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It's Official: Atlanta Losing One Race Date In 2011

After 50 years of hosting two NASCAR event weekends per season, what had been widely speculated is now confirmed: Atlanta Motor Speedway will have just one NASCAR Sprint Cup race in 2011.

Atlanta, never known as being a good sports town in general, had struggled with its attendance for its March and October races until finding a boost when its fall date was moved to Labor Day Weekend last season.

Though that race was a success, the spring crowd was still disappointing. And when it became known that Bruton Smith desired a race date at Speedway Motorsports Inc.-owned Kentucky Motor Speedway, Atlanta became the likely target in many minds.

The track announced Thursday that it will keep the Labor Day Weekend event, which will be Sept. 4 next year.

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by Jeff Gluck • Aug 5, 2010 3:09 PM EDT

T.J. Bell's Sponsor Will Help NASCAR Go Green At Darlington

Darlington Raceway's old surface once used up tires faster than any other track on the NASCAR circuit.

Now, one of the trucks in the upcoming Truck Series race at the track "Too Tough To Tame" will have a sponsor with a unique message: Recycling all that old rubber.

T.J. Bell's No. 50 MAKE Motorsports truck is being sponsored by Liberty Tire Recycling in the Aug. 14 race at Darlington, which will make it one of the first NASCAR sponsors to have a "green" message.

Bell, who finished 15th in the Truck Series last year, will be attempting just his second start of the season. But he should have plenty incentive to go fast on fresh rubber knowing that his sponsor recycles plenty of it.

Liberty recycles more than 110 million tires per year (one-third of all the discarded tires in the country) and turns them into raw materials to make new products such as rubber mats or outdoor surface.

The company recently donated more than 500,000 pounds of recycled rubber to build athletic fields in Iraq.

Team co-owner Tracy Lowe said Liberty will help with "Spreading that message of sustainability through our daily working lives in NASCAR."

"Who would have thought?" she said.

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by Jeff Gluck • Aug 4, 2010 5:34 PM EDT

Open Wheel Racing, Where Cars Splitting In Half Is Perfectly Normal

"The car splitting in half, which is what it's designed to do..." Open-wheel racing, please never, ever stop blowing my mind. 

Chris van der Drift--that is his real name--survived this crash in the Superleague Formula at Brands Hatch yesterday,but not without taking a broken ankle, two broken ribs, a cracked shoulder blade, a dislocated shoulder and two broken fingers as prizes. Considering he flew twenty feet in the air and hit a bridge, that's not a bad parting gift given the other goodies you could have gotten out of the contest. 

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by Spencer Hall • Aug 3, 2010 10:55 AM EDT

Richard Childress Pulls Out Of Nationwide Series

Lee Montgomery of NNSRacing.com is reporting that Richard Childress Racing is done with the Nationwide Series.

That’s troubling news for the series, given RCR has won three driver championships and two owner titles in Nationwide competition.

Just a few years ago, RCR dominated the then-Busch Series like the Joe Gibbs Racing cars do these days.

And now? Though RCR signed John Wes Townley to begin the season (along with sponsor Zaxby’s), it booted Townley out of his seat after only a few races, then couldn’t find sponsorship to fill the non-Zaxby’s events.

Instead, Childress will field two Truck Series teams for his grandsons (one of them, Austin Dillon, has already won a race in the series).

Click here to read the full story.

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by Jeff Gluck • Jul 31, 2010 11:43 AM EDT

Secret Fines For Drivers Who Speak Out Signals A Setback For 'New' NASCAR

By gambling the public would never learn about the secret fines it issued to drivers for speaking out, NASCAR miscalculated and now looks worse than if it been up front about what officials viewed as damaging comments.

Associated Press reporter Jenna Fryer broke the bombshell story Monday evening that at least two star drivers had been fined as much as $50,000 for making comments disparaging NASCAR.

That was significant in that from chairman Brian France to president Mike Helton to spokesman Ramsey Poston, NASCAR has repeatedly said it wants the drivers to be themselves, show personality and give their opinions.

Right along with the "Have at it, boys" policy, this "Be yourselves" idea was sold to the public as part of the "new" NASCAR that listens to fans and loosens the reins on its drivers.

And everyone bought it. Until the last seven days, that is.

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by Jeff Gluck • Jul 27, 2010 8:49 AM EDT

Helio Castroneves Goes Nuts After IRL Blocking Penalty

If you haven’t seen the video of Helio Castroneves’ apparent “block” that cost him a victory at Edmonton on Sunday, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Yep. That was ruled to be blatant enough to strip away a win.

Makes you appreciate NASCAR’s rulings a bit more, since NASCAR hasn’t done anything this outrageous in recent memory.

For full coverage of the Helio incident, check out SB Nation’s Indy Car coverage here.

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by Jeff Gluck • Jul 26, 2010 11:21 AM EDT

The Story Behind ORP Truck Race Grand Marshals

If you tune into the Camping World Truck Series race at O'Reilly Raceway Park tonight, you may see a couple of teens and their instructor give the "Start your engines" command.

Wondering who they are? It's actually a neat little backstory.

North Dakota natives Jonathan Anderson, 18, and McKenzie Nordland, 17, captured the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills National Championship last month with the help of instructor Jim McFagden.

Basically, Anderson and Nordland had to diagnose and repair cars that had purposefully been damaged for competition. The duo was the only team in at the nationals to have a perfect score.

As a reward, they got to shadow Roush's No. 16 Nationwide team last week and will serve as honorary pit crew members for Saturday night's race.

Plus, they'll be the grand marshals for tonight's AAA Insurance 200 Truck race.

So in case you're watching tonight and see them give the command, now you know.

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by Jeff Gluck • Jul 23, 2010 6:07 PM EDT

Kim And Tim Go From SB Nation To TV Stardom

If you're a frequent reader of SB Nation's NASCAR coverage – and we hope you are – you may recall the story of Kim Sonefeld and Tim Simmons, the couple who met via Denny Hamlin's Daytona ticket giveaway on Twitter.

Well, Kim and Tim's tale moved beyond the blogosphere and got the attention of ESPN, which recently aired a feature on the couple.

Congrats to Kim and Tim for making it to the big time, and thanks again to them for sharing their story with us.

Here's the ESPN feature:

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by Jeff Gluck • Jul 22, 2010 2:46 PM EDT

Have You Seen ESPN's New Edwards/Keselowski Ad?

Talk about great timing.

As part of ESPN's new series of ads that end with the tagline, "It's Not Crazy, It's Sports," the network recently debuted a commercial that features the budding rivalry between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski.

Only the drivers and their cars aren't part of the ad. The spot focuses on a race between the team haulers (the hauler drivers are played by actors).

Check it out for yourself here. It's worth a chuckle, plus it couldn't have been aired at a better time.

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by Jeff Gluck • Jul 20, 2010 12:14 PM EDT