Gentlemen, Start Your Engines
Darby Reedy, Writer
February 14, 2012
Filed under Sports, Top Stories
The final tailgate of the NFL season is over, the Super Bowl champion has been crowned, and the fans have dispersed.
What’s next?
The Daytona 500. Fondly referred to as the Super Bowl of the NASCAR season, the momentous race is just under two weeks away. Later this week, engines will fire for the first time on the 2012 season, as teams gear up to take to the track.
Doug Rice, President and General Manager of Performance Racing Network (PRN), gave his insight on the many noteworthy stories gracing the headlines prior to the first race of the season.
Team shake-ups, known throughout the NASCAR community as silly season, were abundant with many well-known drivers’ contracts expiring at the end of the 2011 season. Top drivers such as Clint Bowyer, AJ Allmendinger, and David Ragan all shuffled rides, with two of the most notable changes, according to Rice, being the movement of Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch.
Kasey Kahne’s relocation has been one of the most talked about moves in the NASCAR garage this off season. “Kahne’s move to Hendrick will turn the No. 5 car into a big threat week in and week out,” Rice believes.
The biggest loser in the silly season shuffle, in Rice’s eyes, is Kurt Busch. Released from top-tier Penske Racing, Busch begins the 2012 season as driver of the No. 51 Phoenix Racing Chevrolet. Rice does not expect this move to yield a positive result, and does not see Kurt Busch leading laps or in contention to win races this season.
The switch-up of crew chiefs for the 2011 champion, Tony Stewart, is perhaps the most puzzling of the silly season changes. Championship winning crew chief, Darian Grubb, was replaced by former Penske crew chief Steve Addington. “Letting his champion crew chief go was a big shock. I’m curious to see how Tony Stewart adapts to Steve Addington,” Rice said of the new driver-crew chief pairing.
Another question mark in the 2012 season is the addition of Danica Patrick to the series. She will be running the complete Nationwide Series schedule for JR Motorsports, as well as select Sprint Cup races for the partnership of Stewart-Haas and Tommy Baldwin Racing. Rice deems Danica’s entrance into NASCAR an important attention grabber, saying “Anything that puts more attention on NASCAR is a good thing. Danica is a point of interest that people can have that didn’t exist before.”
The sanctioning body of NASCAR has also been in the news with its attempts to break up two-car drafting. Comparing it to pairs figure skating, Doug Rice made it clear that NASCAR understands that they will not be able to completely stop two-car tandems from forming, but that they want to avoid the whole race being run in such a style.
Another key issue faced by those in charge is the ‘boys have at it’ policy employed last season. This policy put the sport on the front page and created a stir, which Rice believes is exactly what NASCAR wanted, and thus he believes NASCAR will go forth with the policy completely intact.
With numerous team overhauls, Danica Patrick’s entrance into the sport, and the continuation of ‘boys have at it’ among the top stories during the off-season, the 2012 NASCAR season is sure to be an exciting one.
Tune in to see how the season opening Daytona 500 unfolds. The green flag drops live February 26th at 1:30 on Fox. Coverage begins at noon.
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