Welcome to “Fuel It Up”! The racing world is chock 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 goes to the #18 Doublemint Gum Toyota driven by Kyle Busch…………… The penalties handed down by NASCAR for an illegal rear end suspension to the Penske Racing Teams of Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski were altered on appeal. Both teams will still be docked 25 Sprint Cup points and their Crew Chiefs fined $100,000. The 6 race suspension was reduced to 2 point races…………… Joe Gibbs Racing and Matt Kenseth also were victorious in their appeal of NASCAR penalties for an illegal engine part. The Sprint Cup point penalties were reduced from 50 to 12. The $200,000 fine for Crew Chief Jason Ratcliff remained the same but all other penalties were rescinded…………… NASCAR announced this week that Ryan Newman would not be fined for speaking out against NASCAR in a TV interview after a late race accident at Talladega on Sunday…………… Jimmie Johnson holds nearly a full race lead, 41 points, on 2nd place driver Carl Edwards…………… A 27 year old Georgia man who was camping at Talladega has been reported missing. Nick Bower was last seen sitting in a chair Saturday night in the South Park area of the campground…………… Brad Keselowski has issued an apology for his post-race rant regarding the lineup at the last restart Sunday. “I finally had time to digest what happened at the Cup race on Sunday at Talladega. I owe David Ragan and his fans an apology”…………… David Ragan was the recipient of many congratulations on Saturday as well. Nationwide driver, Regan Smith was the winner of the Nationwide Aaron’s 312 on Saturday. Confused fans began to congratulate David Ragan instead. David Ragan tweeted to his followers that they had the wrong guy and told them to send congratulations to the real winner, Ragan Smith. Maybe the fans were clairvoyant as 24 hours later, David Ragan won the big one…………… The track too tough to tame, Darlington Raceway, plays host to this week’s Sprint Cup action. The track was built in 1950 on an old cotton field. Pre-race activities are scheduled to start at 6:45 Saturday night…………… Outshyne’s lead singer, Wayland Owings will perform the National Anthem prior to the Bojangels 500 Saturday night. Sprint Cup Driver’s Mom’s will give the command to start engines in honor of Mother’s Day.…………… The weather forecast for Darlington, South Carolina on Saturday calls for a few showers with highs near 80 and low’s in the mid 50’s.
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Photocredit: diecastcrazy.com
