12/5/04… The Sporting News has what they call their annual awards for NASCAR competitors. They claim that what they tally up is the consensus of the competitors in the NASCAR garage areas of the top series. Well, not to take anything away from the efforts of The Sporting News, but everyone makes claims, whether they're accurate or not.

At any rate, The Sporting News (TSN) touts Jimmie Johnson as their fourth annual "Driver of the Year." Johnson didn't win the Cup Championship, Kurt Busch did, but as far as being a likable guy around his competitors, there's an apparent disparity. Not to take anything away from Busch, but Johnson is clearly a more likable personality than Busch, and this TSN award clearly shows how the competitors in the garage area feel about it.

Johnson has, to his credit, finished second in the driver's point's standings in two of his three full seasons in the Cup Series. He also put up a very strong showing in trying to win the Chase for the Championship. He finished second in the final event knocking ten points off of Kurt Busch's lead, but couldn't quite get the job done. Greg Biffle, Busch's teammate, was in the lead and made sure that none of the Hendricks Motorsports drivers won the event and the championship. That was a great team effort to be credited to Roush Racing!

TSN couldn't have chosen Johnson as Driver of the Year without having his team owner Rick Hendrick taking the award for "Owner of the Year." Hendrick had two competitors in the thick of the Chase for the Championship, both finishing solidly in the top five. He also had a Busch Series competitor, rookie Kyle Busch, finishing second in the race for the Busch Series Championship. Busch was also the hands down winner of the Busch Series Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award.

The Hendrick Motorsports teams put solid equipment under their leading competitors throughout the Cup and Busch seasons. This is clearly evident by the 10 Bud Pole Awards and the 13 victories won by Hendricks drivers, leading the 2005 Cup Series statistics.

It’s no surprise that Kasey Kahne was TSN's choice for "Rookie of the Year." Kahne earned the respect of the drivers in the 43 car field by not causing a rash of wrecks, a usual rookie occurrence. He did manage to get involved in a few, but not any more than some of the series veterans did.

Kahne was fourth in the top statistic standings behind Johnson, Gordon, and Earnhardt with four Bud Pole Awards, and 13 top five finishes, five of which were second place finishes!

Jeremy Mayfield got TSN's nod for "Comeback Driver of the Year." To say that Mayfield has had a tumultuous career in Cup racing would be an understatement. His third year with Evernham Motorsports was quite the comeback year for him, as his big win at Richmond moved him from 14th to ninth giving him a secure spot in the Chase for the Championship. (Although he wasn't able to do anything with it!)

Mayfield contends that Ray Evernham's belief in him has been a great confidence builder. Since joining Evernham Motorsports in 2002, his yearly statistics have gradually improved. He finished the driver's standings in the 26th position his first year, and improved to 19th last season. He has improved further to finish up the 2004 season in 10th place, earning the respect and admiration of his peers.

The #38 Chocolate Thunder pit crew was TSN's choice for "Pit Crew of the Year." Todd Parrott, crew chief of the award winning team, says the hard work and determination of the crew paid off this past season by keeping their driver, Elliott Sadler, up front after some of their record setting pit stops.

The award winning crew consists of jackman, Rodney Fetters; front tire changer, Daryl Locker; front tire carrier, Kevin Hall; rear tire changer/car chief, Dave Smith; rear tire carrier, Lance Hanna; gasman, Preston Cordell; and catch-can man, Jay Thompson.

Jimmy Fennig was no surprise for the "Crew Chief of the Year" accolade. Fennig has been building winning racecars and contending for titles for dozens of years, but this year he finally made the big time with his driver Kurt Busch earning him his first championship. Fennig stated that this honor was "awesome" and that it was the result of teamwork by one of the best team in the business.

Mark Martin may have been left out of the championship awards for longevity of his long career, but he is the 2004 winner of TSN's "Dale Earnhardt Toughest Driver" award. Martin contends that the award is pretty special, and that he owes most of it to his team, who fought hard with him this season to bounce back from several mechanical failures and just plain bad luck!

Busch Series awards went to the #8 team with driver Martin Truex Jr., his Crew Chief Kevin Manion, and team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. all getting awards.

Craftsman Truck Series awards went to the #4 team with driver Bobby Hamilton, his crew chief Danny Rollins, receiving awards, and with Hamilton also receiving the award as team owner.

12/12/04… Crown Royal, a brand from Diageo, the worlds leading beverage company, will adorn the hood of the 2004 Champion's car in select events for the 2005 season.

Lots of hoopla has been associated with the Jack Daniels brand on the #07 Richard Childress Racing (RCR) entry for 2005. Some reports are stating that RCR is the first benefactor of the rules change to allow whisky and or hard liquor distributors sponsorship in NASCAR racing. This isn't the case, the Crown Royal sponsorship for Kurt Busch in the #97 Roush Racing Ford was released in a report on November 25th, nearly two weeks prior to the RCR announcement.

At any rate, the news about the Jack Daniels brand on the new RCR entry with Dave Blaney at the helm, is a breath of fresh air. Blaney took over the seat in the #30 at Pocono this past June when RCR and Jeff Green parted ways. He is considered to be partly responsible for the resurrection of the faltering team. Now the #30 is history, with the #07 taking its place. New RCR driver Jeff Burton will take over the #31 Cingular sponsored Chevrolet ride, vacated when RCR and Robby Gordon parted ways at the end of the 2005 season.

I think its kind of strange the way the sponsorship changes on the Cup cars. It was just a couple of months ago when the America Online (AOL) executives were so excited with renewing their sponsorship on the #30 with Jeff Burton in the driver's seat. Now, it seems that the #30 and the AOL sponsorship are a thing of the past?

