Jeffrey Earnhardt To Make MMA Debut

Fourth generation NASCAR driver Jeffrey Earnhardt is used to fast-paced action and big hits, but on Tuesday evening, the 23-year-old will climb into a caged ring for his Mixed Martial Arts debut.

Earnhardt will square off Tuesday night in Charlotte against 40-year-old Chris Faison, a Muay Thai fighter with a 0-3 record. A former wrestler in high school, Earnhardt started training in December and has now trained every day for the past four months. A Jiu Jitso fighter in the ring, he is optimistic about his chances in his first big fight.

NASCAR Association With The WWE Is Not Such A Bad Thing

NASCAR got some television time Monday night when 2011 Sprint Cup Series runner-up Carl Edwards made an appearance on the WWE's Monday Night Raw. 

On a segment taped prior to last week's Raw event, Edwards was shown asking WWE Superstar John Cena to be the honorary started of this year's Daytona 500.

Some in the industry feel that any association with professional wrestling is a bad move and potentially damages the reputation of the sport, even going as far as to say it was "never a good thing."

While some may fear aligning too closely with the WWE could bring into question the legitimacy of NASCAR, they fail to see the larger picture, the similarities between the two industries and a potential to grow the fan base.  

Is is truly such a bad thing if the WWE and NASCAR have a business-to-business relationship?

2012 NASCAR Sprint Media Tour Highlights

Thursday afternoon the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Media Tour wrapped up with NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France's annual state of the sport address at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. However, the week was full of team visits, sponsor announcements, some baby news and an over-use of the word "excited."

There is a lot to work through from this week's Media Tour in Charlotte, and over the coming days and weeks, stories gathered from the numerous interviews and announcements will be coming your way.

For the time being, here are some of the biggest highlights from the week:

Race Day Links

Here are some stories from yesterday's action at the Richmond International Raceway from Fronstretch.com and AllLeftTurns.com:

Earnhardt Jr. Not Ready To Celebrate (AllLeftTurns.com)

Beyond The Cockpit: Chris Buescher Gets Called To The Big Leagues (Fronstretch.com)

Follow me on Twitter for live race updates tonight in Richmond (@jaywpennell)

Stewart Hard To Beat In Daytona

 

(Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Tony Stewart has proven he belongs among the best in NASCAR and on Saturday he solidified his place among the best that can get the job done in Daytona. Piloting the No. 4 Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet, Stewart was able to come from the back, avoid a number of incidents and hold off a late-race charge to score his fifth win in the last six Nationwide Series races at Daytona.

Stewart jumped out to the lead for the final time on Lap 96 and from then on kept one eye out front and the other in the mirror. With a hungry Justin Allgaier on his back bumper and Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick charging hard, Stewart was able to hold on for the final laps to score the win.

“You know they’re not going to just sit there and ride and stay where they’re at,” Stewart said. “Everybody’s trying to win it, so you just kind of have an idea of how much longer you need to do what you’re doing.”

“I was pushing (Tony) Stewart as hard as I could,” Allgaier said. “I probably could have got a run there at the end and gone for the win, but I got loose with the 60 (Carl Edwards) behind me and didn’t want to get out of line and get shuffled back. I wasn’t going to wreck the field and made the decision that I wasn’t going to leave the 4’s bumper. Unfortunately, I lost a few spots their coming out of Turn 4, but we’ll certainly take a fourth-place finish.”

Leading three times for a total of 38 laps, Stewart kept his nose clean and out front to earn his sixth restrictor place victory in the series – tying Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the most (Earnhardt Sr. has two addition victories at Daytona, but they occurred before the use of the plates).

The win was also the two-time Cup Series champion’s 15th in a stock car at the 2.5-mile speedway, making him third on the list, tied with Cale Yarborough.

“This is really because of Kevin and DeLana Harvick,” Stewart said from victory lane. “Kevin and DeLana have always given us great race cars, I mean every time. So, from that standpoint I’m not surprised, just glad to be here again.”

The 120-lap DRIVE4COPD 400 was marred by a seven caution flags, two of which were for major wrecks that caught up some of the biggest stars of the day.

