Full Throttle

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?

To paraphrase that adage; If a gaggle of NASCAR drivers (a bit over a dozen I hear) show up at Daytona International Speedway, with no roaring engines, no exhaust fumes, no burning rubber and not a single lap turned around NASCAR’s famed superspeedway - will anyone care?

My snark aside some do care, if for no other reason than what you see below, fodder for a blog post.

At the top of my list of the news, and something you may see suggested in Dustin Long’s upcoming post on fans ideas for the sport.

ISC is working with local officials - the Daytona Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau specifically - to cut the cost of hotel expenses during Speedweeks.

Many hotels in the Daytona Beach and the greater Central Florida region area have reduced or altogether eliminated minimum night stay requirements. In fact, there are a number of rooms available for less than $100.

Now, if ISC can get off their collective duffs and work the similar deals at other tracks they lord over own it will go a long way to aid fans with shrinking budgets.

On a related note Fontana, known in parts of the world outside the confines of this blog as Auto Club Speedway, have reduced some ticket prices from $55 to $35 for the Auto Club 500 next month.

Even bigger savings can be had as some restrictions on what a fan can carry into the track has changed. In addition to the free parking offered, president Gillian “Hollywood” Zucker is allowing fans to bring in their own food. (Emmmm…. fish tacos! - ed)

“The Merger” promised four, it could be down to two. I speak of the Earnhardt/Ganassi merger of course.

Martin Truex Jr. said Friday night that Earnhardt/Ganassi Racing is planning to field just three cars for next month’s Daytona 500 with him, Juan Pablo Montoya and Aric Almirola behind the wheels. And Almirola said he has no guarantee to drive beyond the season-opening race because of sponsorship woes.

“As far as I can tell, I believe three,” Truex Jr. said at NASCAR’s pre-season tour at Daytona International Speedway. “I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on. … I believe that’s it. That’s about all I’ve got there. Montoya, me and Aric.”

“Chip and Teresa have to do whatever makes financial sense to them, and hopefully for me that means run 36 races,” Almirola said. “For them, I hope that’s the case because that means that they’ll have been able to afford to do that. Now, saying that, I don’t know. I’m not privy to look at their financial statements every week or every month, so I don’t know what they’re going to be willing to do and not do without a sponsor.”

Psst, Chip Ganassi, maybe you could raise some extra cash by selling your patent on Area 51, the best kept secret in NASCAR.

Haters, get your hate on, Kyle Busch said in an interview he plans to run the entire schedule for both the Sprint and NNS series’ in 2009 in addition to 12 to 14 Camping World Truck Series races and about 10 to 12 late model races with his own team.

Roughly by my count that’s a bit north of 100 events the boo-birds can practice their warble.

And finally I’ll end with this Tony Stewart quote on his new role as owner/driver and the additional commitments it entails:

“The biggest thing that I’ve seen is that I actually can get up at 6 o’clock in the morning,” Tony said. “I did that Wednesday when we had to fly down to New Smyrna (Speedway) to test. I didn’t realize that there was actually a 6 a.m. until this year. That was a shock.”

Poor baby, just like the rest of us working stiffs.