NASCAR Basics: The Sprint All-Star Race

The Sprint All-Star Race, formerly known as The Winston and the Nextel All-Star Challenge, is a non-points event held in May at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The race is open to drivers who have won a race in the current or previous season, past Sprint Cup champions*, and former winners of the event. The Sprint Showdown, held just before the All-Star race, is open to drivers who haven't otherwise qualified. The top two finishers of the Showdown transfer into the All-Star Challenge. In addition, one driver is also voted in by the fans. Voting is going on now. You must register at NASCAR.com, but you can vote as often as you like.

The race was first run in 1985 and has been held at Lowe's Motor Speedway every year except 1986, when it was run at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The format has changed many times over the years. Currently, the race is 100 laps run in four 25-lap segments. A ten-minute "halftime" break follows the second segment. The third and fourth segments are separated by a five-lap caution period. Drivers will make a mandatory pit stop (at least a "stop and go") during the break.

Since no points are on the line, only prize money, look for drivers to take chances that they normally wouldn't take. Because the racing is so hard, drivers almost always prepare separate cars for the Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600, held at Lowe's on the following weekend.

The All-Star weekend's festivities also include the Burnout Competition, the Pit Crew Challenge, and a Craftsman Truck Series race. Speed TV has almost 90 hours of NASCAR programming planned for the week, including 48 hours of consecutive coverage beginning May 16 at 6 a.m. EDT. (Speed TV Schedule)

Apropos of nothing, Friday, May 16 is NASCAR Day. A five dollar contribution to the NASCAR Foundation gets you a nifty pin and a warm feeling in the cockles of your heart.

* The past champions must have won the championship in the past ten years and competed in a Cup race in the current or previous season. This season's All-Star Race will be the final race for Dale Jarrett, who retired after this season's Bristol race.

Apropos Monday Music: "Land of Confusion"

Disturbed did a version of this, but Genesis's original version is better...and has a better video...



Lyrics:

I must've dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They're moving into the street.

Now did you read the news today?
They say the danger's gone away
But I can see the fires still alight
They're burning into the night.

There's too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Cant you see this is a land of confusion?

Well, this is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

Ooh, Superman, where are you now?
When everything's gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.

This is the time
This is the place
So we look for the future
But there's not much love to go round
Tell me why this is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

I remember long ago -
Ooh, when the sun was shining
Yes, and the stars were bright
All through the night
And the sound of your laughter
As I held you tight
So long ago -

I won't be coming home tonight
My generation will put it right
We're not just making promises
That we know we'll never keep.

Too many men
There's too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Cant you see this is a land of confusion?

Now this is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth fighting for.

This is the world we live in
And these are the names we're given
Stand up and let's start showing
Just where our lives are going to.

Weekend Assignment: Everyone's a Critic

Karen dispenses the weekend assignments at Outpost Mavarin...

Weekend Assignment #215: Review a film. Any film. Got something interesting to say about Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903)? I'd love to read it. Metropolis (1927)? Why not? A Night in Casablanca (1946)? Fine. The Seventh Seal (1957)? Er, okay! Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)? You'll get away with it. Speed Racer (2008)? Go for it. From Hollywood to Ballywood to Hong Kong, from Kubrick to Kurasawa, it's all on the W.A. marquee. But there's one catch: the film should not be on your personal list of favorites; nor should it be a film you despise.

I guess I'll take on the most recent movie I've seen...

Stephen King's The Mist

Director Frank Darabont has never heard the old adage "Quit while you're ahead." After almost flawless turns of adapting a Stephen King novella (Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption) and novel (The Green Mile) to the big screen, Darabont returns to King's material again, this time with mixed results.

The Mist (the novella) is vintage King with ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances, full of heart-stopping action and suspense. It's a far cry from the more peaceful, more thought-provoking material Darabont has worked with before, but Darabont handles it beautifully, keeping us on the edge of our seats throughout most of the movie.

A recurring theme in some of King's work is that we (the human race) aren't too far removed from the beasts and that once the lights go out and the phones don't work, we'll swiftly devolve back to our primitive state, especially when a heightened state of fear is involved. Stephen King's The Mist begins with the lights and the phones already off.

After a big storm, people start noticing a strange mist where it shouldn't be. Artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) goes to town with his son and his neighbor to pick up some supplies and gets caught at the local supermarket when the titular mist suddenly rolls in and engulfs the town. A townie comes running into the store, screaming about "something in the mist." Suddenly, almost everyone is content to remain in the store. Strange creatures appear from out of the mist and pick off the occasional hapless minor character. Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), the town crackpot who gets her worldview from the Bible and Weekly World News, begins preaching about the end of the world and very shortly has attracted a devoted following, the majority of the 30 or 40 people trapped in the store.

One of the major flaws of the movie is how quickly sane, sensible people begin gravitating to such an obvious fruitcake. Eventually Drayton and a small band of his followers must decide whether to stay or go, whether to face the monsters in the mist or stay there with the monsters their neighbors have become.

