Monday, January 2, 2012
HAPPY HOLIDAZES!
Whale, its ?Dat time of thee year again; as hopefully Santa came to your house and left you some tidings of Glee... Not to mention Eggnog, Biscuits, Candy Canes, Mekons, (Tangerines) and perhaps a ?lil ?Somme-thun Naughty??? Oh Never Mind!
And thus, your humble No Fenders scribe is taking a Holidaze break for the next two weeks and will return on January 9, 2012...
HAPPY HOLIDAZES TO ALL!Tomaso
And thus, your humble No Fenders scribe is taking a Holidaze break for the next two weeks and will return on January 9, 2012...
HAPPY HOLIDAZES TO ALL!Tomaso
NASCAR Honors National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
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Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Slide text:
NASCAR is "going pink" with concentrated efforts during this weekend?s activities at Charlotte and Las Vegas Speedways.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Oct. 12, 2011) ? In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, NASCAR is "going pink" with concentrated efforts during this weekend?s activities at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway to build awareness and raise funds for breast cancer-aimed charitable organizations.
read more
Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Slide text:
NASCAR is "going pink" with concentrated efforts during this weekend?s activities at Charlotte and Las Vegas Speedways.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Oct. 12, 2011) ? In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, NASCAR is "going pink" with concentrated efforts during this weekend?s activities at Charlotte Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway to build awareness and raise funds for breast cancer-aimed charitable organizations.
read more
Sunday, January 1, 2012
NASCAR This Week ends operations today
It's been a hoot, but we gotta scoot.
NASCAR This Week is ending operations on Monday, December 6, and will go offline on Dec. 17.
While traffic to the site has continued to grow since April 2008 when we came online, NASCAR This Week failed to meet its financial expectations.
We’d like to thank Monte for his generous permission to feed all his stories to this site. We still believe he’s the best NASCAR journalist out there, and wonder if the NASCAR heat we got last summer was due more to Monte’s voice than the few bucks we were making off advertising.
Keep giving ‘em hell, Monte!
Monte will continue to cover NASCAR. You can find his stories on the NASCAR page at the Gaston Gazette where he works, as well as his blog, also located on the Gaston Gazette website. Monte also posts blogs on his personal MySpace page, and he also maintains a music MySpace page where you can hear his songs and find out where he’s performing next. He also has a page on Facebook.
We also want to thank all of you for stopping by over the past few years to catch Monte’s latest, join in the comment conversation or just enjoying some NASCAR octane.
Please leave us a message of farewell if you care to in the comments section below.
For the next couple of weeks we’ll leave up some of Monte’s best stories from the season. We think they offer ample evidence of why you should continue to follow Monte where you can. As we said, we think he’s the best around.
Here’s to great racin’ in the years to come!
-- Ovalscream
Hitting The Airwaves: Monday Appearance Scheduled For The Backstretch On Gary Danko's Speedway Line Report
The Hartford Courant sponsored Toyota Camry (we had a top-five car all day until we lost our tango partner) will be making the trek down Interstate 84 to Waterbury Monday evening to light up the WATR-AM 1320 studios.
The Backstretch will be in studio for an appearance on the final 2011 edition of Gary Danko's Speedway Line Report radio show from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Also tentatively scheduled to appear on the show are 1971 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year Denny Zimmerman, Chris Pasteryak, who clinched his second Valenti Modified Racing Series championship Sunday, and Fran Lawlor from The Chrome Horn.
The Backstretch will be in studio for an appearance on the final 2011 edition of Gary Danko's Speedway Line Report radio show from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Also tentatively scheduled to appear on the show are 1971 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year Denny Zimmerman, Chris Pasteryak, who clinched his second Valenti Modified Racing Series championship Sunday, and Fran Lawlor from The Chrome Horn.
NASCAR highs and lows of 2010
Most improved driver: “Flame On” Harvick. Least improved auto manufacturer: Ford.
HIGH: Jimmie Johnson won a record fifth consecutive Sprint Cup championship, which is even more impressive in that no one else in the sport’s history as won more than three.
LOW: The exhortation of NASCAR vice president Robin Pemberton – “Have at it, boys” – proved to be emblematic of the season that followed. An on-track feud between drivers Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski boiled over in both the Cup and Nationwide Series. No one was hurt, but the crashes were scary and obviously intentional.
* * *
HIGH: Denny Hamlin’s run for the championship was inspirational and heartbreaking. Hamlin persevered in spite of a knee injury that required surgery … while he continued to race. He led Johnson by 33 points with two races remaining – and won two more races -- but wound up losing the championship by 39.
