Welcome to “Fuel It Up”! The racing world is chopped full of intriguing stories, but sifting through them to get a good general sense of the landscape can be challenging. In Fuel It Up, I take the biggest, more interesting storylines and present them to you in a quick, compact 300-words-or-less format.
The winner of this week’s paint scheme award is the #24 Cromax Pro Chevy driven by Jeff Gordon. Honorable mention goes to Brian Vickers in the #11 car and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the #88 car.……The news keeps on getting better for Sprint Cup Point leader Jimmie Johnson. He and his wife Chandra announced that they are expecting their second child in September. The Johnson’s have a daughter, Genevieve, who turns three in July……Speaking of Jimmie Johnson, he took some heat from fans of Dale Earnhardt Jr. for passing him after Jr. spun out. Some felt that Johnson should have allowed his Hendrick Motor Sports teammate to get back in line before passing him after the caution came out. Johnson took to twitter after the race: “You haters have it right. I’m a bad teammate I have a cheated up car, I’m lucky, and the race was fixed. Gotta love twitter and #NascarFans.”…….In a NASCAR fan-pleasing move, Pocono Raceway teamed with WalMart in running a fan vote to name the June 9th Sprint Cup race. The votes were tabulated and the winning name is “Party in the Pocono’s 400”. Among the names submitted were “I hope Brad wins the 400”, submitted by Brad Keselowski……Brian Vickers holds the Sprint Cup track record at Texas Motor Speedway with a lap average of 196.235 set in 2006. Look for the Generation 6 cars to take a shot at that this week……Greg Biffle looks to repeat last year’s win. Carl Edwards leads all drivers in wins at Texas with 3. Biffle, Jeff Burton, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth all have 2 victories each.……WWE star Shawn Michaels will drive the pace car and country star Sarah Evans will perform the National anthem prior to the NRA 500 Saturday night. Karl Malone will give the command to start engines……The weather forecast for Saturday night at the track calls for clear skies with lows in the mid 50’s. The track will have plenty of grip and should be very fast making for some great racing.
That;s it for this week – enjoy the Texas Racing.
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