Are There Any Takers At Martinsville?

Statistically, the Jimmie Johnson-Jeff Gordon, Hendrick Motorsports tandem is the clear favorite to outperform most others this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

But statistically, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin – are no slouches at the Virginia short track either.

Of the two, Earnhardt has scored top-10 finishes in three of the last four races there, and since the inception of Loop Data, ranks high in a number of key statistics.

Earnhardt has the 4th best Driver Rating of 102.4, and an Average Running Position of 10.4, which is also 4th on the list. But I'm not too worried about him this week. NBaP doesn't think he's got it together to conquer this track. At least not from the way things are looking lately.

Though Earnhardt has never won here, Martin has two Martinsville wins, but has finished out of the top 10 in his last three Martinsville races, with his last top five finish coming in the spring race of 2005.

Since 2005, he has a Driver Rating of 78.2, an Average Running Position of 17.0.

Stats say look out for Tony Stewart though.

Stewart has a Driver Rating of 113.7, and an Average Running Position of 7.4.

Stewart won in 2006, breaking up the win streek that Gordon and Johnson were buliding.

Actually, Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Rusty Wallace are the only other drivers to win since 2003.

Let The Juniors Joke

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott

Just five races into the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and we're already discussing the interpersonal skills of the two juniors, Dale Earnhardt and his crew chief, Tony Eury.

I suppose the most recent springboard for this topic came at Atlanta, when Junior commented to Eury on the radio that if his wheel came off as the result of a mistake earlier in the race, he was going to take a hammer to the head of every member of his pit crew. It was one of those funny comments, like "Point that finger at me one more time and I'll bite it off," that in some societies are known as ... jokes.

This in turn set off the inevitable flurry of remarks from the millions of armchair and barstool NASCAR experts out there, who really want to believe that all that's holding Junior back from regular visits to Victory Lane is the seemingly contentious relationship between the driver and his crew chief. If Eury doesn't have the ability to settle his driver down during a race, they ask, how can he possibly guide Junior to a win?

This seems ridiculous to me. I'm far from a mechanical expert -- I just learned how to spell carburetor last year -- but if memory serves, Junior made the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in 2008 and won one race more than four-time champion Jeff Gordon did. Are we really so ready to throw in the towel because his season has gotten off to somewhat of a bumpy beginning? Is finger-pointing ever the answer to anything?

And perhaps most importantly, when did we lose our collective sense of humor?

In the excellent but mostly depressing movie "Gran Torino," there's a memorable scene where Clint Eastwood's character, along with a friend from the neighborhood barbershop, attempts to teach a young boy "how men talk to each other."

I can't go into too much detail, because the movie is rated R and this column is not. But when I tell you the scene included a few hand gestures that could be described as "suggestive" and more than a few words that could be described as "profane," you probably get the picture. And the soundtrack.

In essence, this scene was a more adult version of the name-calling contests most of us engaged in with our siblings as kids. Strangely, verbal missiles like "scab eater" and "cheese breath," which merited a good stern talking-to from Mom back in the 1970s, don't seem to pack the same punch they had back then.

But no matter. The point is that we interact differently with our friends and family members than we do with casual acquaintances or strangers. Little girls might hug one another on the playground, while their male counterparts are more likely to playfully shove one another around. This isn't intended as a gender-biased observation. It's just that in my own personal experience, these are often the patterns we follow when we communicate.

So if I told my brother I was going to whack him upside the head with a hammer, it would be an expression of affection. But if I said the same thing to the guy who owns the insurance agency around the corner, it would constitute a threat, and likely would involve the cops. It's all about the context.

When you think about it, NASCAR gives fans a wonderful and largely unprecedented gift by allowing us the ability to monitor our drivers' radio frequencies during races. Do we really want our teams to resort to communicating by way of some type of encrypted signals that we are unable to access?

All that would accomplish is to turn NASCAR crew chiefs into some version of football coaches, hiding their faces behind those silly clipboards. That's a bleak prospect, indeed.

Perhaps instead of using what we hear as the basis for trying to get guys fired based on our opinions of their communication skills, we should adopt a policy of keeping our own mouths shut about what comes out of theirs. Sanctioned eavesdropping isn't all that common, you know. One man's belligerence may well be another man's banter. "Sweetheart" and "scab eater" could be interchangeable, according to the speaker and the circumstances.

We need to take off the headsets if we can't take a joke.

source: nascar press

Dale Jr's Ex On TV?

This is a snapshot of Dale Earnhardt's ex-girlfriend, Kortnie Coles, who is now in a reality show and at her first opportunity had to share her "experience" with the audience of being his ex.

If you want to read more about her latest endeavor, check out my entertainment blog, Cinema Static.

Dover To Sell Memphis, But to Guess Who?

Dover Motorsports Inc is selling Memphis Motorsports Park. No 2009 race schedules are anticipated to be changed and the closing date of the $10 million sale is anticipated to be around April 30th, 2009.

The company purchasing the track is Gulf Coast Entertainment, L.L.C..

Gulf Coast is owned by an investment group. Members of the investment group include some race industry insiders, if you wanna call them that: Kelley, Kerry and Dale Earnhardt Jr..

As Earnhardt Jr. expands his impressive business portfolio*, I anticipate that the track won't be relegated to a test location, but will probably remain active in the series.

source: NASCAR Official Release

*Earnhardt owns an impressive number of companies, getting his affairs in order for whenever he decides to retire, he's got it sweet.

• Glacial Bear Racing,
• DEJ Realty,
• Hammerhead Entertainment,
• Whisky River bar,

Details about his new bar (April of '08) are here & his different companies (Reported in March of '08) here & Alabama Motorsports track back in January of '08.

