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
The phone began ringing within minutes of the announcement on Wednesday of the inaugural class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte.
“How could they?” said Bud Lang, a long-time NASCAR fan from the north Georgia hills that produced some of the sport’s earliest stars like Lloyd Seay, Gober Sosebee, [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Ironically, Greg Biffle’s great run at Kansas Speedway, where he led 113 laps and finished third, poses a dilemma for him and his crew heading into this weekend’s race at Auto Club Speedway.
Biffle told reporters this week that his team finally has found a chassis combination that helps his car [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Some Thursday observations:
NASCAR chairman Brian France and executives of the networks that broadcast its races were remarkably candid in Wednesday’s press conference announcing more – and earlier – starting times for races next season. They openly admitted that tinkering with traditions in NASCAR, something that’s been done on a fairly [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Some random observations heading into Week Four of the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup:
The old saying that one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch may be true for fruit, but it’s not the case when it comes to drivers in the Chase. Just ask Brian Vickers and Kasey [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
The 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup is just two races old, but it’s beginning to look like the 12-driver field is rapidly being thinned to only a handful of legitimate title contenders.
Points leader Mark Martin and his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson are rapidly putting the balance of the [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
The news that Huston Platt is among the inductees into the 2009 class of the East Coast Drag Times Hall of Fame is yet another sign that the 76-year-old former drag racer and his family are finally able to begin moving past one of their family’s and auto racing’s darkest days.
It’s mostly [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Braselton, Ga. – The rains that flooded the north Georgia area over the past week washed out the better part of the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta on Saturday.
Only 467 of the scheduled 1,000 miles were run before heavy rains caused the American Le Mans Series to halt a [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Team orders can be troubling for those who like their sporting contests to be as pure as possible.
The issue arose in the NHRA a couple of weeks back when John Force appeared to give his teammate Robert Hight a round win that allowed Hight to make the NHRA’s version of [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Some Thursday observations:
With all the attention being focused on Mark Martin, Juan Pablo Montoya and Jimmie Johnson and their quests to win this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup, it’s easy to overlook Denny Hamlin.
But in the weeks leading up to the Chase, Hamlin was the most consistent, winning at [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Some Thursday observations:
Like many other NASCAR rules that have been implemented over the years, the four-teams-per-car-owner limit isn’t as iron-clad as it seemed at the time. Rick Hendrick effectively expanded his four-car operation to six through a close alliance with Stewart-Haas Racing. The two companies run the same chassis and [...]