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Bench Racing caption contest – win a Boris Said hoodie

by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

March 1, 2008 11:18 pm UTC 18 Comments

Come up with the best caption for this picture taken of Mark Martin at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Saturday, prior to winning the Sam’s Town 300 and I have a great prize for ya.

Martin captured the Nationwide Series win driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s, JR Motorsports team. He did manage to take out his teammate-for-a-day, Brad Kesolowski, in the #88 Navy entry from JRM along the way. I’m thinking the caption should be….

If a Jedi…. uh I mean winner, you will become, careful on the track you must be, Luke…. uh Brad.

Maybe not.

We have a very cool hoodie sweatshirt from Boris Said and No Fear Racing for the winner. The contest runs through Tuesday, March 4 at 3 pm ET. To enter, give us your idea for the caption in the comment section of this post. We’ll announce the winner during Tuesday’s ON PIT ROW .

Photo Credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc

Filed under: Boris Said, Brad Kesolowski, Dale Earnhardt Jr., JR Motorsports, Mark Martin, Nationwide Series, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio

Tagged with: blog, Boris Said, Brad Kesolowski, Dale Earnhardt Jr., JR Motorsports, Mark Martin, NASCAR, Nationwide Series, No Fear Racing, ON PIT ROW

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Stats don’t lie – the New Car is racier

by Charlie Turner

February 15, 2008 9:18 am UTC 7 Comments

Statistics from the Gatorade Dual 150′s and the Budweiser Shootout are confirming the feeling that NASCAR’s New Car is going to improve the racing in the Sprint Cup Series.

There were 36 green flag passes for the lead in Dual #1, won incidentally by Dale Earnhardt Jr as he makes a play to sweep the weekend in his first with Hendrick Motorsports. Race #2 featured 35 green flag passes for the lead and Denny Hamlin and his Toyota Camry made the last one.

Only one time in the last eight Daytona 500 qualifying races have there been more passes for the lead under green and that was race #1 in 2006 with 44. The second Dual 150 that year had 25 passes. The 2005 tilts had 26 and 25 each while the 2007 races had 17 and 11 green flag passes for the lead.

36 lead changes is a bunch in a race with only sixty laps. Saturday night in the 70 lap Budweiser Shootout, Earnhardt Jr’s first win of the week, featured 64 green flag passes for the lead, the most since the inception of the stat in 2005!

One of the main complaints the last several years has been the inability of the old car to pass for the lead and the infamous aero-push. By golly I think they fixed it.

Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

Filed under: Car of Tomorrow, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Daytona 500, Denny Hamlin, Hendrick Motorsports, Sprint Cup Series, Toyota

Tagged with: blog, Boris Said, Dale Jarrett, Daytona 500, Gatorade Dual 150, Kenny Wallace, Lauren Wallace, motorsports, NASCAR, Warren Wallace

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Four will go and the rest go home

by Charlie Turner

February 14, 2008 8:51 am UTC No Comments

Boris Said is an ON PIT ROW favorite. He said yesterday that he’s either going to get his 7 Eleven – Spurpie – No Fear Racing Fusion into the Daytona 500 or it’s going home in a basket. Boris will be racing with six other go-or-go homers for two spots in NASCAR’s Super Bowl.

Warren Wallace’s other second cousin, Kenny Wallace, Red Bull twins Brian Vickers andA J Allmendinger, Awesome Bill Elliott, Daytona winner Sterling Marlin and Carl Long are the competition for Boris in race number one of the Gatorade Dual 150′s.

The wild card in that race is Kurt Busch. Busch’s owner’s points were transferred to teammate Sam Hornish Jr meaning Kurt has to either qualify on time or use his champion’s provisional to race a Sunday. In typical, stupid, Top 35 Rulefashion; if Busch is slow, he and two other drivers will transfer from this race. If he’s quick enough, it will leave just one other spot for someone else. I think Boris will edge the Toyotas and put another Ford in the big race.

