Rick Minter, Senior Writer
Rick Minter joined The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1991, where he covered motorsports as well as serving as a bureau chief. From 2000-2008 he focused on racing exclusively, traveling the NASCAR circuit as the paper’s motorsports writer and winning awards from several organizations including the Georgia20 Automobile Racing Hall of Fame Association and the City of Atlanta. Minter and his wife Joanne live on the family farm in Inman, Ga. In his spare time he collects and restores antique tractors and trucks.
Articles by Rick Minter
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
For those who cling to the hope that racing remain a pure form of competition, it’s been disheartening to see the sport of NASCAR racing evolve to a point where three- and four-car teams with alliances with other multi-car operations have become the norm.
Drivers talk about sharing data that once [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
In a time when quality access to Sprint Cup drivers continues to dwindle, one of the few remaining options for reporters has come under criticism from none other that the defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson.
Johnson said last week at Las Vegas last week that he doesn’t believe NASCAR’s Winner’s [...]
A few random racing thoughts on a cold, windy Thursday morning in Georgia:
There once was a time when I started my day by picking up the newspaper first thing in the morning and reading a great columnist like the late Lewis Grizzard.
Now, I get my day off to a good start by turning on [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacingToday.com
A few observations from Daytona before moving on to the rest of the NASCAR season:
It was good to see some mention of one of the real culprits in the great pothole controversy. Down at the bottom of a release from Daytona International Speedway on the pothole situation was a sentence [...]
It seems like every time I turn on the TV there’s Tony Stewart trashing the print media. The other night on Jimmy Spencer’s “What’s the Deal?” there was a clip of Stewart referring to one media member as either the dumbest or one of the dumbest of us for asking a question about the safety [...]
When Mike Mittler awoke this morning and picked up his phone, there was a text message waiting. It was sent at 4:38 a.m. Central Time. It was from Jamie McMurray. Mittler said that, as much as anything that has been spoken or written about McMurray, says it all about the kind of person McMurray really [...]
Daytona Beach, Fla. – Qualifying procedures at Daytona International Speedway can be confusing for sure. The line-up for the Daytona 500 is set by a combination of qualifying results, the finishing order of the 150-mile qualifying races, car owner points and past champion provisionals. Even to many veteran observers, the line-up remains a mystery until [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Daytona Beach, Fla. – On a rainy Friday at Daytona International Speedway, where the only laps turned on the track were by the jet-drying trucks and other assorted safety vehicles, I began to wonder what memories I would carry home from Speedweeks 2010.
Of course there will be high drama on [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Daytona Beach, Fla. – Ford Racing announced Friday that three of its drivers will run the new FR9 engine in Sunday’s Daytona 500.
Matt Kenseth, Elliott Sadler and Bill Elliott will run the new powerplant while the other 10 Fords in the field will stick with the old 452 model.
“We’re pleased that [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
The Wood Brothers Racing Team has been one of the backbones of NASCAR since the sport was founded. The Woods, from Stuart, Va., have been racing continuously in the division now known as Sprint Cup since 1953 and have 96 wins to their credit.
In a RacinToday exclusive series, Eddie Wood, [...]