Freebies A NASCAR Fan Can Get

A NASCAR fan will cherish many items that represent NASCAR throughout the year but the items they cherish the most will be ones that did not cost them anything. A fan enjoys the freebies offered by NASCAR because they are provided as a token of appreciation and not centered on making a profit in any way. Most fans are unaware that freebies exist until they visit a friend's house and see them for themselves.

Most fans have established a haven in their home that is totally devoted to their favorite NASCAR team. They might make it a point to visit a certain retailer each year because they know that company is a NASCAR sponsor and is willing to provide fans with free tee shirts that bear the NASCAR emblem or the emblem of the sponsor. In one visit to these sponsors, fans know that they can walk out with tee shirts for the entire family.

Fans relish finding information about their favorite driver and racing team. NASCAR has put out a lot of effort to produce photo quality biographies of drivers that fans can print out on the home computer or transfer to a disk and take to a printer where it is printed out in full color. The cost of the printing is considerably less than if the fan had purchased the driver's history from a retailer at the racetrack. Some fans keep this information handy so that they can use it as backdrops for a shadow box that holds tickets to all the races the fan attended.

Fans do not have to rely on luck to get a photograph of their favorite NASCAR racing star. The internet is filled with numerous photographs that capture the racing action performed during a certain race and they come complete with captions already in place. A fan can select which photographs they want for their collection and save them to the appropriate file on their home computer. Of course, these photographs can never be sold but a true NASCAR fans will cherish having them to look at.

Many fans have been entertained for hours by the free games offered at the NASCAR website. Fans have the chance to become a part of the action by playing games, at no charge, that allow them to track their celebrity racing teams through sponsor events, and become a team owner by buying low priced teams and selling them for a profit. Some games allow fans to see what they can do with a racing team that they designed themselves. This type of fun is suitable for anyone that is a NASCAR fan.

Fans can also find a wide assortment of NASCAR freebie items that are centered on home entertainment but must own a home computer to obtain them all. There are many related screensavers that can be downloaded to the personal computer and changed out regularly throughout the racing season. Fans can get quite inspired by the scenes they view throughout the day and some might even help them to remember when the next race will be so that they can buy tickets before they are sold out.

James Brown writes about Mitchell & Ness bargains, Fathead deals and Final Score key code

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Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/65106/freebies-a-nascar-fan-can-get

Bruce Halford Jim Hall Duncan Hamilton Lewis Hamilton

Training To Work Among NASCAR Motorsports Finest

A garage technician might have big dreams of working around NASCAR racecars but will keep those dreams in check because they know they are not trained to work on that equipment or any other high performance engines for that matter. The typical garage mechanic might be able to repair a street model automobile, but it takes a lot of training to work among motorsports finest.

The automobiles that are part of the NASCAR motorsports realm are not the everyday automobile. They might fall under automobile manufacturing names that are well known throughout the automobile industry but they are not the kind that are easy to care for in a local garage. The engines used are tooled to be precision instruments that are capable of achieving over 200 miles per hour in the stretch. To enable the engines to maintain those speeds requires the care and expertise of a graduate of the NASCAR automotive schools.

Automotive engineers and the whim's of the car's owner, might have the NASCAR racing machines in the garage for inspections at any time. They might craftily mold the body parts to exact specifications and match sure that all emblematic decals are perfectly matched. It will be the responsibility of these motorsports technicians to ensure that they car can race every weekend and if parts need to be order and installed by race day, it is there job to do it.

Since there are many automobile manufacturers included in the mix that lines up at the starting line of NASCAR races week to week, there is a dire need for qualified technicians that have been thoroughly trained to meet the racing engine needs. A simple class in automotive mechanics will just not be sufficient enough to make repairs on vehicles that run at such high speeds more than 40 weekends out of the year. This type of need requires someone that is fast and a fan of racing.

Many automotive mechanics would jump at the chance to earn a career opportunity that allows them to work on NASCAR engines. There is a wide range of courses available that can be taken online with significant discounts on tuition to those that qualify. The training will be very thorough and all applicants can look forward to learning all about engines and how to be a member of a professional pit crew. The training courses move at a brisk speed which fits in well with the world of racing.

