Quotes and comments from and about Thursday’s Day 1 of the two-day Sprint Cup test at Daytona International Speedway:
By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
Mark Martin’s sunny side is permanently set on “up”, you know? Dude makes Pollyana look like a pit bull with an oozing rash.
Martin was touting silver linings again Thursday at Daytona. Cut [...]

By Rick Minter | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
DAYTONA Beach, Fla. –  The two-car tandem appears to be here to stay. Just minutes into the second test session on Thursday at Daytona International Speedway, drivers were running in pairs, testing the new rules to see just how, where and how long one driver can push another.
NASCAR’s rules changes [...]

The 2012 Sprint Cup season starts today. It starts with three days of testing at Daytona International Speedway. It starts with a whole bunch of questions wandering the garages looking for answers.
Here are some of those questions. The answers will take months to locate, but that does not prevent us from making guesses.
So…
– Danica Patrick; [...]

A couple of thoughts on the racin’ news of last couple of days:
Rusty Wallace is one of NASCAR’s original salesmen. Back in the day when he drove for Roger Penske, the man could push product like few before him and, perhaps, only Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carl Edwards in the years since.
The fact that he [...]

Want to waste a good 15 minutes some day? Try telling a stick-and-ball loser that racing is as big of a team sport as is basketball or football. More of a team sport than baseball. Then get ready for some really comical indignation.
Fact is, of course, team work is more important to success in racing [...]

Larry Woody | Senior Writer
RacinToday.com
The National Football League fires up its version of the Chase for the Championship this week, with every team dreaming about winning the Super Bowl – pro football’s Daytona 500.
NASCAR, you might have noticed, has already completed its playoffs in what was the closest, most dramatic championship battle in the sport’s [...]

RacinToday.com
With sponsorship in place, the Wood Brothers Racing team and driver Trevor Bayne will return to Daytona International Speedway next month to defend the Daytona 500 championship they won last year.
Ford Customer Service Division and brands Motorcraft and Quick Lane  announced Thursday that it will continue to sponsor the No. 21 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series [...]

Richard Petty Motorsports announced that Aric Almirola will drive the legendary No. 43 Ford Fusion in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series beginning in 2012.
Almirola has made 35 starts in the Sprint Cup Series, his most recent stint coming in 2010 when he finished the last five races of the season in the No. 9 Ford. [...]

RacinToday.com
Tommy Baldwin Racing added David Reutimann to the team’s 2012 driver Sprint Cup lineup alongside Dave Blaney. Still seeking sponsorship for both Reutimann and Blaney, details regarding car number, sponsors and team members will follow in the upcoming weeks.
Reutimann, a Zephyrhills, Fla., native, made his first NSCS start in 2005. He competed in four full [...]

By Jim Pedley | Managing Editor
RacinToday.com
It wasn’t so much that Tony Stewart won the 2011 Sprint Cup championship which made his season so remarkable. It was how he did it – with a walk-off victory over second-place Carl Edwards in the final race of the year.
Dramatic much?
For both what and how he won his third [...]