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 Dale Earnhardt Jr. with his #88 National Guard Chevrolet…………… The NASCAR Hall of Fame announced the class of 2014. The new inductees are: Tim Flock, Jack Ingram, Dale Jarrett, Maurice Petty, and Fireball Roberts. A great and deserving class…………… In the “Where have we seen this before” department, Burton Smith is threatening to move the Coca Cola 600 out of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Smith has filed an $80 million dollar lawsuit against the County where the track is located for failing to provide the incentives it promised him. Several years ago Smith threatened to take a race away from New Hampshire Speedway, a track he also owns, while in a dispute with local officials there over police coverage. What’s that word I’m looking for? Oh yeah, bully!…………… 1,100 miles of racing Sunday should quench the thirst of most race fans. The 97th running of the Indy 500 race is scheduled to start at 12:12 pm and the Coca Cola 600 is scheduled to start at 6:00 pm…………… The Charlotte Motor Speedway opened in 1960 and held NASCAR’s first 600 mile race that year. The race was called the World 600 and Joe Lee Johnson won that inaugural event.…………… Kasey Kahne looks to repeat last year’s victory. Kahne has won this race three times. He joins the other 3 time winners, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson looking for their 4th victory…………… Kyle Busch told Kasey Kahne that if he wrecked him in retaliation to the incident at Darlington he’d understand. Busch said he was just joking but would understand if it happened. He added he did not expect it as Kahne is, “not that kind of guy.” For his part Kahne said after the two talked that he and Kyle are cool.……………. Chalk one up for us old guys. Ken Schrader became the oldest driver to win an ARCA race with his victory Sunday at the Menards 200 at Toledo Speedway. Schrader 57 surpassed Iggy Katona as the series oldest winner…………… Sgt. Aaron Causey will be Grand Marshal; U.S. Sen. Tim Scott will serve as Honorary Starter and Tennessee’s Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey will serve as Honorary Race Director for the 54th running of the Coca Cola 600. News Anchor Robin Meade will sing the Anthem..………… The weather forecast for Saturday night’s race calls for partly cloudy skies with highs in the mid 70’s and low’s in the high 50’s.
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