To achieve training to work among NASCAR motorsports finest requires training time in the classroom and on the racetrack too. The typical automotive mechanic might learn a thing or two about performance engines when they delve into those engines in a class filled with their peers. The people that graduate from the NASCAR automotive schools are well-rounded people who have dug in and learned things that they never knew were possible. NASCAR will expect high performance out of the graduates of the schools because they have a lot of money riding on the equipment and the driver that sits in the front seat.

James Brown writes about Fathead coupons, Final Score promo code and NBAStore.com discount codes

Article Source: Training To Work Among NASCAR Motorsports Finest

Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/66565/training-to-work-among-nascar-motorsports-finest

Jeffrey Tyler Burton Richard Allen Craven Kerry Dale Earnhardt Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr

Clint Bowyer Wins Pole for Nationwide Race at Daytona, Danica Fourth

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Daytona Int'l Speedway, Nationwide Series, Danica Patrick, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Up until the final few minutes of Friday's NASCAR Nationwide Series qualifying, it looked as if IndyCar star-turned-NASCAR newbie Danica Patrick may just have landed herself the pole position at stock car's most famous track, Daytona International Speedway.

Midway through the session Patrick laid down the fastest lap of the afternoon bumping veteran Carl Edwards off the top spot and igniting a buzz around the garage area. Had her lap stood, she would have been the first woman to win a Nationwide Series pole since Shawna Robinson did it in March 1994.

Instead, another newcomer, Landon Cassill, knocked Patrick out of the top spot only to have Sprint Cup Series veteran Clint Bowyer come in and better them both. Bowyer's lap of 180.821 mph in the Kevin Harvick-owned No. 33 Rheem Chevrolet earned the former series champ the pole position for Saturday's DRIVE4COPD 300 and stifled the building frenzy around a possible Patrick front row start.

Cassill will start alongside him while another late qualifier Dale Earnhardt Jr,. took the third position. He'll start next to Patrick on the second row; he owns both cars.

This is only Patrick's 13th Nationwide Series start in her highly-publicized racing double as a full-time driver in the IZOD IndyCar Series and a part-timer in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide circuit.

"It's been a fast car the whole time we've been here,'' Patrick said, as she watched the remaining few cars qualify. "No matter what happens now, it'll be a good starting position. This is a big deal and for it to come at Daytona, it's 10 times a bigger deal.''

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2011/02/18/clint-bowyer-wins-pole-for-nationwide-race-at-daytona-danica-fo/

Ruby Tuesday Dodge Carl Edwards Copart Ford Z Line Toyota

Lotus v Lotus

I'll make this as simple as possible.

There will be two teams bearing the Lotus name in Formula 1 next year.

One, following Wednesday's announcement of Lotus Cars' decision to sponsor and eventually buy into what was the Renault team, will be called Lotus Renault. That team will be part-owned by Lotus Cars but their F1 cars will be called Renaults and will use Renault engines.

The other will be called Team Lotus. This one has nothing to do with Lotus Cars (any more - but we'll come back to that in a moment) but their F1 car will be called a Lotus. They will also use, er, Renault engines.

Both teams, it transpires, plan to run their cars in variations of a black and gold livery. This is an attempt to hark back to the historic John Player Special livery made famous by the original Team Lotus in the 1970s and 1980s through great drivers such as Emerson Fittipaldi, Mario Andretti, Ronnie Peterson, Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna, and era-defining cars like the Lotus 72 and 79.

It's a commentator's - and journalist's - nightmare and one can only begin to imagine the confusion it will create for those watching.

So what on earth is going on?

The story starts in 2009, when Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes obtained a multi-year licence from Lotus Cars to use the Lotus name in F1, having persuaded the Malaysian-owned company that an involvement in grand prix racing would be a valuable promotional tool.

Lotus Racing were one of three new teams in F1 in 2010, the others being Virgin and Hispania. All three spent the year close to the back of the grid, but Lotus did establish themselves as convincingly the most competitive.