LOW: Dale Earnhardt Jr. continued to struggle. Ninety-three races have passed since his most recent victory. He will begin his fourth season at Hendrick Motorsports with his third crew chief, Steve Letarte. (A fourth, Brian Whitesell, just took the reins for one race.) He finished 21st in the standings and collected only three top-five finishes.
* * *
HIGH: Another driver who didn’t qualify for the Chase won the season’s two most prestigious races. Jamie McMurray captured both the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis.
LOW: Upset at being criticized, NASCAR officials tried to fine two drivers, Hamlin and Ryan Newman, in secrecy. Naturally, word leaked out, leading some to wonder what else the ruling body was hiding.
* * *
HIGH: The season’s two races at Talladega Superspeedway produced a total of 175 lead changes. The individual numbers were 88 and 87, the two highest such totals in the sport’s history.
LOW: Two of the sport’s more dignified drivers, Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton, exchanged blows after Burton inexplicably wrecked Gordon’s Chevy under a caution flag at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 7. It’s difficult to buy Burton’s explanation that he didn’t mean to do it on purpose.
* * *
HIGH: The Raybestos Rookie of the Year in the Camping World Truck Series, Austin Dillon, actually won two races.
LOW: The rookie of the year in Cup, Kevin Conway, never finished higher than 14th and was 35th in the point standings.
* * *
HIGH: The most improved performance came from Kevin Harvick, who improved his average finish from 19.9 in 2009 to 8.7 in 2010. Under the point system in place prior to 2004, Harvick would have finished the season with 295 points more than any other driver.
LOW: Even though three of its drivers made the Chase, and Edwards won the season’s final two races, Ford’s NASCAR program still had a disappointing year. Chevys won 18 Cup races, and Toyotas won 12. Fords won four, and Dodge’s one-team, three-car effort claimed two.
HIGH: Jimmie Johnson won a record fifth consecutive Sprint Cup championship, which is even more impressive in that no one else in the sport’s history as won more than three.
LOW: The exhortation of NASCAR vice president Robin Pemberton – “Have at it, boys” – proved to be emblematic of the season that followed. An on-track feud between drivers Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski boiled over in both the Cup and Nationwide Series. No one was hurt, but the crashes were scary and obviously intentional.
* * *
HIGH: Denny Hamlin’s run for the championship was inspirational and heartbreaking. Hamlin persevered in spite of a knee injury that required surgery … while he continued to race. He led Johnson by 33 points with two races remaining – and won two more races -- but wound up losing the championship by 39.
LOW: Dale Earnhardt Jr. continued to struggle. Ninety-three races have passed since his most recent victory. He will begin his fourth season at Hendrick Motorsports with his third crew chief, Steve Letarte. (A fourth, Brian Whitesell, just took the reins for one race.) He finished 21st in the standings and collected only three top-five finishes.
* * *
HIGH: Another driver who didn’t qualify for the Chase won the season’s two most prestigious races. Jamie McMurray captured both the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis.
LOW: Upset at being criticized, NASCAR officials tried to fine two drivers, Hamlin and Ryan Newman, in secrecy. Naturally, word leaked out, leading some to wonder what else the ruling body was hiding.
* * *
HIGH: The season’s two races at Talladega Superspeedway produced a total of 175 lead changes. The individual numbers were 88 and 87, the two highest such totals in the sport’s history.
LOW: Two of the sport’s more dignified drivers, Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton, exchanged blows after Burton inexplicably wrecked Gordon’s Chevy under a caution flag at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 7. It’s difficult to buy Burton’s explanation that he didn’t mean to do it on purpose.
* * *
HIGH: The Raybestos Rookie of the Year in the Camping World Truck Series, Austin Dillon, actually won two races.
LOW: The rookie of the year in Cup, Kevin Conway, never finished higher than 14th and was 35th in the point standings.
* * *
HIGH: The most improved performance came from Kevin Harvick, who improved his average finish from 19.9 in 2009 to 8.7 in 2010. Under the point system in place prior to 2004, Harvick would have finished the season with 295 points more than any other driver.
LOW: Even though three of its drivers made the Chase, and Edwards won the season’s final two races, Ford’s NASCAR program still had a disappointing year. Chevys won 18 Cup races, and Toyotas won 12. Fords won four, and Dodge’s one-team, three-car effort claimed two.
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