By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
U-turns are what Carl Edwards called those two things which connect the two co-joined dragstrips known as Martinsville Speedway. Not corners, as they do in the NASCAR media guide. But U-turns.
NASCAR drivers have been plunging into those things, whatever you want to call them, since 1949 after restarts. But today, [...]

Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Critics of the Chase for the Championship claim that drivers who don’t make the 12-man playoff become ride-around clock-watchers with no incentive in the final 10 races.
Oh really?
How about pride?
How about a little self-respect?
How about showing some grit and professionalism?
How about trying to get your sponsor some publicity the old-fashioned way [...]

Millington, Tenn. – When the No. 5 Chevrolet rolls onto the track for Saturday’s Kroger on Track for the Cure 250 at Memphis Motorsports Park, the driver won’t be the only person settling into a new role.
Richard Boswell’s NASCAR Nationwide Series debut will coincide with Tony Eury Jr. sliding into the crew chief role for [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Let’s see what’s in the old Morning Memo today:
Sitting in that convention center meeting room for last week’s NASCAR Hall of Fame voting was an experience which will never be forgotten. A lot of things went through the mind as I sat down, opened my notebook, picked up my [...]

By Mike Harris | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Concord, N.C. – For Jimmie Johnson, it was the perfect race weekend. For the rest of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup competitors, it was a recurring nightmare.
Johnson took another big step toward a record fourth consecutive Cup championship with a solid victory Saturday night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway as the 10-race Chase [...]

Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Is the bar about to close in NASCAR?
Jack Daniel’s has announced that it will end its sponsorship of one of Richard Childress Racing’s Sprint Cup cars at the end of the season. Earlier, Jim Beam likewise said it will discontinue its sponsorship of Robby Gordon’s cars.
A couple of years ago Busch [...]

By Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
For awhile I wrote it off as just some sort of weird coincidence.
I don’t any more.
It can’t be mere coincidence that week after week, race after race, three Hendrick Motorsports drivers do so well while a fourth flounders.
It happened again Sunday in California. Jimmie Johnson won the race. One of [...]

By Jonathan Ingram | RacinToday.com
RacinToday.com
From the Monday Morning Crew Chief:
Is NASCAR a southern sport?
More to the point – is stock car racing a southern sport?
Now that NASCAR Chairman Brian France has acknowledged fans have been alienated by starting times that were all over the TV-land map, these are appropriate questions.
Last week, France and TV executives [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
The courtship of Southern California by NASCAR continues today and by mid afternoon, we’ll know whether or not the fans in that area have found something to love in Fontana or not.
NASCAR’s latest tactic in trying to lure the ticket-buying public away from their bountiful other Sunday activities and out [...]

By John Sturbin | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
Attention to detail that is borderline-anal has the brain trusts of Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske again matching wits today for the 2009 IndyCar Series championship.
“Quite frankly, at Chip Ganassi Racing, we are pretty simple guys and we just race races and the results come to us,” said [...]