The RCR #29 entry, sponsored by GM Goodwrench, is still on the books for the 2005 season with Kevin Harvick at the helm. The #29 is the only solid recurring ride in the RCR stable. Although Harvick was winless in 2004 for the first of his four full seasons in the Cup Series, The four time Cup race winner recorded five top five and 14 top ten finishes this past season. He's also recorded two top five and 10 top ten starts.

Getting back to the Crown Royal sponsorship on Kurt Busch's #97 – the sponsorship was touted as being the first primary liquor sponsorship after NASCAR removed the decades long bad on hard liquor sponsorship. The Diageo Company already had its roots firmly implanted within the Roush Racing organization, with its Smirnoff Ice brand on Matt Kenseth's #17 Ford since the beginning of the 2003 season. A lot of you will remember seeing Kenseth in the Smirnoff Ice commercials, which were built around the premise of responsible drinking where operating motor vehicles is concerned.

12/19/04… Boris Said, of road racing fame, is getting his wish in 2005. The road racing specialist that has been hired by Cup teams for years to race on the road circuits at The Glen and Sonoma has always wanted to wend his way into Cup racing. MB2 Motorsports has given him that very opportunity, setting him up with a team with plans to enter him in as many as 10 Cup events in 2005. You can rest assured that two of those events will be on the road courses.

Frank Stoddard, the winning crew chief Jeff Burton fired a couple of years ago, has been hired to be the crew chief on Said's team. Stoddard has a record of 14 victories, 64 top five finishes, and 98 top ten finishes. He began his crew chief career with Roush Racing on the #99 Ford with Jeff Burton in 1998. He recently did a stint with Bill Davis Racing on the #22 Dodge, working with Ward Burton and Scott Wimmer.

MB2 has partnered with Centrix Financial executive Robert Sutton, which makes the name of the new team MB/Sutton Motorsports. Centrix will be the main sponsor on the team and will continue with associate sponsorship on MB2's #10 and #01 teams.

The new team, based in Concord, North Carolina, will field the #36 Chevy for Said, beginning with the season opener at Daytona. The decision on the other seven events on Said's minimum ten race schedule hasn't been finalized yet.

The Gatorade qualifying events for the Daytona 500 have been given a facelift. I'm sure that by now most of you have heard about the change. I think it's a big step in the right direction. Anytime a seasoning opening event gets more laps added to it, it's good for the fans who have been suffering for nearly three months with no current racing to watch.

The Twin 125's will now be the Twin 150's and carry the new name of "The Gatorade Duel at Daytona." The additional ten laps will add 25 miles to each of the two events, requiring the teams to make a pit stop during each of the Daytona 500 qualifying races. In previous years, the teams worked around the task of having to make pit stops during the events. The pit stops will change the racing strategy, and add a little more intrigue to the unique qualifying day. Keep in mind that the size of the fuel cells was changed a couple of years ago for restrictor plate events. Instead of the regular 22 gallon cells, the restrictor plate venues require the smaller 13.5 gallon cells. This change was made to require more pit stops during restrictor plate events in the hope of breaking up the proverbial racing parking lot.

This makes the second time in history that the events have been lengthened. From their beginning in 1959 up until 1968, the two qualifying events were 100 miles in length. Beginning with the 1969 season, they were lengthened to 125 laps up until the present.

Budweiser Pole Day is set for February 13th. This is the day that the first two positions in the Daytona 500 lineup are selected. The pole winner will start the first Gatorade Duel event on the pole, and the outside pole winner will start on the pole for the second Gatorade Duel event. The first 14 finishers, not including the pole position driver, in the first qualifying race will line up behind the pole winner, while the first 14 finishers of the second event will line up behind the outside pole winner in the Daytona 500. Positions 31 thru 38 will be awarded to drivers on qualifying speed who didn't get in the lineup in the qualifying events. Positions 39 thru 43 will be awarded as provisional starts to those who are entitled to a start based on the entry blank for the event. The Gatorade Duel at Daytona will take place on Thursday, February 17th, prior to the Daytona 500 event scheduled for Sunday, February 20th.

12/26/04… NASCAR is up in arms about a video that shows topless women at Cup Series events. I heard about it some time ago, and then saw an article in the Scene magazine about it. I'm not going to mention any companies or people that are being sued, because I don't want to get sued myself. I'm just going to offer my two cents worth of comments about it.

To begin with; women showing their bare chests at NASCAR events is something that's been going on for ages. I have friends who make the trek to different events every season, and they tell of the antics that go on in the infield on race weekends and during the races. I don't watch the events from the infield, so I don't have first hand experience with it; I prefer the grandstands, not the top of a motor home. I've heard that women showing their breasts is only part of it, there's a lot of other stuff going on as well.

As this behavior has been transpiring for a long time, it only stands to reason that some idiot would capture it on film and decide to use it in a documentary, or porn flick. Actually the filming was called a documentary about minority fans, and how they are treated at events, that initially ended up showing the bare women at the races.

NASCAR, of course, is suing the film company and anyone and everyone who has anything to do with the film or films. First of all, a few seasons ago when NASCAR amended the fine print on the back of the event tickets, the beginning of the end was in sight. NASCAR owns everything in eyesight at one of their events. If you go to a race and take pictures, NASCAR owns them, according to the fine print on the back of your tickets.

The main lawsuit that NASCAR is reported to have filed claims about is that an advertising agency is using the NASCAR name in their ad to sell videos of women at race events in sexually compromising positions. I checked out the racetrackgirls.com web site and found that it was just a plain porn site that was based on bare women at the races.