Full Throttle

You are browsing the archives of 2008 October.

For the third consecutive week Sprint Cup qualifying has been rained out.
For the third consecutive week points leader Jimmie Johnson starts on the pole and gets his preferred pit selection.
Yepper, three times a charm. Makes you wonder when the “charmed life” will end, if ever.
For those doing the counting, the Weatherman is ahead of Kyle [...]

Red Bull Racing has fired a supervisor and reprimanded several other employees for their involvement in the violation that resulted in major points penalties and suspensions for Brian Vickers’ team, general manager Jay Frye said on Friday.

Make of this what you will:
ERLANGER, Ky., Oct. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Max Siegel, President of Global Operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc., one of NASCAR’s premier racing teams, will be they keynote breakfast speaker at Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America’s (TEMA) Opportunity Exchange (OE) on Tuesday, November 11th from 7:30 - 9 a.m. at [...]

What has been rumored for just short of a month has been made official, Camping World has assumed the title sponsorship of the truck series.

The fate of the Gold Coast IndyCar race for 2009 and beyond will be sealed within a fortnight of this weekend’s event.

NASCAR docked Brian Vickers 150 driver points and fined crew chief Kevin Hamlin $100,000 because the Red Bull Racing team dipped its sheet metal in acid to make it lighter than required.

IndyCar boss Tony George has been on the Gold Coast for just a day but he already knows how much Indy means to the city.

Government officials from Montreal are due to attend a meeting with Bernie Ecclestone this week in an attempt to save the Canadian Grand Prix.

Geneva, Switzerland has been the site of many “worldly” negotiations over the course of its history. Its been the preferred location many “waring sides” have chosen to come together to settle issues in dispute.
Geneva is also the capital of the Terran Federation, the fictional government of Earth and her Space Colonies.
Given that historical record, fictional [...]

Scott Steckly took advantage of a great opportunity last week as he was invited to the Statesville, North Carolina headquarters of Gillette Evernham Motorsports.

Australians will have two drivers to cheer for in next year’s NASCAR series.
While the Gold Coast’s Marcus Ambrose will drive a Toyota Camry in the top-level Sprint Cup, Caboolture apprentice mechanic Andrew Hagen, 22, will compete in the entry level Late Model Series.
Hagen recently completed a successful test at Michigan International Speedway for the Brad [...]

Forgive the rather obtuse title, bare with me a moment and I’ll get to Max Mosley.
By far, Albert Einstein’s best-known equation is “E=mc2 - energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared.” According to this equation, any given amount of mass is equivalent to a certain amount of energy, and vice versa.
Now, for [...]

They say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Not that I would ever try, just saying is all.
Now there’s proof there’s more than one way to obtain NASCAR sponsorship. The EBay way.
In the past the auction site has put up for bid items such as an F/A 18 Hornet Fighter Jet, a [...]

Scene, Martinsville, a/k/a The Paperclip.
Question: What came first the first dude [of Martinsville], or The First Dude?
Well, The First Dude has been just that since December 2006.
However he may have competition as to who holds the naming rights.
Consider: Jimmie Johnson, after his win today can rightly be called Martinsville’s First Dude, and the moniker can [...]

Lewis Hamilton has described his victory in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix as “another step towards my dream”.
The McLaren Mercedes driver led from start to finish at the Shanghai International Circuit, with Ferrari duo Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen finishing second and third.
Hamilton thus holds a seven-point lead over Massa in the Drivers’ Championship heading into [...]

Once again Chase leader Jimmie Johnson has reason to thank Zeus, Greek Rain-god and Cloud-gatherer.
What’s that number 8 on the year? Or is it 10, I lost count.
Whatever, Dustin Long has the answer for you wet fans in Martinsville who think qualifications should be moved to the next day rather than start by points.
The rain [...]

Is your NASCAR going black?
Not black as in “all the sponsors have bailed and France’s toy is destitute.”
Not black as in the normal “color” of the NASCAR rulebook that is so opaque as to render it unusable without a special decoder ring.
No, I mean black as in “we’re from the Gob’ment and we’re here to [...]

Dustin Long will be conducting a one-on-one interview with Mike Helton Friday morning at Martinsville. The Q&A is set to run in Sunday’s papers and they may also be published on his blog.
Long is asking for questions be submitted from us, The Great Un-washed, for potential use during his interview with Helton. If you have [...]

The genesis of this post was the rumor that NASCAR was considering cutting the field sizes for its top three series’.
I was further spurred on by the Orlando Sentinel’s Tania Ganguli. She cited an SI story where Chip Ganassi thinks “by 2010 eight cars will leave NASCAR and not be replaced.” That story is dated [...]

The “buzz” this week in NASCAR Nation is sponsorship, the economy, and the possibility of reduced starting fields. I’ll be addressing that topic specifically shortly (or not, but will get to it) in another post.
My point for now being, things can be much worse on the sponsorship front, much worse.
A case in point:
This past weekend [...]