By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Like everybody else, I was surprised by the vacant seats at Bristol Motor Speedway last Sunday – gaps as glaring as missing front teeth in a smiling beauty-queen contestant.
Some estimates place the attendance at around 130,000 — 30,000 below capacity.
Since then all the talk has been how the empties are [...]

Trevor Bayne’s amazing victory in the season-opening Daytona 500 has its downside.
The just-turned-20 driver left himself a hard – no, an impossible – act to follow.
When you start the season on top of the world, there’s only one way to go from there. Since capturing Daytona, Bayne has had his struggles.
He is sixth in points [...]

By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
I read that Hendrick Motorsports is building an outdoor pit-crew training facility that includes a six-lane track, 75-yard AstroTurf field and strength & conditioning area.
It goes to show what they about the rich getting richer while the poor get – well, in NASCAR the poor get left behind.
With five consecutive [...]

Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
When NASCAR tweaked its points system at the start of the season it should have made one more change:
It should stop awarding bonus points to each driver who leads a lap.
It’s become a travesty and a fraud. We see it in almost every race: a leader slows down and allows a teammate [...]

By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
SI.com’s firing of reporter Tom Bowles for cheering in the press box is absurd.
In case the suits at SI.com haven’t been following the sport for the past 40 years or so (that’s as far back as I can personally testify to) cheering by reporters in racing press [...]

By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Joie Chitwood III has his first Speed Weeks under his belt as president of Daytona International Speedway, and all the events were crowd-wowing successes – as has come to be expected whenever a Chitwood and a racetrack come into contact.
Joie’s grandfather founded the famous Joie Chiltwood Thrill Show, in addition [...]

By Larry Wood | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
While racing coverage has waned in many media outlets in recent years, one influential radio program has remained faithful and steadfast in its support.
The Lia Show, formerly known as Neon Nights, is nationally syndicated out of Seattle and, for a 6th consecutive year, includes a weekly NASCAR segment. The segment consists [...]

By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinTodya.com
A just-turned-20 driver won NASCAR’s biggest race, the Daytona 500, in his second Sprint Cup start.
He had a yellow “rookie stripe” on the back of his car.
Yet according a just-implemented NASCAR rule Trevor Bayne is not eligible to contend for this season’s Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year.
Starting this year [...]

NASCAR’s new championship system is set to launch, and since every other life form in the known Solar System has waded in on it, here’s my take:
It’s essentially the same as the old system(s). Drivers are awarded a certain number of points based on their order of finish. That means that the driver who consistently [...]

By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
It’s interesting to see a sport that once ran on tobacco fumes come full-cycle with the announcement that Richmond International Raceway will have smoke-free grandstands this coming season.
NASCAR wouldn’t be where it is today without the boost from Big Tobacco. Back in the ‘70s, after the Feds banned tobacco advertising [...]