NASCAR America: Was NASCAR right to penalize Keselowski for body modification?

Brad Keselowski was assessed a penalty from NASCAR after it was deemed an illegal body modification was made during a Lap 24 pit stop when the team’s jackman slammed his body into the side of the car. Was it justifiable?

NASCAR announces start time changes to two Xfinity races

NASCAR announced Wednesday changes to the starting time for Xfinity races at Kansas Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway.
The Oct. 15 Xfinity race at Kansas Speedway will begin an hour earlier at 3 p.m. ET and will air on NBC.
The Nov. 12 Xfinity race at Phoenix International Raceway will move to a night race, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.
“These updates were made with the goal of benefitting NASCAR fans, with Kansas now airing on NBC and Phoenix airing in primetime,” said Steve Herbst, senior vice president, broadcasting and production at NASCAR, in a statement. “Our ability to adjust the start times for these two critically important races in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Chase is a testament to the collaboration between NASCAR, our broadcast partners, teams and tracks to deliver the best product possible to our fans.”
Both races are a part of the inaugural seven-race Chase for the Xfinity Series.

NASCAR on NBC podcast, Episode XXII: Brad Keselowski

After a hard-fought and controversial third-place rally Monday at Pocono Raceway, Brad Keselowski joined the NASCAR on NBC podcast and set the record straight on his team’s penalty.
“I would say that if I was NASCAR, I would have done something,” said Keselowski, whose team was ruled to have made an improper body modification on a pit stop. “To clear that up, I would say I would have done something not because the damage was impactful, but because you have to draw the line somewhere.
“I would kind of equate it to holding (in football). Did it impact the play or the race? Absolutely not. Was it wrong? Yes. … The other reason why I probably would draw an equivalence to holding is there’s probably holding on every play. You have to draw the line somewhere. If I’m NASCAR, I agree with them drawing the line. I, of course, hate that it was us. But they have to set a line.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, the 2012 Sprint Cup champion also offered perspective on joining the Sprint Cup Drivers Council this year.
“Every driver has a role of trying to make sure their sport stays relevant beyond themselves,” he said. “When I think of the Drivers Council, it doesn’t have a mission statement, but if I was to try to create a mission statement, one of the first things I’d think of putting in that mission statement is we are going to do things for the sport that probably won’t help it in our time in it as drivers.
“And that’s so hard to do because we get caught up thinking small term of ‘What can we do better tomorrow?’ But the big stuff is, ‘Where are we going to be in 10 years?’ So the council gives us a format to have these really big conversations to find solutions.”
Keselowski also discussed:
–The Team Penske philosophy of building speed through incremental gains and how difficult it is to strike the balance between patience and faith while trying to stay ahead of a playing surface that changes every week;
–His view of journalism in NASCAR;
–Why Sprint Cup cars also could be considered Transformers.
–How he helped influence the Sprint All-Star Race format and his surprise at some of his peers’ reaction (“There were a number of people that didn’t embrace the format and ran like they didn’t embrace the format, and that blew me out of the water”).
–His beginnings in the Greater Detroit area and how training in his dad’s race shop taught him life lessons (“it’s inherent to that community that your work ethic must be at a very high level.”).
You can listen to the podcast by clicking below or download and subscribe to it on iTunes. The free subscription will provide automatic downloads of new episodes to your smartphone. It also is available on Stitcher.

Here are time cues for easy referencing while listening to the episode:

Texas’ ‘Big Hoss’ is getting bigger, better and more useful

Not long after the end of this weekend’s Verizon IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway, the track’s “Big Hoss” TV will begin to undergo a facelift.

The videoboard, which is the largest the world and a Guinness World Record, will soon include a ribbon-style scoreboard at the bottom.

“Big Hoss,” will grow by 2,071 square feet to 22,704.64 square feet. The project is expected to take three weeks to complete and will debut during the November NASCAR weekend.

The scoreboard, which will replace the track’s two 110-foot scoring pylons, will feature race running order, lap counts and will display “advertising opportunities, graphics, race statistics, video, advertising and even social media” elements.