For much of Speedweeks the television coverage has focused on one driver – Danica Patrick. Making her much anticipated NASCAR debut, the open-wheel driver started from the 35th position and struggled in the early stages, nearly getting lapped at one point.

As she began to get more aggressive and more comfortable in the draft, Patrick’s No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet began to move through the pack. That is until the slow car of Josh Wise triggered a massive 12-car pile-up.

 (Credit: Jerry Jordan/The Examiner Newspaper)

Running laps down, Wise’s No. 61 made contact in the door with the No. 10 of Jason Leffler and then shot up the track into rookie Colin Braun. The incident sent cars scattering as they tried to make it through in one piece. Patrick drove straight through the smoke, but was hit by the wildly spinning No. 16 of Braun. Shooting up into the outside wall, Patrick’s day was done on Lap 69.

 

(Credit: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

After a lengthy clean up on the frontstretch the field restarted the race, but they were not done wrecking.

Running down the backstretch on Lap 91, Brad Keselowski moved down the track just as Carl Edwards looked to duck in line behind him on the high side. The two made contact, sending Keselowski into the right rear of Dale Earnhardt Jr. The No. 88 Chevrolet dug in and rolled on its side before smacking the wall with its nose. Brendan Gaughan was tucked behind Keselowski and had nowhere to go but into the flipping car of Earnhardt. Kyle Busch drove into the windshield of the No. 88 car as others piled into the wreck.

“I saw (Dale Earnhardt) Junior get turned in the middle like I just saw him come in the middle of the two lines and when I saw him turn sideways I started to see the under-carriage,” Gaughan said. “Knowing where I was sitting I thought, ‘I’m screwed, my Toyota is coming back in a heap.’”

Thanks to the safety of the cars, Earnhardt Jr. was able to climb out unharmed to look at his tore up race car. With two wrecked race cars, he could do little but think about how much this was going to cost the team he owns.

"That was expensive right there” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We'll have to go back and balance our books. Rough day for JR Motorsports."

After getting turned by Earnhardt Jr. in the ten car wreck, Kevin Harvick’s car was full of grass, but still in one piece. Restarting the race in eleventh, Harvick was hungry to get to the front, but just didn’t have the help to mount a successful charge. As Kyle Busch lost control of his ride in the final turns, Harvick made his move and dove under Allgaier for the third spot. Perhaps one of the strongest cars in the field, Harvick could not help but be pleased as his other car sat in victory lane.

“I think the competitor in you wants to win,” Harvick said. “Shoot, I’m just lucky that my car was still rolling. I hadn’t spun out and not hit anything in about a year, so it was nice to have that happen.”

Next week the series heads to the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. for the Stater Bros. 300. Patrick will be back behind the wheel of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet and is sure to steal much of the attention. Yet, after Saturday’s opening race of the 2010 season, it appears a number of younger drivers are ready to step up into the spotlight in the Nationwide Series, most notably Allgaier.




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Be sure to check out the other websites I contribute to:
www.Frontstretch.com
www.AllLeftTurns.com
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Got Game? You Could Be A NASCAR Champion

Moving into the world of online gaming, NASCAR announced Thursday it has partnered with iRacing.com to create the NASCAR iRacing Series. The first of 18 events will be held February 9, 2010, which will kick off a 39-week NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship.

Establishing this a serious undertaking, not every gamer will be able to partake in this new top-level online racing series. Instead, the 50 top-rated drivers currently competing in iRacing’s Pro Series will be eligible to participate. Included among that top-50 is NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver and avid online racer Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“iRacing is the most modern racing simulation ever created,” Earnhardt Jr.’s testimonial reads on iRacing.com. “Every inch of every track in modeled perfectly. I’ve used iRacing to learn new courses such as Virginia International Raceway, or to keep the rust off at tracks such as Infineon Raceway.”

Online racing has helped a number of younger drivers over the years as they transitioned into the world of NASCAR. Denny Hamlin swept the races at Pocono in 2006 despite never being to the track and credited the win in part to weeks of training on his computer. This phenomenon has become an even more important tool now that NASCAR has eliminated testing for the top touring series.

While it is safe to say none of those that founded NASCAR could have ever imagined an online racing series falling under the NASCAR umbrella, one man was far beyond his time. The late Bill France Jr. envisioned an online racing series nearly 15 years ago.

