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Jimmie Johnson suffers major wreck in Grand Am, but unhurt
By Jay Busbee
January 30, 2010
This weekend, several NASCAR drivers, including Jimmie Johnson and Juan Pablo Montoya, will participate in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, matching wits and wheels with many of the best drivers from racing series all over the world.
While it's very cool to see familiar faces in unfamiliar environs, is it a good idea for NASCAR's leading lights to risk their seasons in one-off events like this?
For the second year in a row, Jimmie Johnson has had a problem at the Rolex that could make observers wonder whether he ought to be doing this kind of thing with his offseason. Last year, Johnson sliced a tendon in his left middle finger while trying to cut a hole in his firesuit. And this year was almost much, much worse.
Johnson was tooling around the track in a Daytona Prototype in practice when a much slower GT pulled out in front of him. He swerved to avoid it, and ended up hitting an infield wall. Hard. So hard that for a time, the GAINSCO/Bob Stallings team considered junking it entirely.
The car was eventually salvaged, and Johnson fortunately walked away unhurt. But just suppose he hadn't? Suppose he'd gotten injured severely enough to affect the NASCAR regular season? How pleased do you think Rick Hendrick and Lowe's would be at that point?
Over at Unrestricted, Jim Pedley makes the very good point that this could be the kind of thing that forces team owners to block their drivers from participating in other series. It's the same question athletes in other sports face when they're considering outside events like the Olympics. So what exactly is the challenge here? Pedley explains:
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The Daytona Prototypes are quite power[ful] and quite fast. The track they race on at Daytona is quite fast and very tricky. Plus, the cars run through the night and share the track with GT cars which are quite a bit slower and which can be driven by people who barely meet the definition of professional driver.
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All of which must make team owners just thrilled that their prize ponies are running in this race. Still, it'll be tremendous fun to watch -- and just try to tell NASCAR drivers not to race. See how far that gets you.
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Danica Patrick announces her Nationwide slate: a dozen races
By Jay Busbee
January 30, 2010
The wait is over! A dozen lucky tracks will be the site of Danicamania this year, and Danica fans in Vegas, California, Miami and other locales can start officially making their race plans.
Danica Patrick and JR Motorsports have announced Danica's 2010 Nationwide schedule, and it basically goes like this: Florida, Cali, Vegas, loooong time off, then most of the rest of the slate.
Still up in the air is whether Patrick will race in the Feb. 13 season opener at Daytona. She'll be racing in an ARCA event on Feb. 6, and based on her performance in that race, she may be slotted for the seat in the No. 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet. (The car's already entered; it's just a matter of whether Danica will be driving it.) Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be running the 88 in the Nationwide race at Daytona, and after that, Kelly Bires will slide into the seat of that car; Bires is available to run the 7 if Patrick isn't deemed ready.
After Daytona, Patrick will race in California at the Auto Club Speedway on Feb. 20 and in Las Vegas on Feb. 27. She will then take a four-month break from NASCAR -- she does have a day job, you know -- and will return to the Nationwide series in late June at New Hampshire.
Here's how the rest of her schedule shakes out: Chicagoland Speedway (July 9), Michigan International Speedway (Aug. 14), Dover International Speedway (Sept. 25), Auto Club Speedway (Oct. 9), Charlotte Motor Speedway (Oct. 15), Gateway International Raceway (Oct. 23), Texas Motor Speedway (Nov. 6), Phoenix International Raceway (Nov. 13) and Homestead-Miami Speedway (Nov. 20).
She'll be missing out on racing at Bristol, Talladega, Atlanta and Richmond, among other notable tracks. This schedule -- heavy on the 1.5-mile cookie cutters -- should give her a chance to get comfortable at some of NASCAR's more straightforward, so to speak, tracks.
Already, tracks are capitalizing on Danica's presence; emails from the tracks where she'll be visiting are already showing up promising special Danica deals. She will bring in fans, and that's not a bad way to start.
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Series' purse cuts in line with times
By David Newton
January 30, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR is cutting by about 10 percent the race winnings it will award teams in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck Series this season, officials confirmed on Friday.
The reduction is part of cost-cutting measures that will alleviate some of the financial burdens on tracks that have suffered during a tough economic environment that has forced them to cut ticket prices with declining attendance.
"Last year we launched an industry-wide effort to help the sport manage budgets in this economy," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Friday. "NASCAR did the right thing to work with the tracks to reduce their costs in order to manage the economic realities.
"In return, the tracks have done a great job reducing ticket prices and enhancing the fan experience. Likewise, we worked with the teams to contain costs such as elimination of testing and other steps. This is consistent with how virtually every sport and business has adjusted to the economy over the past year."
Lenny Santiago, director of marketing for International Speedway Corporation -- which owns the Daytona, Talladega and Darlington tracks, among others -- said the move reduces the financial stress on facilities, which should in turn lower cost for fans.
"This will help everyone -- fans, tracks, vendors and everyone in between to reduce cost," Santiago said. "We applaud NASCAR for this move."
Bruton Smith, the chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns nine tracks that host Cup, Nationwide and Truck events, also complimented NASCAR for making the cut. He doesn't believe drivers will particularly like it, "but they understand."
Smith said a much bigger issue is the way television money is allocated. Tracks pay a purse fee, along with a sanction fee, to NASCAR. A portion of the purse fee includes television money, 90 percent that goes to the track and 10 percent to NASCAR.
Out of the 90 percent, 25 is used to pay back a large portion of the purse.
Smith said the financial stress on tracks could be lessened if the $50 million awarded for the upcoming Daytona 500, promoted as NASCAR's Super Bowl, was divided more evenly.
Smith said Texas Motor Speedway, for example, gets only $11 million in television money and it is the third largest attended race of the year. He added that the track's TV money is basically the same as it was at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham before that event was moved Texas.
"There's too much money on the Daytona 500," Smith said. "It's ridiculous. Again, you've got NASCAR and ISC, one in the same. They allocated too much on that race. There should be more on other tracks."
Smith was referring to the relationship between International Speedway Corporation, which owns the other tracks that host races, and NASCAR. ISC was founded by the late Bill France Sr., also the founder of NASCAR.
There have been several lawsuits over the years citing a conflict of interest because both companies have had members of the France family in top positions. The most recent lawsuit was filed by Kentucky Speedway, now owned by SMI.
NASCAR chairman Brian France will not allow Smith to move a Cup race to Kentucky until the lawsuit is dropped or resolved.
Smith said he's made his feelings known to NASCAR about the matter of distribution of television money.
"We argue a lot," he said. "They know how we feel on this one."
Smith also argued that more of the purse, maybe as much as 50 percent, should go to race winners to put more emphasis on winning. Last year, Matt Kenseth won approximately $1.5 million for winning the Daytona 500, while the runer-up was awarded $1.1 million.
"Let's suppose you're sitting there in second and realize there's a bigger difference between first and second," Smith said. "He'll fight like the dickens to get up there and win the race.
"The fans are not involved in points. That's not what any sport is about. All sports is about is winning."
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