Last Saturday, Mark Martin secured his pole position for the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, which will take place February 14, 2010.

Behind the steering wheel of his number 5 Chevrolet, the 51 year old driver from Arkansas managed to earn the pole position driving at more than 191 mph at 191.188.  Next, on second place came Dale Earnhardt Jr., followed by Ryan Newman driving his number 39 Chevrolet.

Saturday’s qualifying decided only the front-row spots for the 500. The rest of the lineup will be set after Thursday’s two 150-mile qualifying races. Drivers who finished in the top 35 of last year’s owners standings are guaranteed to start somewhere.

On January and being at NASCAR’s Research and Development Center north of Charlotte, Brian France became annoyed at the implication that he has not been a good leader in his more than six years as NASCAR’s chief executive.  Truth is, many of the stakeholders in the sport feel much the same way about the CEO wondering if he wants to do the job, and why he did not adjust his managerial approach to leading the sport sooner as NASCAR began to have economic difficulties.  This problems included drops in attendance and TV ratings, both of which were falling before the recession hit.

Brain France has only been NASCAR’s leader since 2003, but many changes have taken place since then.  ”I’ve known Brian a long time, and I know he can do it.  But he’s got to stand up and say, ‘I’m in charge, we’re doing this. We’re on the same page, and we’re going to get this done,’” said Ray Evernham, former crew chief for Jeff Gordon.

In a brief interview -just before he ran from one meeting to another, talking to NASCAR owners and drivers, crew chiefs and marketers, track presidents and TV executives, as the start of a new season was just around the corner-,  France stated, “I have to lead in a way that fits my style and approach.  Not everybody is going to agree with that.”

The thing is he has been compared to his father, Bill Jr. and to his grandfather, Big Bill.  “If you’re going to compare me to somebody else, my father or whoever, I’m not going to be somebody else,” said a Brian, who has never been more active than in the months following the end of last season.  France’s offseason mission: meet with every track operator, broadcast partner and team by his self-imposed deadline of this week’s Daytona 500.

Beringer Vineyards will again sponsor Braun Racing No. 10 Toyota for three races: the Auto Club Speedway in February, Texas Motor Speedway in April and Chicagoland Speedway in July in 2010. This will be the fourth season of the Californian winery with the team.

David Reutimann – who has been a familiar face in the Nationwide Series since 2002-, will once again pilot the No. 10 Beringer Vineyards Toyota in those three events.  In 113 cumulative Nationwide Series starts, he has collected one win, 16 top-five and 40 top-10 finishes. In each of his four 2009 races he posted top-10 finishes.

Reutimann is pleased to have the opportunity to carry the Beringer Vineyards colors and to be able to continue competing in the Nationwide Series, if only on a limited basis.

“I’m excited to have the opportunity to join forces with Braun Racing and Beringer Vineyards for another season,” Reutimann said.  “Braun Racing is a first-class operation with a great group of people to support it.  That is the reason they have been able to grow and expand into four full-time teams for 2010.  I look forward to working with them again next season and competing to give Beringer their first win as a primary sponsor in the Nationwide Series.”

Danica Patrick who finished 6th in the ARCA 200-mile race last Saturday, February 6^th,  will participate Saturday’s Camping World 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

Beyond Daytona, Patrick’s 2010 campaign is confirmed starting with the Feb. 20 race at Auto Club Speedway and the Feb. 27 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Following Vegas, Patrick will take a four-month hiatus to focus on her IndyCar Series responsibilities before returning to drive June 26 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

ARCA stock cars are almost identical to Nationwide Series cars. Patrick’s ARCA start Saturday was the first race in a stock car for the Roscoe, Ill., driver, who in 2008 became the first woman to win an IndyCar event.

Her participation in the Camping World race was contingent on her performance on the high-banked Daytona track. Patrick veered off track after contact with a car driven by former Formula 1 driver Nelson Piquet, Jr., and slid sideways through the grass into Turn 1.

Her car sustained minor damage when it struck the 31-degree banking of the corner, but she rallied from the back of the pack and ran as high as 5th before the checkered flag waved.

JR Motorsports will still field two cars for the Nationwide Series season opener. Due to sponsorship reallocation for the upcoming season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive the No. 88 Chevrolet in place of Kelly Bires in what is the first of two scheduled races for the JRM co-owner. Bires will return to the seat of the No. 88 Chevy the following week at Auto Club Speedway and could be called upon to drive the No. 7 Chevrolet at Daytona should Patrick not compete in that event.

“We want to give Danica the best opportunity to compete at Daytona, and that includes making sure she is 100 percent comfortable in that driver’s seat,” said Kelley Earnhardt, JRM co-owner and general manager.

The Gatorade Duel, is NASCAR Sprint Cup Series preliminary event to the Daytona 500 held annually in February at Daytona International Speedway.  It consists of two 150-mile (240 km) races, and serves as a qualifying race for the Daytona 500. The finishing order in the two 150-mile (240 km) races, held on Thursday, determine the starting lineup for the Daytona 500 held on Sunday.

