... the folks at Office Depot Racing have rolled out a newly designed web site featuring all you could ever want to know about the No. 14 team and driver Tony Stewart.
The site debut is truly timely. Stewart has an impressive record of wins at The Glen and will start sixth in tomorrow's race.
Check out the new site, which includes interactive Facebook and Twitter links and also an "Ask Tony" feature.
Tonight at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Penn., Kyle Busch will race a Super Late Model which has been nicknamed the "Twitter Car".
Considering the recent silence of NASCAR drivers on the social media site, this car's debut is ironic indeed.
Since Denny Hamlin took a $50 thousand hit for Tweets disparaging to NASCAR, several drivers have chosen the safe road and confined their Tweets to less controversial topics - like the weather, travel plans and workout schedules.
Talk about unfortunate.
NASCAR fans dearly want to read the post-race smack and gut-level driver reaction that made Twitter such a great medium for the sport. Remove the driver drama from the mix and well, a Twitter stream just reads like a series of 140-character press releases with a few ticket giveaways thrown in.
Hopefully, the Twitter silence is a momentary blip - an over-cautious response to some NASCAR discipline.
But in the meantime, we NASCAR fans could use a few entertaining tweets from our drivers.
Any takers?
Photo info: Kyle Busch's "Twitter Car" - a Super Late Model which he raced at Williams Grove Speedway on August 5. The photo was released via Twitter @KBwebteam.
Pocono winner and the winningest Roush driver of 2010 made the rounds at the ESPN campus in Bristol, Conn. today.
Greg Biffle appeared on SportsCenter, SportsNation, NASCAR Now, ESPNEWS and ESPN Radio.
Whew!
The driver also paid a visit to team owner Jack Roush, who is still recovering from injuries sustained in a plane crash last week. Biffle delivered the Pocono trophy to Roush, who is hospitalized at The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Below are a few behind-the-scenes pix with The Biff - courtesy of ESPN
There's nothing like a road course to get a girl thinking about road music.
You know - those guilty musical pleasures that are best enjoyed with the windows rolled down and the world whizzing by in an emerald and azure blur.
So in honor of this week's road course race at Watkins Glen, I've come up with a few tracks that are best enjoyed behind the wheel. And it doesn't hurt that these selections just happen to be inspired by some current NASCAR happenings ...
"Shut Up and Kiss Me" by Mary Chapin Carpenter - When fans found out NASCAR fined drivers Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman for comments that were damaging to the sport, cyberspace lit up like a bug zapper in July. The general consensus is that NASCAR has adopted that age-old admonition, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Or, as some fans are claiming, "Kiss up or shell out."
"Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode - This is what a lot of us have been trying to do this week. Because silent is what Twitter has been since Hamlin told the press his fine was due to a few ill-conceived tweets.
A handful of drivers are still tweeting on a regular basis (Scott Speed and Kevin Harvick come to mind). However, since Finegate, fans haven't seen the much-loved smack talk that has made Twitter such a great medium for the sport. More's the pity.
"Fighting Side of Me" by Merle Haggard - Although Haggard's anthem is more about runnin' down the great U.S. of A. than runnin' down another driver, the chorus is just too good to resist. I offer this selection in honor of the recently renewed Kurt Busch/Jimmie Johnson feud. Have at it boys!
"Love Shack" by the B-52s - Perhaps I should say "Love Shaq," because that's what lots of NASCAR fans are doing after last night's season premiere of "Shaq vs.". Fans loved the fact that O'Neal was such a good sport when he went head-to-head with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the Concord Speedway. It appears that the show may be a rare bright spot on the wasteland that is summer television. And Shaq's repeated praise of NASCAR didn't hurt my opinion of the big guy (or his show) either.
"Stickshifts and Safetybelts" by Cake - Although the boys of Cake decry the necessity of safetybelts in this 1990s nugget, Elliott Sadler is thanking his lucky stars right now that his belts held true. And so are legions of fans.
"Chevrolet" by The Derek Trucks Band - I realize that the new Ford F9 engine is getting all the hype after Greg Biffle's win at Pocono. But at Watkins Glen, my money is on a pair of Chevys - Tony Stewart or Jeff Gordon, to be exact. After all, they are the road course kings.
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" by Michael Jackson - Every now and then you've got to go old school. And no feud has captured the old school feuds of yore like the Carl Edwards/Brad Keselowski saga. Those two are starting something alright. I just hope they finish it on the track.
"This Ol' Wheel" by Shooter Jennings - We get it. In NASCAR years, Mark Martin is old. But the fact that he's got a few years on the rest of his competition doesn't keep him from rollin'. Sure, he hasn't had quite the year so far that he had in 2009. But ol' Mark is still poised to make The Chase. Consider also that Martin did score three wins at Watkins Glen in the mid-nineties.
