or Ford, but the quotes that I did see didn’t deny Toyota’s overall power advantage.

That impressive win at the Auto Club 500 by Roush-Fenway’s Carl Edwards seemed to be argument enough that Jack Roush’s Fusions are plenty strong though.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Robby battles NASCAR over Nose-gate

Robby Gordon’s winter of discontent continues.

NASCAR came down on Robby Gordon Motorsports hard this week. Robby’s team installed and tried to practice with an unapproved nose on his new Dodge at Daytona. Officials found it to not be in compliance and once the penalties were handed down, Robby’s top ten finish at the 500 won’t carry top ten points.

The, now standard, 100 team and driver points deduction and $100,000 fines were enacted. NASCAR’s unwavering penalty for CoT violations seems a bit harsh considering some of the other violations from last year that received this same penalty. I have been a big supporter of NASCAR consistency and the concept of a standard for penalty calculations. But; somehow, NASCAR has to find a way to differentiate penalties in regards to intent and severity.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Six NASCAR questions the California race could answer

The 2008 Sprint Cup season got off to a rousing start with Ryan Newman’sDaytona 500  win.  The results of Speedweeks seemed to answer some of the off-season’s unknowns, but not all of them.  Here’s a list of some of the questions that remain and may be answered at Auto Club Speedway this week.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr won the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade Duals. Finishing ninth in the 500 wasn’t bad either. It was a nice week but Junior’s had strong plate track performances throughout his career. He’s also performed comparatively poorly at the flatter tracks, like California. The other Hendricks drivers have been good at these tracks historically. How will Junior stack up?

• Dodges finished in 6 of the top 8 spots at Daytona.  Was it real or restrictor plate madness?

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.