People, keep up with me, I'll try to keep you informed with what inside info I can dig up!

Dale Earnhardt Jr. At Preseason Thunder

NASCAR SprintCup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. at a news conference Saturday at Preseason Thunder Fan Fest at Daytona International Speedway. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)





The press was joined by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and they chatted about the Daytona 500 and your 2009 season with the No. 88 Chevrolet.

DALE EARNHARDT, JR. is looking forward to going into the season 2009 season and pragmatically has the same perspective I do about things when he said that "It will get here when it gets here," because we still have a few weeks and a Super Bowl to watch. He too is curiously wondering how the testing ban will affect everyone though he feels it won't really affect his team / organization.

With no testing, he basically indicated that "That really only takes a couple laps really to get reacclimated," and "it should just be like an old shoe, you know, your favorite pair of slippers or whatever."

In regards to comparing the old car to the new car, he was asked "How is the new car different here to rate in the draft strategy wise?" and Dale said that "This car is a little bit more difficult to move through the pack." The new car punches a bigger hole when two or three cars get lined up which effectively eleminates the the center lane which used to be an option in the past. The center lane effectively makes it harder on the car to "get any grip out of the car." due to less downforce.

He did say the reason the racing is so much better at the end of the 500 is "The great thing about the 500, though, is it starts in the daytime and ends at night, so when the sun goes down the temperature goes down, the grip comes up a little bit, so the racing right at the end of the race it's a whole lot better than what you've seen all day long."

Dale was asked about a lifetime supply offer of BBQ from Memphis barbecue and his reply kind of cut to the quick, at least for Memphis BBQ:

Basically he said those kind of deals get under your skin because even though he hasn't been there in quite some time and probably won't be in the area for any time soon, they use his name to try to sell tickets and get a "plug for no damn reason." But the Rendezvous dinner was his favorite and that Memphis has great barbecue ribs

He was asked if he evernamed any of your race cars: "Yeah, just for fun. We used to name them all the time. I built some street stocks. My granddaddy Robert G. used to name his race cars all the time. I had the Mach 5 and the car I raced at Myrtle Beach and the late models I built from the ground up, we called it Wild Eyed Crazy Mary." A Pearl Jam song name.

In regards to his first year with Hendrick or his take on the DEI Ganassi merger, he was real happy how the season started but the 2nd half of the season was a bit of a disappointment. As far as the merger is concerned, "I'm pretty happy, I think, for them." Dale says no one can get a word out of Mark Martin about it... "He's like talking to a rock."

"I don't know what they're doing, but I hope that it's good. Merging has always been pretty decent for everybody that I've seen it happen to. Chip has some real strong views, and he's a tough, tough, tough competitor. He's got a reputation, and I think that will be good for them because he's certainly visible at the racetrack, and that's good as an owner for them, and Teresa didn't really like coming to the track and didn't want to be around the racetrack. So now they've got one of the owners that will be at the racetrack. A driver has questions and he needs to talk to an owner sometimes on a Friday night or a Saturday, so that will be good."

When asked about all the people he's met, who is the one person you've come across that you were really surprised to find out was a NASCAR or a racing fan? His take was that he really appreciated LeAnn Rimes for being so kind to me and her husband was a big fan, and she, too, is a big fan, and they're just really really she was always just really pleasant.

Dirks Bentley is a big fan and that was great and they've become pretty good friends. But there are a lot of different people.

He was asked the inevitable about the Car of Tomorrow what he thinks it will take to win Daytona this year. Dale Earnhardt Jr said he's got to be fast, like the 18 and the 11 were last year and you need to handle good.

It's all about making the right choices near the end of the race but that every battle for position is a potential battle for the win.

When asked about the Bud Shootout this year and NASCAR's expanding into 28 entries Dale was hoping to avoid this particular question, but he said:

"I don't like the new format. You had a race for guys who won poles, you had a race for guys who won races in the middle of the season, and now neither one of those are hardly recognizable. I haven't asked NASCAR why they changed it, so I don't feel like I can rightfully say much without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves for their reasons. But apparently there were some reasons they changed it, and it's obviously better for the manufacturers with this new format for the Shootout. But it's less about why the race was started in the first place.

It just sucks because I'm such a historian of the sport, and I just like all the history and I like all the cool things about the history, and I like looking back on the guys who were in this race in the '80s and '90s and why they were in it and how they got in it and who missed it the next year and made it the next year. I don't know, just sort of things change. Maybe there's nothing wrong with this new format. Maybe I just hate change. I like the old format.

On Aric Almirola having no guarantees after Daytona and the 8 car being in question for the rest of the season he says he's emotionally connected to the number and he hopes the No 8 can run all year. As far as Almirola, because he's had to put off this season. He's been pretty excited the last couple of years looking forward to this season and now it's up in the air.

"So much has changed in the last six months in this sport, in the last 18 months a bunch has changed, and I just hope we can get all settled down somehow and start having a little bit of order around here and start rebuilding, everybody getting some stability financially to where we can have more expectations than we have questions."

That wraps up some of the material he touched on yesterday in Preseason Thunder! Hope you enjoy

Dale Earnhardt Jr Has All The Fun

Sometimes, I just have to envy the guy who drives the No. 88 HMS Chevy.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Taylor Swift greet fans during the 2008 edition of Sprint Sound and Speed in Nashville. Earnhardt Jr. is scheduled to participate in this year's event on January 9-10. (Photo Credit: Sprint Sound and Speed)