Qualifying for the Daytona 500 is unique in NASCAR. Only the two front row starters (the pole position and “outside pole”) are determined by the ordinary qualifying process of timed laps. After the top two positions are locked in, the rest of the starting grid is set by the finishing order of these two races. Drivers participate in one of the two races. Half the field entered for the Daytona 500 races in the first race, and the other half the second. The finishing order of the first race fills the odd positions of the starting grid (inside of each row), and the finishing order for the second race fills the even positions of the starting grid (outside of each row).

Sprint Cup Series cars are unique in automobile racing. The engines are powerful enough to reach speeds over 200 mph (320 km/h), but high weight makes for poor handling. Their bodies and chassis are strictly regulated to ensure parity, and electronics are generally simple.

In 2009, Jimmie Johnson was the only driver to win 4 consecutive Sprint Cup championships.

Pilot Kasey Kahne declared he wants to give his situation –staying with Richard Petty Motorsports-, a really good opportunity, a really legit shot at showing him that RPM is where he needs to be.  On his part, RPM management clearly wants him to stay. “It is our intention to try and keep Kasey Kahne,” managing partner Foster Gillett said

Now, with the Yates merger complete and a stable management team seemingly in place — George Gillett and Petty remain owners, with former Yates co-owner Max Jones now aboard as president and general manager — Kahne seems content to let performance make his decision for him.

He stated he was made an offer already and he “… just wants to wait and see. That’s the biggest thing, just performance, how can I win races and do that kind of stuff.”  He added that he’s really hoping that this merger and things with the Roush people and Yates is going in that direction.

This Saturday Kevin Harvick won Budweiser Shootout at Daytona for second consecutive time, but even though he’s very happy, he’s aware that this victory does not guarantee his success in the 2010 race at Daytona 500

Last year, Harvick almost won the Daytona 500 race where he finished in second position after Matt Kenseth.  However, his overall performance during the whole season was far from what he expected.  Still he had to admit he’s excited after winning Saturday’s non-points event behind the wheel of his No. 29 RCR-powered Chevrolet for the second consecutive year.

Although he said there are no guarantees that things improve this year, he hopes that the rest of the season is much better than the last. He declared “he is painfully aware of the fickle nature of races at Daytona International Speedway. What he accomplished Saturday night was great, but in the long run of Speedweeks at DIS it may not mean a whole lot, or even anything at all.

“I’ve been here enough times to know this can be a funny week,” Harvick said. “It can mess with you time after time. Hour by hour can bring something that’s unexpected, just like getting sick to start the week. I mean, that’s not something that you plan for or can plan for.

“Getting sick … having the car wrecked in the first practice with someone else driving it … there are just so many variables that can get thrown at you this week, you just have to stay even keel. This is great that we won this race. We’re all really excited about what we want to do. But the big picture is on Sunday. It’s just taking it hour by hour, one day at a time, and stay concentrated.”

Jeff Gordon is a famous American race car driver who was born in 1971 in Vallejo, California. He has won the Nascar Winston Cup four times, and he drives car #24 for Hendrick Motorsports. As of this writing, one of his most prominent sponsors is DuPont. Jeff Gordon began racing when he was only five years of age. He loved to race cars, and his family was supportive of him. His family actually relocated primarily because they wanted Jeff to be in a location where he could better harness his racing skills. While he was still a minor, Jeff had already won a number of races and was given the USAC Midget Car Racing Rookie of the Year award.

After this, Gordon went on to win the USAC Midget title, and by 1991, he had gained the USAC Silver Crown. He broke a record by being the youngest person to ever capture the title. He went to the Busch Series after this, and had a large number of victories. Gordon crashed his car during the the Hooters 500 race in Atlanta in 1992, and this caused him to be placed in the 31st position. Jeff Gordon was one of many young racers who would be placed on high quality teams early in their careers. The success of Jeff Gordon allowed a younger generation of racers to begin competing in Nascar.

Many critics felt that Gordon was not ready to compete at the professional level because of his habit of racing cars so hard that he crashed them. However, Gordon proved them all wrong during the 1994 season, were he emerged victorious in the Lowe’s Motor Speedway, which was a long and difficult race. Gordon would also go on to win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Brickyard 400. In 1995 he won what would become the first of four Winston Cup Championships. Jeff Gordon is also famous for rising up against the legendary Dale Earnhardt, and he has become a fan favorite.

Many people consider Jeff Gordon to be one of the greatest drivers in Nascar because he achieved so much at a very young age. Even at 35 years of age, Jeff Gordon has successfully won 75 races, which is just one victory behind Dale Earnhardt. Jeff Gordon is also notable for making Nascar a popular sport with mainstream audiences. For a long time, the sport was only regulated to the south, but Jeff Gordon has allowed it to reach a high level of popularity due to advertising and his skills with the media.

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The great heights and popularity that the NASCAR automobile competition is getting will be fully covered by ESPN and ABC television networks, which have guaranteed the 17 tests for the next season’s broadcasts.

