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
After a few hours to sort out and think through the events of Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway, I think I prefer potholes.
Unlike those I’ve read who thought the Budweiser Shootout was a great race, I find myself looking forward to Bristol or Martinsville, or even to the Saturday [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
When Joey Logano first came on the racing scene that was my old newspaper beat, he was a pint-sized racer with a papa who had deep enough pockets to buy him the best of everything.
Little Joey had the best equipment, but he also had a natural knack for knowing what [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Among the things that NASCAR’s long time audience can look forward to in the 2011 season is having David Pearson back in the limelight.
Pearson is being inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame this year, and the Wood Brothers, whosecar he once drove, are honoring his induction by dedicating their [...]
After a few days to ponder NASCAR’s new points system, the one thing that stands out is that consistency still means much more than race wins.
The 43-1 system seems to punish drivers for poor performances more than the old system. In the past the last-place driver got 34 points, compared to 195 for the winner, [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Daytona Beach, Fla. – NASCAR officials indicated Friday that there will be some tweaking of the rules for the 2011 season, but they didn’t offer many details that weren’t already widely known.
NASCAR president Mike Helton confirmed what drivers have already said about being able to compete in just one national [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Daytona Beach, Fla. – For long-time NASCAR fans, the idea of seeing Bill Elliott in anything other than a No. 9 Ford or Mercury just doesn’t seem right. But as Elliott begins the season in James
Finch’s No. 09 Chevrolet, some things aren’t really new at all.
For starters, Elliott has driven [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Daytona Beach, Fla. – The NASCAR racing boys got back to work on Thursday, in the garage, on the race track and in the media center at Daytona International Speedway.
The morning was devoted to single-car runs, while the early part of the afternoon session saw drivers running in two-car packs, [...]
Bill Elliott’s late father, George Elliott, was as loyal a Ford supporter as they came. His sons went on to carry the banner for Ford Racing in the 1980s, and Bill Elliott spent the last four seasons driving Ford’s most famous car, the No. 21 of the Wood Brothers Race team.
But when testing opens at [...]
By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Most folks don’t get into the sports reporting business for the money. They do it for chances to write about people like Roosevelt Johnson.
Johnson, one of the South’s pioneering drag racers, died this week at the age of 80. I interviewed him several times over the years, visited in his [...]
Birmingham, Ala. – Rex White, NASCAR’s oldest living champion of the series now known as Sprint Cup, wasn’t about to let Atlanta’s treacherous, icy roads stop him from making his noontime appointment in Birmingham.
The 80-year-old driver skillfully steered his Mercury across icy patches and through nearly frozen slush and arrived at a Birmingham hotel in [...]