“Big Hoss” utilizes a selection of 19 different video cameras across the 1.5-mile track to display instant replays, latest driver and race stats, interactive entertainment, and more. And at night following on-track activity, the track shows movies for fans camping out in the track infield to enjoy.

Fire Alarm Services sponsoring John Hunter Nemechek at Texas

It’s no secret that John Hunter Nemechek has had sponsorship struggles in his last two seasons in the Camping World Truck Series.

last three races. Monday, NEMCO Motorsports announced it has added the sponsorship of Fire Alarm Services for Friday night’s Rattlesnake 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Nemechek, a two-time winner in the Truck series and the series’ most popular driver in 2015, has had to scrap together primary sponsorship for NEMCO Motorsports No. 8 Chevrolet in the first six races of the year.

After going sponsorless in the races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where Nemecheck won, and Martinsville Speedway, the team has had sponsorship by Andy’s Frozen Custard and Cricket SX3 in the last three races.

FAS has provided “fire and life safety and security services and products for protecting their client’s real estate investment” since 1997.

FAS, which has sponsored Regan Smith in the Xfinity and Sprint Cup Series, is sponsoring a team in the Camping World Truck Serie for the first time. It sponsored Smith in the April Sprint Cup race at Texas.

The Rattlesnake 400 is set for 9 p.m. ET Friday on Fox Sports 1.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has mixed feelings about Pocono runner-up finish

Dale Earnhardt Jr. left Pocono Raceway on Monday with a love-hate finish.
Earnhardt hated to finish second to race winner Kurt Busch in Monday’s race, not to mention also losing what may have been the best chance he had to reach victory lane this season.
“I could have been a little more aggressively doing some things differently,” Earnhardt said. “But we ended up getting tight and not really having anything anyways right at the end of the race, and (Busch) saved enough (fuel).”
But at the same time,Earnhardt loved his second-place finish – his best finish since placing second six races ago at Bristol.
Since that Bristol race, he’s struggled with five consecutive finishes outside of the top 10: 13th (Richmond), 40th (Talladega), 15th (Kansas), 32nd (Dover) and 14th (Charlotte).
“Yeah, (finishing second) certainly feels better than finishing 15th,” Earnhardt said. “When you get just a little bit behind in this series, holy moly, it takes so much work to just regain what you lost, not really even to have an advantage, just to get back to where you were. A tenth out on that racetrack is impossible to find.
“It’s a good step in the right direction. I felt like we could come in here and run good, and I think we learned a lot that we can understand how to get better for the next race here. I’m looking forward to Michigan, and obviously it’s going to be a different package, but I think we’ll run good on that track, too, and anticipate having a good run at Kentucky.”
Earnhardt is relieved that his slump could be over. He also has high hopes he can capture that elusive first win of the season, which would all but guarantee him a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
“We certainly finished better than we should have,” Earnhardt said. “Our car wasn’t quite a second-place car. We started off really tight and really slow, probably about a 15th-place car. Greg (Ives, crew chief) and the guys made a lot of changes and made the car better.”
Earnhardt criticized NASCAR for the minimal amount of practice at Pocono this weekend. While much of the reason was weather-related – including the postponement of Sunday’s race to Monday – Earnhardt suggested NASCAR should reevaluate its practice policies for Sprint Cup teams.
“We just didn’t get any practice,” he said. “The drivers have been asking NASCAR to take away the morning practice and add a little bit to the second one to make that Saturday practice an hour and a half, and we didn’t — it was just an hour.
“It takes you a minute to run around this track. You can’t get but 13 damned laps in practice. I don’t know how you’re supposed to figure out what your cars are doing. So we came into this race with no idea.
“We made a lot of changes last night. We basically put in an old setup that worked in the past, and it started off missing the mark pretty bad, but we worked on it and got it better, and we’ll take the points. We’ve had a rough month, so this is a decent finish for us.”

NASCAR America: How Kurt Busch saved enough fuel to win at Pocono

Kyle Petty and Dale Jarrett detail how Kurt Busch managed to save enough fuel to win Monday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway.