Nascar Race News!» bobby labonte

Ask The Insiders Wednesday #92

T.C. — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:47:37 +0000

The Chase is now upon us! This weekend’s race at New Hampshire marks the first of the ten race playoff. While we work through another week, here’s the 92nd edition of your questions and our answers. If you don’t know what this post is, we answer any and all reader questions every Wednesday, right here. So if you’ve [...]

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

It’s Been A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Silly Season

T.C. — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:23:42 +0000

I wonder if we will ever quit referring to driver and sponsor movements as the Silly Season. It was initially called that because it referred to a specific part of the season when all this started happening. Now it seems that it starts in February at Daytona. Sorry, I digress… Has the 2010 Silly Season [...]

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

Bobby Labonte Replacing Marcos Ambrose in No. 47 Next Year

Bob Zeller — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:04:00 +0000

Filed under: Bobby Labonte, Michael Waltrip, Toyota, Sprint Cup, NASCAR

On the heels of Tuesday's announcement that Marcos Ambrose is leaving JTG Daugherty Racing and the No. 47 Toyota at the end of the season, the team announced Wednesday that 2000 Sprint Cup champion Bobby Labonte will take the wheel of the car in 2011.

"JTG Daugherty Racing is a solid race team that has come close to winning races with Marcos Ambrose and I'm looking forward to developing our new partnership in 2011," Labonte was quoted as saying in a statement released by the team. "The team is thriving and their technical alliance with MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) in intact. It's great to have next year already set in stone so when this season ends, we can begin focusing on next year right away."

"We are really happy Bobby has decided to join our teams because I have known him for a long time and I have always admired him as a professional driver and as an individual," said team co-owner Brad Daughterty, the former basketball star who has become a team co-owner and ESPN race broadcaster.

It won't be terribly surprising if something more happens in this situation before the end of the year. Teams often decide to go ahead and make a driver switch early so the driver and team have a few races to become acclimated before the following season gets underway.

On top of that, Labonte has had to ham-and-egg it this year to keep racing and keep alive his consecutive start streak, which reached 600 straight races (starting in 1993) at Indianapolis last Sunday. Labonte has driven for three different owners this season, has had to go through the start-and-park routine several times and may have to continue to find random raid for the rest of the season. The huge advantage he has is that he is a former champion, and there is a provisional starting spot in every race for ex-champions.

This is JTG-Daughterty's second year in the Sprint Cup series, and with Ambrose having posted only two top-10s thus far, it has been a letdown from a surprisingly strong debut season for the team, when Ambrose posted four top fives and finished a respectable 18th in points.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Ask The Insiders Wednesday #82

T.C. — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:56:47 +0000

We’ve made it to the Scott Speed edition of Ask The Insiders Wednesday (get it? 82…). Upcoming this weekend is a NASCAR mid-west triple header, with the Nationwide and Cup cars at Chicago, and the Trucks at Iowa. While we work through a short week, here are more reader questions and answers for you. If you don’t [...]

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

What Bobby Labonte Deserves and Casey Mears Doesn’t

Journo — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:32:46 +0000

When a driver becomes a Cup Series champion a certain amount of gravitas is permanently attached to him. Being a champion puts a driver in the league with the sports all-time greats and marks him permanently in the annals of history in the sport. He’ll forever be introduced as a Cup Series champion. I digress. There had [...]

TheNASCARInsiders.com

Follow the Insiders on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook!

Mopping Up After Bristol: Of Crashes and Crash Stats

Bob Zeller — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:40:00 +0000

Filed under: Bristol Motor Speedway, NASCAR Crashes

They had the big one Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway but it wasn't Talladega, so it wasn't really the big one.

Believe it or not, though, that little episode of bumper car madness coming out of turn three on lap 342 involved 13 cars.

The size of the wreck was somewhat surprising, considering that the resurfaced Bristol is still proving to be tamer than the Bristol of old, and the narrower exits out of turn two and four appeared to have no discernible effect. The drivers were still going two wide all the way around the track.

The yellow flag flew 10 times in Sunday's race, which is average for the track since the resurfacing in mid-2007, but only six of the 10 caution periods were for crashes.

And after the brutal wreck in Saturday evening's Scott's EZ Seed Showdown legends charity race, none of Sunday's incidents really showed up on the radar.

The vicious T-bone crash of Larry Pearson and Charlie Glotzbach didn't even look like a NASCAR crash of today -- it looked more like a really bad crash from, well, back in their day. Glotzbach's car not only pierced the driver's side of Pearson's car, it deeply penetrated it, seemingly almost to Glotzbach's windshield.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Bristol Last Race For 2009 Locked In Drivers

T.C. — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:48:17 +0000

When the Cup Series heads to Bristol this weekend, it marks the fifth race on the 2010 schedule. It will be the final race that the top 35 in the owners standings from 2009 will have a guaranteed starting spot. The following weekend at Martinsville, the 2010 owners points will decide who is in and who is [...]

Where NASCAR and IndyCar Drivers Go to Have Fun

Holly Cain — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:50:00 +0000

Filed under: Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Daytona Int'l Speedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - The autograph line wound from the garage to Daytona International Speedway's famous victory lane, at least a full football field away.

One man took a vacation day from his job to drive three hours from Valdosta, Ga., to wait six more hours in line just to get NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson to sign a photo and a shirt. A family waited nearly as long to have former Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya sign 10 miniature replicas of the No. 42 Chevy he drives in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

"This is one of the cheapest races we can go to,'' said Fernando Zapata, 42, who brings his wife and two young children to the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona sports car race every year.

To see their favorite NASCAR drivers.

It's enough to make sports car purists cringe, but for the Grand-Am Series - NASCAR's sports car sibling - it doesn't matter why fans are coming through the gates or watching on television. As long as they're paying attention.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

2009 Predictions Revisited

T.C. — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:52:05 +0000

Following the 2008 season, Journo and myself wrote a series of posts that covered all the major teams in the Cup Series. We looked at where they had been in 2008 and where they were going in 2009. The posts contained some predictions for the 2009 season, with some being more specific then others. I [...]

Ask The Insiders Wednesday #48

T.C. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:44:01 +0000

And then there were three. Texas, Phoenix, and Homestead are the last remaining races on the 2009 schedule before we put it in the record books. But before we start the home stretch, we’ve got more of your questions and our somewhat educated answers. If you don’t know what this post is, until further notice, we will be [...]