“Bill France Jr. was ahead of his time when he initially had the vision of an online racing series. Thanks to evolving technology NASCAR fans can virtually compete at their favorite track and have their chance to end up in a victory lane,” said NASCAR Senior Vice President Paul Brooks.

Over the last year NASCAR has worked with iRacing to develop what they call a “sporting code” that will serve as the series rule book. In addition to the NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship, NASCAR will also sanction five amateur series. These lower series will be available to anyone with a membership to iRacing.com (a one month trial subscription is only $14 according to iRacing.com).

For those serious about getting involved in the most available form of NASCAR racing, you will have to work your way up to the NASCAR iRacing Pro Series. Consisting of the 250 top-ranked drivers, this series will be the launching pad into the more elite Drivers World Championship. Racing will begin in May 2010 to set the stage for the 2011 NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship.

“We’ve created our online racing service for racers and fans,” iRacing president Tony Gardner said. “We’ve done the hard work to make it simple and easy for NASCAR fans to join iRacing and get behind the wheel. You don’t have to be a computer geek to do this. PC owners with a broadband connection, only need to purchase an inexpensive wheel-and-pedal set from their local consumer electronics store or online. In an hour, they can be racing. It’s that simple. Everything an aspiring racer needs to know to get started is on our Web site, at www.iracing.com.”


The series will be broken up into four 12-week seasons and feature various forms of racing including modifieds, late models, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series trucks, NASCAR Nationwide and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars. Much like the typical career progression, participants will have to work their way up from the short tracks to the top three NASCAR series.

So if you think you have what it takes to beat the best of the gaming world and call yourself a true NASCAR winner, sign up at iRacing.com and let the dream begin. Who knows, you may end up racing Dale Earnhardt Jr. some day.



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Jay W. Pennell
jaywpennell@yahoo.com
http://twitter.com/@jaywpennell

The Hits Keep Coming For Earnhardt Jr.

Just when you thought Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s season of unrelenting misery and inexplicable failure could not get any worse, it did.

The sport’s most popular driver entered the weekend at Martinsville Speedway 22nd in the standings and without a top-10 since Bristol in August. A fairly good run last week in Charlotte went south when the transmission on the No. 88 gave out, relegating him to a 38th place finish. With frustration and disappointment mounting, Junior headed to a track where he had three straight top-10 finishes.

Starting from the 12th spot, Earnhardt Jr. made his way into the top-10 during the first 75 laps of the TUMS Fast Relief 500. Running with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, things started to look up as the laps clicked away.

That optimism ended when a flat tire on lap 90 sent the 88 into the outside wall. Knocked to the back of the pack, Earnhardt Jr. went to work making up the ground he lost, but it was all for naught. He blew a second tire on lap 130. Clearly upset with his misfortune, Earnhardt Jr. radioed his crew saying, “If you got any ideas on how to not keep blowing tires, that would be good.”

Again he worked through traffic to regain the spots he had lost. Earnhardt Jr. made his way to 16th by lap 300. Just as things were starting to look up for the 88, a third blown tire struck. Adding insult to injury, NASCAR opted not to throw a caution as Junior limped his car around the track and navigated his way to pit road.

Earnhardt finished 29th, one lap down, as the string of disappointing finishes continued. Earnhardt Jr. is in the biggest slump of his 11-year career. With only four races remaining this season, Earnhardt Jr. has only two top-5s and five top-10s compared to five DNFs and 17 finishes of 25th or worse.

While this year has been a major disappointment, it does not mean Earnhardt Jr. has lost his ability as a driver. He is not the first to go through a slump. After winning back-to-back championships in 1990 and 1991, Dale Earnhardt Sr. struggled in 1992 and finished a disappointing 12th in the standings. The Intimidator came back to win the title again in 1993 and 1994.

This slump will end, but don’t expect it to happen in the next four races. The frustration and disappointment of this season may serve as a motivating factor for the No. 88 team in 2010. Team owner Rick Hendrick said everyone in the organization is committed to getting the team back on track, but when a slump hits it is hard to pretend everything is great. Unfortunately for this team the hits keep coming.


http://www.allleftturns.com/earnhardt-losing-streak-reaches-53