Race two also has two starting spots up for grabs. Patrick Carpentier was the fastest of the bubble boys and he looked good in pole qualifying Sunday, using a driving line different from most everyone else. He’s up against fellow Canadian open wheel refugee Jacques Villenueve, veterans Dale Jarrett, Ken Shrader and John Andretti, Eric McClure and Stanton Barrett Jr.

Michael Waltrip said Sunday that Jarrett was getting all the best stuff from the MWR garage. If they had one car that was better or an engine that ran stronger, DJ was going to get it. Then Wednesday, they found that DJ had one of the engines that needed to be replaced. He’ll start at the back of the field and that won’t help. Shrader’s telling anybody who’ll listen how slow his Dodge has been. Andretti, McClure and Barrett are big underdogs. This one looks like it’s all Mapleleafs to me but Jarrett is next in line to use the champion’s provisional should Kurt Busch race his way to a starting spot.

To quote Warren – or is it Lauren – Wallace “the schooling starts right now.”

Filed under: Boris Said, Dale Jarrett, Daytona 500, Jacques Villeneuve, Kenny Shrader, Kenny Wallace, Sprint Cup Series, The Busch Bros, The Waltrips, The Wood Brothers, Top 35 Rule, Warren Wallace

Tagged with: blog, Boris Said, Dale Jarrett, Daytona 500, Gatorade Dual 150, Kenny Wallace, Lauren Wallace, motorsports, NASCAR, Warren Wallace

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NASCAR should request a Congressional hearing

by Steve Wronkowicz

I am co-host of the syndicated radio show: ON PIT ROW. Over ten years on the air and three on the net; see what can happen when I don't let the facts get in the way of my opinions.

February 14, 2008 7:45 am UTC 6 Comments

Congress needs to step in and right this wrong that’s being perpetrated on the sporting public.

Untitled Post In the midst of hearings to determine whether baseball players used steroids and if a certain football team taped practices of other teams, there is one topic that is much more important to look into. And its being ignored completely. Our esteemed members of congress need to convene to revamp the national holiday schedule.

As the culture of the United States changes, no longer can people relate to Presidents Day. Many US citizens don’t have the faintest clue about Lincoln or Washington. Labor Day–forget it–not much of a work ethic these days.

Congress needs to change these National Holidays, and we could probably add a couple of those “bank holidays” as well; to something that the average American can relate to. National Sports Days.

The National Sports Days plan would give every American six days off work, for sporting event patronage. Need to have the day off after the Super Bowl? That Monday could be one of your NSD days. I know that translates into “National Sports Day day”. Do you work the night shift and your team makes it to the World Series? Use your NSDs to watch, or attend.

Later today two of my favorite races will be televised by SPEED, live, and I will not be able to watch. I love The Duels. The format for qualifying for The 500 is unique, a bit convoluted, but unique, none the less. There have been many years where the results have had little interest to me, as far as who made the race and who didn’t. My guy would be in; but it was just a lot of fun to watch as desperate people had to resort to desperate measures to make THE race.

Tuesday ON PIT ROW, I picked Boris Said to win the 500. Yeah, I know, there was no gaurantee he would even be in the race. That’s what makes seeing this race so important to me. I want to see what Boris, and Herman, and Sterling, and all the others do to try and get themselves, their cars and their sponsors into The Great American Race.

Hello–Ted–I won’t be into work today. Write me up for a NSD. Oh and I’ll take one on Sunday too, if you have the unmitigated gall to schedule me to work. I’ll be watching the Daytona 500 and talking about it via live blog.

Be sure to log in to onpitrow.com on Sunday starting at 2pm ET. We had a great time with the live blog during the awards banquet. This will be even better.

Photo credit: Robert Leberge/Getty Images/NASCAR

Filed under: Boris Said, Daytona 500, Kenny Wallace, NASCAR, NASCAR Bidness, NASCAR Rumors, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio

Tagged with: blog, Boris Said, Daytona 500, Kenny Wallace, NASCAR, ON PIT ROW, Sterling Marlin, The Great American Race

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Head to Head driver challenge: Dodge vs Ford

by Charlie Turner

February 2, 2008 3:09 pm UTC 7 Comments

So Robby Gordon is switching from Ford to Dodge – who cares you say?