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In the course of the year, though, Group Lotus's approach to F1 changed, as part of a hugely ambitious refocusing of the company's future plans by chief executive officer Dany Bahar, who formerly worked in the commercial arms of Red Bull F1 and Ferrari.

Bahar, it transpires, was never keen on Lotus granting the licence to Fernandes, and it has become clear through 2010 why - he wanted to take the brand into F1 himself, but in a different way, through an involvement with an established team.

At the Paris Motor Show in October, Bahar announced plans for five new road-car models, expanding Lotus's range by nearly 200%, and has since said Lotus will enter IndyCar racing in the US and race at Le Mans. And now comes a major sponsorship deal with what used to be the Renault F1 team which will, at an undefined point in the future, morph into Lotus part-owning that team.

Fernandes, meanwhile, struck a deal in September to buy the rights to the Team Lotus name from David Hunt, brother of 1976 world champion James. Hunt had bought them when the original Team Lotus collapsed in 1994 after racing in F1 since 1958, during which time it had established itself as one of the sport's most iconic names.

Fernandes' success in buying the name - exclusively revealed by BBC Sport - marked the point at which what had until then been a private dispute between him and Lotus Cars - which is owned by the Malaysian company Proton - broke out into the open.

Following Fernandes's acquisition of the Team Lotus name, Group Lotus claimed that it owned all the rights to the Lotus name - a point of view robustly disputed by Hunt, who points out that Proton have several times tried to buy the Team Lotus name from him without ever being able to conclude a deal.

The dispute got so heated that former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir bin Mohamad stepped in to mediate, but he succeeded only in stopping the ping-pong of press releases. The dispute is now going to the High Court - and it is unlikely to be resolved until next year.

Bahar (left) launches a new Lotus car with the help of actress Sharon Stone. Photo: Getty

But the disagreement over the ownership of Team Lotus is only one of two ongoing legal cases between Lotus Cars and Fernandes. In the other, Fernandes is suing Lotus Cars for breach of contract over its withdrawal of the licence to use the Lotus name in F1.

That, too, is not expected to be resolved until some time next year.

Both sides, then, have got themselves into a bit of a pickle.

Lotus Cars has struck a deal to promote its brand in F1 through a team that is knocking on the door of breaking into the top three - and which, in Robert Kubica, has one of the finest drivers on the grid.

But it is doing so with a car that is called a Renault - and there is no way out of that one.

Lotus and the team's majority shareholder, the private investment group Genii Capital, cannot change the constructor name assigned to their team because if they do so without the permission of all the other teams they will lose the millions the team earns through Renault's historic achievements in F1, which date back to their entry in 1977.

And guess which team would not agree?

Fernandes, meanwhile, faces the prospect of his team giving free publicity to a company with which he is in two separate legal disputes. And even if he changed the name of the team to something else, his cars would still be called Lotuses.

It is an unsatisfactory situation for all involved - the efforts of both parties will be diluted by a dispute that, for those watching, will create only confusion.

Fernandes is understood to be increasingly confident that he will win the court case over the Team Lotus name. Lotus Cars, for its part, appears not to be overly concerned about the existence of a second team diluting its brand. Their view is that only one of the teams is affiliated with Lotus, and the other one is providing free advertising for it.

In the meantime, questions hang in the air.

Is the end game for Fernandes to sell the Team Lotus brand to Lotus Cars if he succeeds in establishing that he owns it? Can Lotus - and its parent company Proton - sustain such an ambitious programme? And so on.

In the murk, only one thing seems clear - this is only the latest stage in a story that will rumble on for some time to come.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2010/12/lotus_v_lotus.html

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2011 Formula One Calendar

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Rupert Keegan Eddie Keizan Al Keller Joe Kelly

Kurt Busch Wins Record-Setting, Blazing Fast NASCAR Daytona Opener

Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, Daytona Int'l Speedway, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Call it "Dancing with the Cars.'' Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout exhibition was a 200-mph tango of two-car drafts on the newly-paved, super-fast Daytona International Speedway.

