—Well I’m back after another trip to the heart of Nascar country, North Carolina. I come back with some good information, a bad cold, and some great pictures—look for them (and my pics from the Richmond Cup Race!) later next week.
—It’s a decent weekend of racing on-tap from The Track Too Tough to F#@& With* with Cup, Xfinity, and ARCA action on track today, tomorrow, and Sunday. Unless it rains.
—Talladega also means a shot for an underdog, underfunded team to run up front and maybe even win, so don’t be surprised to see a newcomer up front like BK Racing, Front Row Motorsports, or RoushFenway Racing.
—There’s a bit of controversy over Tony Stewart vacating his ride on Sunday at the first caution for Ty Dillon—namely that if Dillon drove the car to victory, Stewart would not only get credit for the win, but he’d qualify for the Chase (as long as he finishes top-30 in points, that is). But come on—that’s been the rule for years: You start a race, you get the points for that race. Don’t let something stupid like the Chase muddle a sensible rule.
—David Starr has been released from TriStar Motorsports (the 44 car), replaced by JJ Yeley. No idea of the real reason behind this, but something tells me we’ll get at least one lawsuit out of it.
*—according to Ed Hinton, this was the slogan Talladega’s PR team half-jokingly proposed for themselves after Darlington trademarked “The Track Too Tough to Tame”.