Ford fans ought to. At the end of the 2007 Nextel Cup season, the Blue Oval brigade looked to be a solid number two in the manufacturer’s championship race going into 2008′s inaugural Sprint Cup Series season. The thinking was Roush-Fenway Racing had slipped up and fallen behind the CoT and general testing programs of the big Chevy outfits. The Ford faithful assumed that Jack Roush would straighten out the problems and restore Ford to at least competitive equality with the dominant Hendrick-Gibbs-Childress troika.

Observers of preseason testing are telling us otherwise. The Joe Gibbs Racing move to Toyota has boosted that brand’s prospects. Many experts think that Toyota may well jump to number two status. Boris Said told us on last week’s ON PIT ROW that the speed and sheer numbers of the Toyotas will make it very tough for his Ford team to qualify for non-road course races.

Ford vs Dodge

The real question is; can Ford keep from falling to fourth, behind Dodge in the Cup Series? Look at the rosters of the two makes and compare.

Ford teams will field eight full time teams in 2008, led by Roush-Fenway’s fivesome. Dodge enters 2008 with a lucky thirteen. Seven of Ford’s eight have top 35 owner’s points while Dodge gets twelve of it’s thirteen in each of the first five races. So far it looks like, advantage Dodge, if quantity counts. If you’re one of those quality folks – here’s my personal Power Ranking of the Ford vs Dodge NASCAR battle.

#17 Ford -Matt Kenseth – past champ, two time 2007 race winner and Chaser
#2 Dodge – Kurt Busch – see above
#99 Ford – Carl Edwards – three time race winner in 2007 and Chaser
#12 Dodge – Ryan Newman – 12 career wins, no Chase but a solid 2007
#9 Dodge – Kasey Kahne – Bad 2007 but won 6 in 2006 – just a hunch
#16 Ford – Greg Biffle – Missed the Chase but got a win
#26 Ford – Jamie McMurray – see Biffle
#42 Dodge – Juan Pablo Montoya – 2007 Rookie of the Year won a race too
#43 Dodge – Bobby Labonte – past champ finished ahead of Kahne and Montoya
#41 Dodge – Reed Sorenson – his 2007 points put him here
#6 Ford - David Ragan – ditto
#19 Dodge – Elliott Sadler – very tempted to rate higher
#7 Dodge – Robby Gordon – ditto
#38 Ford – David Gilliland – The Yates team is Ford’s wild card, they hope
#40 Dodge – Dario Franchitti – I think the 2008 ROY will drive a Dodge
#28 Ford – Travis Kvapil – see Gilliland
#21 Ford – Bill Elliott et al – Awesome Bill’s provisionals will payoff later with starts
#45 Dodge – Kyle Petty – Must stay in the top 35
#77 Dodge – Sam Hornish Jr – My pick for ROY, but I’m hedging that bet
#10 Dodge – Patrick Carpentier – Going to have a tough time qualifying to race

I give the nod to Dodge. Kurt Busch and Kenseth are a push. Maybe the Ford boys get a slight edge in slots 3 through 8 but Newman and Kahne have championship capability in them – it’s close. The Dodge advantage is in depth and the fact that it’s major teams are all aggressive and growing. I like the look of Gillette-Evernham, Penske, Ganassi-Sabates and even Petty Enterprises over Roush-Fenway and the struggling Yates and Wood Brothers.

Picture credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

Filed under: Boris Said, Car of Tomorrow, Carl Edwards, Chase for the Cup, Chip Ganassi Racing, Evernham Motorsports, Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, Greg Biffle, Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne, Marcos Ambrose, NASCAR, Reed Sorenson, Robby Gordon, Robert Yates Racing, Roush Racing, Ryan Newman, Sprint Cup Series, Testing news, The Busch Bros, The Pettys