Racing News Digest

Well I have not been posting that much. I hope to get to that soon. But I was excited to get to watch some NASCAR Pre-Season thunder tonight on SPEED TV. I was not able to watch the episode last night. While I did not get to pay real close attention to it I did get to see most of the Ryan Newman interview. Unfortunatly he does not have a second sponsor yet for the 2009 season. There was some rumblings that he the US ARMY may pick up the whole year. Newman says the people at Stewart-HAAS Racing are working very hard at finding him another sponsor. It does sound like he got to do some cool things with the ARMY this week though.

Oh yeah and Michael Waltrip wants a pre-season race. At first I thought that sounded kind of silly but when you factor in that there is a testing band it does make sense. Although I don’t know if Waltrip’s idea is the best, I can still understand where the drivers may nead/want some seat time before heading into the Daytona 500. Yes there is the shootout and the Gatorade Duels, but Waltrip’s idea calls for a pre-season race in the beginning of January.

“Why not have a race in January, maybe a New Year’s Eve race, middle of January, some sort of race in a cool location where it pays money?” says Waltrip, co-owner of Michael Waltrip Racing and driver of the No. 55 MWR Toyota. “You go down there for two or three days, you’re able to test what you’ve learned and you actually have like an unofficial race. NASCAR does it. It’s like a pre-season game, if you will.”

Not a bad idea and I know first hand how race fans are really craving some racing action by the first of January.

That brings me to another point. It seems that a lot of drivers don’t like the idea of having all this time off since November, no testing and then jumping in the car and going racing at Daytona International Speedway. I can’t say that I blame them. That is where something like what Michael Waltrip was talking about would be nice.

It is being reported that “A NASCAR team” is heading over sea’s to do some testing. That seems VERY extreme to me. I don’t understand this at all since I believe the “No Testing Ban” is only for tracks that hold NASCAR sanctioned events.

So, now it is also being reported that Texas World Speedway is being brought back to life a little so that NASCAR teams could go there to test. Texas World Speedway is a 2 mile track that owners just had the track ground down a little to help get the surface back in shape.

It appears that the last Sprint Cup race that was raced at Texas World Speedway was in 1981 where Benny Parsons won.

So why is a team going oversea’s. PLEASE leave comments and explain this to me!

Let’s see, what else. Bobby Labonte will be driving the #96 ford for Hall Of Fame racing in 2009. He was supposedly in talks with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing to drive the #8 Chevy. So this leaves the #8 with out a driver right now for the 2009 season. I am sure that is just fine with Dale Earnhardt JR. fans. I am sure that they would be happy to see that car buried and never come back. Although I think DEI made a VERY wise decision putting Mark Martin in that car last year.

The Budweiser Shootout right around the corner my blood boils a little with the change. Tony Stewart out? Joey Logano in? Ryan Newman out? David Stemme in? That is just 2 examples of drivers that raced a full season last year and deserve to be in the Shootout using the old rules. New rules they are out. Clint Bowyer out? Casey Mears takes his spot. Well I am sure you will hear more about his from me later on. I don’t like it.

I am sure there is more going on. I have been working on this site feverishly to get it at least somewhere near where I want it before the 2009 season kicks off. Just about there.

CATCH SPEED TV EVERY NIGHT AT 6pm est this week and next week I believe!

Stay Tuned.
I will introducing some new authors to Racing News Digest, introducing Racing News Digest Widgets and talking about anything I can think of.

If you have not checked out our news headlines section then I encourage you to do so. You no longer need to go to 5 or 10 websites to look for news. All the news headlines you find link directly to the original source.

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