By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
The Sprint Cup Series will no longer exist after the 2016 racing season. Instead, a new entitlement sponsor’s name will precede the word “Cup”.
That became known Tuesday when it was announced that Kansas-based telecommunications giant Sprint will part with NASCAR’s top series after its current contract expires in 2016.
NASCAR Senior Vice [...]

RacinToday.com
NASCAR’s Kevin Harvick was named a double winner by the Driver of the Year Award voting panel on Wednesday. Harvick was named winner of the Fourth Quarter DOTY and also winner of the year-ending overall 2014 DOTY.
The awards cap a season in which Harvick won his first Sprint Cup championship.
“I’m pretty excited about it,” Harvick [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Kevin Harvick says his journey from “scared-to-death” newcomer at Stewart-Haas Racing to 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion was inspired – believe it or not – by a phrase popularized last summer by the U.S. World Cup Soccer team.
Harvick, crew chief Rodney Childers and teammates adopted the “I believe!” mantra [...]

NASCAR Wire Service
LAS VEGAS – As the culmination of a calculated risk that led to a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, the NASCAR industry joined together Friday night at the Wynn to honor 2014 titleholder Kevin Harvick, who claimed stock car racing’s most coveted prize in his first season with Stewart-Haas Racing.
In his speech [...]

RacinToday.com
Lewis Hamilton didn’t need to be perfect in Sunday’s Formula One race in Abu Dhabi to be crowned World Champion, but he pretty much was.
Hamilton won the season-ending F1 event as he held off a charging Felipe Massa. Hamilton’s effort, combined with engine problems in the car of his Mercedes AMG teammate/closest pre-race pursuer – [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
As per Bernie Ecclestone’s script, Mercedes AMG teammates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton will launch their bids for the 2014 Formula One World Driving Championship from the front row in Sunday’s season-ending Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
So, why was Valtteri Bottas fielding so many post-qualifying questions Saturday evening at [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Some pre-race thoughts on Sunday’s  season-ending, championship-deciding Sprint Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway:
You have to remember that Wonderbread – that gooey, relatively tasteless and nutritionally neutral (at best) thing that kids seem to like but doctors say to avoid – is sliced. You have to remember that when somebody compares [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Four years ago, as the Sprint Cup Series arrived at Homestead-Miami Speedway for it’s annual season-ending, championship-deciding weekend, it seemed all but certain that square peg Denny Hamlin was about to jam himself into a round hole.
The kid who just never really seemed to fit the part of star NASCAR [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
In a career marked by multiple “firsts” and one made-for-TV movie, the script for Erica Enders-Stevens’ NHRA sequel is all about celebrating Pro Stock herstory.
Enders-Stevens is poised to become the first woman to win a Pro Stock world championship during this weekend’s season-ending 50th annual Auto Club NHRA Finals at [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
AUSTIN, Texas _ Businessman/racer Gene Haas says his start-up American Formula One team figures to dive into the international driver market in approximately one year in preparation for entry into the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship.
Still, it’s never too early to start the scouting/schmoozing process, which was part of [...]