In a photo finish, Kurt Busch won a predictably wild NASCAR opener on the new $20 million racing surface, pushed to the front by defending Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray a few feet before the finish line. Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag first, but was subsequently black-flagged for dropping below the yellow line on the track trying to pass Ryan Newman at the finish line.

NASCAR ruled the finish Busch, McMurray and Newman. Five-time defending Sprint Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle rounded out the top five.

"What an unbelievable experience,'' Busch said.

The race had set a record for lead changes (24) with 12 laps to go -- there ended up being 28. The two-car drafts were easily reaching speeds of 206 mph -- nearly 15 mph faster than last year's pole-winning speed for the Daytona 500.

Picking a dancing partner was nearly as important as having the fastest car. And "two-car breakaway" described the entire field. In an intense version of speed dating, Newman was pushed by Hamlin up until the final few feet while just alongside McMurray pushed Busch's No. 22 Pennzoil Dodge to Busch and Dodge's first Shootout victory.

"I went to the inside of Ryan Newman and I saw quickly a dart down to the bottom so I moved my car down to the bottom to avoid contact,'' Hamlin said. "I thought it was a great three-wide finish, but obviously, I used some pavement that we shouldn't have.''

Only 14 cars were still in the 75-lap exhibition with 24 laps remaining thanks to a handful of accidents caused when the two-car draft was just out of sync, a case of two left feet.

"There's plenty of film tonight for the highlight reels that's pretty much what we're filling up right now, SportsCenter,'' Kyle Busch said after his dancing, er, drafting partner, veteran Mark Martin, hit him from behind too hard and crashed them both out midway through the race.

 

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Source: http://motorsports.fanhouse.com/2011/02/12/kurt-busch-wins-record-setting-blazing-fast-nascar-daytona-open/

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Nascar And The Critique It Faces

Nascar has faced a lot of criticism for a lot of things over the last few decades. We can attribute the criticism to the popularity of Nascar. Apart from the environmental impact of Nascar which has led to criticism, there are other technical reasons as well. One of the reasons is the oval shape of most Nascar racing circuits. Driving enthusiasts have severely criticized the difficulty of these race courses when compared to the extremely difficult twisting and turning race courses of Formula 1. They say that it involves going round and round for 500 miles and nothing else.

Some courses of the Formula 1 put up to 5 or 6 G's of stress on the body of the driver. This is totally absent in Nascar. But Nascar has denied these allegations and countered by saying that there are certain race series in which road courses are included. But again it is for a very small percentage of the race. Nascar has also brought to light the fact that even the Indy racing league uses mostly oval tracks.

The Grueling Season
The grueling racing season of Nascar is also a reason for its criticism. While a Formula 1 race has 22 cars in its beginning, a Nascar Nextel cup race has 43. Add the 36 point races for the entire series, and the session becomes extremely hectic. The drivers are left with just a few hours to practice. Some of the drivers have even quit the sport because of their inability to cope with such stress.

Drivers who have been reasonably successful in road racing circuits have been unable to duplicate that success record in Nascar. The prime reason is the difference in the entire structure of the two.

The Cars
The technology behind the cars is another reason that Nascarhas faced so much criticism. The cars are mostly fitted with accessories from the 1950s. The carburetors, cast iron engine blocks and most primarily the use of leaded fuel have triggered huge criticism against Nascar. The reluctance of Nascar to add safety devices has also aggravated the criticism against them. The use of this equipment places more emphasis on getting an undue advantage rather than focusing on the skill of the driver.

The Business
The last thing that has received flak from critics is the Nascar business structure. The majority of revenue generated by the entire Nascar racing goes towards the France family, as they control most of Nascar . Many say that the drivers do not have a voice in Nascar and it is like a dictatorship. The penalties and fines that Nascar levied on its drivers for using foul language in the media have also been a reason for criticism against it.

This author is a HUGE fan of NASCAR licensed merchandise

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Source: http://www.articlespan.com/article/111183/nascar-and-the-critique-it-faces

Willi Heeks Nick Heidfeld Theo Helfrich Mack Hellings