The remaining 41 tests will be broadcast by the National network FOX (14), cable’s TNT (6) and SPD (4), respectively.
The competition will again have among its outstanding pilots the Colombian, Juan Pablo Montoya -who last season finished on 8th place of the championship’s competition-, will begin February 6 with the initial text in the Daytona International Speedway.

But it will not be but until February 21, a week after the Daytona 500 Mile classic race, that the Sprint Cup Series competition will begin at California’s Auto Club Speedway.
Nevertheless, ESPN and ABC will not begin the 17 broadcasts they have programmed until July 25 with the Brickyard 400 test, and will complete them when the season ends with the 10 races that define the NASCAR champion with the Sprint Cup Chase series.  The last one will be the one that will take place at Homestead (Miami), in November 21.

ESPN will broadcast 14 tests, while ABC -the National network from the same business group and which last season broadcast 11-, this year will only broadcast three, and all of them on Saturday night.
ESPN’s broadcast races’ schedules will be: 1:00 PM (18:00 GMT) for the East Coast and 3:00 PM (20:00 GMT) in the West Coast, except for Atlanta’s on September 25, which will begin at 7:30 PM (00:30 GMT).
The three races broadcast by ABC on Saturday nights will be Bristol, Tennessee, (August 21), Richmond, Virginia, (September 11) and Charlotte, North Carolina, (October 16), at 7:30 PM (00:30 GMT).
John Skipper, ESPN Executive Vice-President, stressed in an official press release about the excellent results the network had last year with NASCAR competition’s broadcast.
“All we did last year showed us that ESPN is the best network for NASCAR”, Skipper underlined. For his part, Paul Brooks, NASCAR Media Group’s President, likewise in an official press release, praised all of ESPN’s subscriber base which has special relevance among the young population segment.

“They are wonderful news for our NASCAR competition fans,” said Brooks in the press release.  ”The ESPN subscriber base is of nearly 100 million and the network has a special gift to attract young viewers.”
Brooks recognized that this ESPN reality will allow the NASCAR competition to be viewed more, which will benefit all equally.

Last season, US Jimmy Johnson (6.652 points) won the championship title for fourth consecutive year, being the first to do this in the history of the competition.
Montoya, who fought among the firsts until the last two Sprint Cup Chase tests, finished on eighth position, with 6.252 points and winning 5.270.120 million dollars, in what was his second season in the NASCAR competition.

With all respect to Kyle Busch and his 20 victories covering three series, Jimmie Johnson is still the man. Say what you want about driving for Rick Hendrick’s “evil empire,” how much of a factor Chad Knaus adds to the equation and how the Chase arrange (which I personally still despise) has played to his strengths, Johnson has four very large silver bowls in his possession, all with his name engraved as NASCAR champion. Only three another men in the 60-year history of NASCAR can claim to have won at least four Cup championships:Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon . Think about that for just a present moment. We’re talking three of the excellent drivers ever, and Johnson — who just turned 34 — definitely deserves to be a part of that conversation.

Jarrod Breeze
Kyle Busch did some special things this year, most notably in the Nationwide and Truck series. Fiftysomethings Ron Hornaday and Mark Martin pooh-poohed the age thing. Tony Stewart was successful as an owner/driver. Did you know Jeff Gordon led the Cup Series with 25 top-10s and tied for most top-fives with 16? But at the end of the day, at the end of the season, the matter in NASCAR that matters most is the Cup championship. And that title belongs to Jimmie Johnson, the face of NASCAR in 2009. End of discussion.

Richard Childress Racing pit crew member Donald “D.J.” Richardson Jr., passed away December 25 in a Massachusetts hospital from ramifications of the H1N1 virus. He was 37.

Richardson, of Leominster, Mass., contracted the H1N1 virus over the Thanksgiving holiday. He was admitted to Health Alliance Hospital in Leominster for evaluation, where it was found he was suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome.

“All of us at RCR are saddened by D.J.’s passing,” said Richard Childress, president and CEO of Richard Childress Racing. “D.J. was a gifted tire changer, one of the greatest team players in the business and a valued member of the RCR family. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.”

Richardson engaged RCR in July 2009 and finished the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season as the rear-tire changer for the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet Impala SS team. He began his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career with Andy Petree Racing in 1999. He has also worked for Penske Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Braun Racing.

“I am shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and teammate,” said Matt Clark, director of human performance and leadership development of Richard Childress Racing. “Anyone who knew D.J. realized that below the tough exterior was a caring father, friend and teammate. He had a huge heart and would do anything to help someone in need. D.J. loved changing tires and was recognized as one of the top pit athletes at the position. I want to extend my condolences to his family and friends.”
Funeral arrangements have been made and the viewing will be Tuesday, December 29, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., at Silas F. Richardson and Son Funeral Home in Leominster, Mass. The funeral will be Wednesday, December 30, at 11 a.m. at St. Marks Church in Leominster, Mass. In lieu of flowers, a memorial fund for his three children is being established, with details to follow as soon as possible.

Details of a commemoration service in North Carolina are pending and will also be made available as soon as possible.