By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Not that long ago, 200 mph on a Sprint Cup track was the OMG threshold. It was the point where excitement met danger. Pulse rates rose, mouths dried out. And the debate would commence.
If the 200 mph threshold was crossed on a non-restrictor plate track, the [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
KANSAS CITY, Kan. –Hendrick Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne became the first pole winner on the repaved, reconfigured Kansas Speedway oval Friday when he logged a record-blitzing lap at 191.360 mph.
The old qualifying record was set by Matt Kenseth in 2005. It was 180.856 mph.
“I went into (Turn) 3, and felt like [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Denny Hamlin said Friday that his bell has stopped ringing and that he has no concerns about his physical condition in the wake of a hard hit he took during Thursday’s Sprint Cup test session at Kansas Speedway.
“Feel 100 percent today,” Hamlin said. “Thought I was [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – The pointy heads call it “tough love’, that thing where authority figures subject their charges to small slices of hell in an effort to instill discipline that could serve them well in the future.
Tony Stewart, the Sprint Cup team owner, said Friday that despite some bouts [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
KANSAS CITY, Kan, – Officially, not much has changed with NASCAR’s policy on driver injuries in the wake of what happened to Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega two weeks ago. Officially, a driver who can navigate his damaged car back to the garages after a wreck still will not be [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
NASCAR officials on Tuesday unveiled a number of competition changes for the 2013 season, the most significant of which is a new qualifying format in the Sprint Cup Series.
That new format marks a return to the past as automatic entry into race fields by the top 35 cars in owner [...]

With a fresh start this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kurt Busch now has the opportunity to make his way into a pretty interesting fraternity: The fraternity of professional athletes who have wasted massive talent and potential because of an inability to exercise acceptable levels of self control.
Here’s hoping the eldest of the Busch brothers [...]

Sprint Cup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. will not drive this upcoming weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, nor next weekend at Kansas Speedway, because of a head injury first suffered during a wreck during a tire test at Kansas in late August.
It was reported by Hendrick Motorsports early on Thursday morning that the concussion was sustained [...]

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Veteran NASCAR driver David Green said he was concerned when he arrived at Homestead-Miami Speedway for the first NASCAR event after that oval was repaved and reconfigured with variable banking in 2003. He figured there would be substantial growing pains.
His concerns were allayed, however, as soon as his Nationwide Series car hit [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
So, at what point does racing cease being a sport and commence being mere spectacle? For a significant number of NASCAR drivers, that point is race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. For them, race weekend at Talladega is spectacle weekend and they plain don’t dig it.
That was made obvious – again [...]