Mark your calendars......
NASCAR revs toward Daytona at full speed
The Daytona 500 is a little more than six weeks on the horizon, and NASCAR already is stepping on the gas in advance of testing.
There will be four test sessions during Preseason Thunder:
• Jan. 9-11: Nextel Cup (odd owners' points)
• Jan. 13-15: Craftsman Truck (all trucks)
• Jan. 16-18: Nextel Cup (even owners' points)
• Jan. 20-22: Busch Series (all cars)
ThirdOn Feb. 6, the annual Speedweeks countdown begins to the 48th Great American Race. The first major event of the two-week kickoff is the Budweiser Shootout on Feb. 11.
Qualifying for the Daytona 500 pole is set for Feb. 12, with the Gatorade Duel -- two races to set starting positions 3-36 of the Daytona 500 field -- to be run Feb. 16.
IROC and the Truck Series will start its seasons Feb. 17. The Busch Series will begin its 25th season Feb. 18.
The Cup Series' season-opening Daytona 500 is Feb. 19.
There also are several major changes for the 2006 season:
New testing policy
The policy sets a schedule for when and where Nextel Cup tests are to be conducted. The scheduled tests will be the only opportunities teams will have to test at Nextel Cup tracks. There will be six test locations: Charlotte, Daytona Las Vegas, Richmond, Homestead-Miami and Indianapolis.
Teams still will be able to schedule tests
Oops, here's the rest of the story......
Teams still will be able to schedule tests at facilities that do not play host to Cup events, such as Kentucky.
Less impound races
The number of impound races will be drastically reduced for 2006. NASCAR will impound the Nextel Cup cars at five races: both Talladega events, both Richmond events, and the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. NASCAR used the impound rule at 21 of 36 races in '05.
The rule was consistently criticized throughout the year as vastly different weekend schedules led to confusion and large amounts of downtime.
Four-car limit
NASCAR has announced a program that will cap the number of cars under one ownership group. The four-car cap program starts in 2006 and NASCAR is working with groups that control more than four cars to establish a reasonable timeline for compliance.
The four-car limit will extend to owners and any affiliate group, which includes situations where one or more of the car owners is entitled to receive, or actually receives, any financial consideration based upon the performance of the cars entered by the other car owners, or has any revenue sharing or ownership stake in the team.
Tire implants
Goodyear will install computer chips in its Eagle racing radial tires and Wrangler radials to be used in the Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck series in 2006. The Radio Frequency Identification unit -- about three inches long and consisting of an antennae that's about the diameter of heavy-duty dental floss with a quarter-inch by eighth-inch chip in the center -- will be used to track inventory initially, though its uses can be expanded to other areas in the future.
The tires, which previously were tracked using bar codes on the "stickers" affixed to the new tires, will be traced using the "RFID" chips implanted in the rubber's sidewall.
http://www.nascar.com/2006/news/headlines/cup/01/02/acceleration/index.html
Can't wait....can't wait....can't wait...
BTW, speaking of super speedways, did you catch this...http://insiderracingnews.com/RG/010406.html....
My buddy had one of the original 500.
To this day, he kicks himself in the a$$ for letting it go.
So very cool.
Hope the New Year brings nothing but good for ya!
LVM