Pocono isn't the only thing Greg Biffle wants to win.
Biffle and his sponsor 3M are working hard to win the fight against cancer by raising funds for City of Hope, a leading research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.
Between now and August 31, 3M will match every online donation to City of Hope - dollar for dollar.
"I believe in the importance of everyone coming together to help speed the way to a cure for cancer and other life-threatening diseases,” Biffle said. “My goal is to raise greater awareness and support within the racing community about the importance of lifesaving cancer research being done at City of Hope.”
City of Hope is located in Duarte, Calif., just northeast of Los Angeles, and is ranked as one of "America’s Best Hospitals" in cancer and urology by U.S.News & World Report. Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a pioneer in the fields of bone marrow transplantation and genetics.
To donate online, click here. And check out Biffle's promotional video below:
The race at Watkins Glen International Speedway couldn't be coming at a better time for Tony Stewart.
It's a place where Stewart seems to have the magic touch.
Since 2002, the NASCAR Cup series has visited The Glen eight times. Stewart has won five of those contests
In fact, in 11 career starts at WGI, Stewart has emerged victorious 45.5 percent of the time. That's his best win percentage at any track on the circuit.
Most drivers would kill to have those kind of numbers - at any track.
And when you consider Stewart's second-place pole run at Pocono Sunday and his top five showing at The Brickyard a week prior, a good run at WGI by the No. 14 team seems practically inevitable.
Yep, Smoke is definitely catching fire ... and he's my pick to win at The Glen.
Photo info: Tony Stewart chats it up with Mark Martin prior to the April 2010 race at Talladega.
Elliott Sadler made the list of worldwide trending topics on Twitter today.
Not because he won the Craftsman Series truck race at Pocono Saturday. And not because he had a stellar finish in the Cup race.
But because he suffered one of the hardest hits in recent NASCAR history. A hit so hard, it knocked the engine right out of his car.
It all began with 36 laps to go. That's when an impatient Jimmie Johnson tried to bump draft with the No. 2 Dodge of Kurt Busch. Busch lost control, hit the outside wall and spun into the infield.
Meanwhile, back in the pack, the incident caused another, more serious crash. While most drivers checked up to avoid the Busch incident, early reports indicate that A.J. Allmendinger did not. Instead, Allmendinger hit the No. 19 car of Sadler
As a result, Sadler's car slid down the track and hit the inside fence head-on.
Hard.
To make matters worse, the fence Sadler hit doesn't qualify as a "SAFER barrier," a foam-enhanced wall which would have absorbed some of the impact. Pocono officials have said they will upgrade that portion of the infield guardrail to SAFER standards next year.
Unfortunately, Sadler's wreck happened a little too early for him to benefit from Pocono's planned improvements.
But what really set fans and pundits like Kyle Petty talking, is what Pocono did choose to spend their budget on this year.
Instead of getting the safety barriers up to snuff in time for this month's race, Pocono Raceway opted to build a solar farm next to the track in order to make the venue more energy efficient. The cost of the solar farm? 15.5 million dollars.
Energy efficiency is all well and good. But what about driver and fan safety? What would the fallout be if Sadler had NOT been released from the infield care center? Would folks give a rip about the track's reduced carbon footprint then?
It's not like this is the first time a serious incident, that could have had tragic results, has occurred at the tricky triangle. As recently as June of this year, Kasey Kahne went airborne in the middle of a multi-car smashup on the backstretch. There is no catch fence on the backstretch. Just trees:
And Cup drivers, including today's winner Greg Biffle, have recently expressed strong concern about Pocono safety.
"They could probably still do a little bit of work at Pocono," Biffle told Sports Illustrated on July 5. "They're going to kill somebody there."
And let's not forget the 2002 incident between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Park :
I don't begrudge Pocono their solar farm. But such investments should be prioritized. Driver and fan safety should come first. Period.
Luckily, Elliott Sadler will not be too worse for wear. He tweeted not long after his accident, "Just want to let everybody know I'm ok,prob gonna be sore but glad to walk away.Hardest hit I've ever had. Huge difference from a safer wall."
Good news indeed.
But to lessen the likelihood of such a wreck happening again, I propose that track officials who don't make necessary safety upgrades lose a race date.
I don't care if a raceway boasts a wind farm, organic concessions, compost toilets and Al Gore as the Grand Marshal.
If track owners fail to invest in obvious and necessary safety features (like SAFER barriers) then the race track should suffer the consequences.
