Preview: Rain, rain go away! Friday’s qualifying session was rained out at Martinsville and, though it is supposed to be sunny Saturday, Sunday’s forecast calls for more rain and a high temperature of just 54°.
Preview: Aside from the usual storylines when NASCAR visits “the World’s Fastest Half-Mile,” there are a few things to watch for this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway:
Preview: Atlanta is known as a driver’s track because of its high speeds and multi-groove racing surface. Dale Earnhardt Jr. scored the pole Friday and his 192.761 mile-per-hour qualifying lap set a record for the fastest-ever pole lap in a COT. Atlanta is a 1.54-mile quad oval with 24 degrees of banking in the turns, and NASCAR has been racing here since 1960 for a total of 101 Cup races in the books.
Preview: Las Vegas Motor Speedway is one of a handful of racetracks on the circuit that the NASCAR Cup Series visits just one time per year. NASCAR has been coming here since 1998, but the track was repaved in 2006 and reconfigured with the addition of progressive banking. Kurt Busch, who grew up in Las Vegas and considers this his home track, won the pole in qualifying Friday, with Jeff Gordon on the outside pole.
Preview: Now that the spectacle known as the Daytona 500 is over, NASCAR drivers like to say that the ‘real’ season is starting in California. The Cup Series has only raced in Fontana since 1997 – once a year at first, then twice a year starting in 2004, for a total of 19 races. It’s worth noting that Roush Fords have won the last five straight spring races here, though Jimmie Johnson in a Chevy won three straight in the fall.
Preview: NASCAR kicks off its 2010 Cup season this Sunday with the Great American Race, the Daytona 500. Fans will see a different Daytona 500 this year thanks to changes NASCAR implemented in the offseason, including a bigger restrictor plate and a message to drivers to ‘have at it’ in terms of bump drafting on the plate tracks this year.