King, in his novella, comes to an inconclusive conclusion. You don't know how the story turns out, but the protagonists are out of the market and on the road trying to find where the mist ends. It's not conclusive, but it's a good ending for the havoc and mayhem that has come before. Darabont, not knowing when to quit, keeps going with the story. He shows us some amazing scenes and monsters, but doesn't stop until he ends up with one of the worst endings in horror movie history, possibly rivaling the 2001 remake of the Planet of the Apes for stupidest, most unsatisfying movie ending of all time.

Extra Credit: Is there a film due out this summer that you plan to go see? If so, what is it?

I really haven't followed movies much lately. I'm not sure what is due to come out. I guess I'm most eager to see if they screwed up the Iron Man trailer by adapting it into a full-length motion picture.

NASCAR: Darlington Results

Even though, by his own estimation, he hit the wall "I don't know, one, two, three, four, probably five or six" times and had a pit road penalty for missing a lug nut, Kyle Busch made it look easy in Saturday night's Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway. Busch took the lead for good when he passed Jeff Gordon on lap 285 (Dale Earnhardt Jr. was credited with leading lap 303 due to his position on pit road, but Busch won the race off of pit road) and won going away. He led a race-high 169 of the 367 laps and bested Carl Edwards by 3.115 seconds. Busch's average speed of 140.350 mph over 500 miles broke Dale Earnhardt's record of 139.958 mph set in March of 1993. Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and David Ragan rounded out the Top 5.

Pole-sitter Greg Biffle was Busch's main competition for most of the evening, but had trouble with loose wheels and finally a broken timing belt. He led 95 laps but was done on lap 234, finishing dead last -- 43rd. No pole-sitter has won a race this season.

The freshly paved track led to high speeds all weekend -- Biffle and 40 of the 44 other drivers who completed a qualifying lap bested Ward Burton's twelve-year track speed record during Friday qualifying -- but the Lady in Black was still too tough to tame, claiming many victims Saturday night. Elliott Sadler got loose on the second lap and slid up into Tony Stewart, pinching him into the wall. Stewart continued with damage and finished a lap down in 21st position. Sadler went to the garage for a while, but came back and logged a lot of laps to finish 42nd. On lap 301, Martin Truex Jr. got into Denny Hamlin and sent him for a spin, but Hamlin avoided all the walls and continued to finish seventh. Sam Hornish Jr., Kevin Harvick, Brian Vickers, Casey Mears, and A. J. Allmendinger weren't so lucky; they all hit the wall hard at various points in the race. Countless others collected a Darlington stripe.

Kyle Busch, 23, is the youngest winner ever at Darlington. The victory is his third in the Sprint Cup Series and his eighth in NASCAR's top three series. He increases his lead in the points standings to 79 points over Jeff Burton who cruised home in tenth position. Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne dropped out of the Top 12. Jeff Gordon jumped three positions to tenth. David Ragan jumped two spots to twelfth.

A large group of mothers of NASCAR drivers gave the "Gentlemen, start your engines!" command in the pre-race ceremonies in honor of Mothers Day. NASCAR.com has a great article on the trials and tribulations of being a NASCAR mom.

Race Results
Points Standings
Race Videos
Race Rewind


NNS: Diamond Hill Plywood 200

Tony Stewart won his first race ever at Darlington, Friday night's Nationwide race, the Diamond Hill Plywood 200. Stewart survived a few late restarts, a couple of red flags, and a green-white-checkered finish for his fourth win in six Nationwide starts this season. It was Joe Gibbs Racing's eighth Nationwide win in twelve races. It was the fourth win in a row for the #20 car, with Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch all taking turns behind the wheel during the streak.

Stewart beat Nationwide Series points leader Clint Bowyer by 0.815 seconds. Bowyer took over second after a Big One with just three laps to go took out half of the Top 10. David Ragan spun and hit the wall on lap 138 of 147 to bring out a caution. On the restart with three laps to go, Mark Martin, in second place at the time, stalled and was hit by Jason Leffler. The rest of the field stacked up behind them and six cars were heavily damaged. The race was red-flagged while track workers towed off some cars and cleaned up the mess.

Matt Kenseth was Stewart's main competition, but he headed to pit road with a wheel vibration. After changing all four tires, he was "driving way over my head," trying to catch the first car one lap down to become the Lucky Dog and wrecked, bringing out the other red flag.

Carl Edwards had the shortest evening. He started on the outside of the front row, went into Turn 3 too hot and hit the wall, then blew a tire and hit the wall hard, ending his day before two laps were complete.

Clint Bowyer now has a pretty substantial lead in the series. He's 112 points ahead of Kyle Busch and 150 points ahead of Edwards, who drops to third.

Race Results
Points Standings
Race Videos

Next weekend, the Nationwide Series takes a break. The Craftsman Truck Series returns after two open weekends for the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Some of the Sprint Cup drivers will also be driving at Lowe's in a non-points race, the Sprint All-Star Challenge.

Civil War: The Battle of Stones River and the Tullahoma Campaign

After posting about the Western Theater campaigns pre-Chickamauga the other day, I decided to rescue this old post from my defunct Civil War blog. This is the story of the Battle of Stones River (Murfreesboro, Tn.) and the Tullahoma Campaign. I've done a little editing to make it a little more readable and add some links.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant spent most of November and December of 1862 trying to get at the Mississippi River stronghold of Vicksburg. He was finally forced to give up the attempt after cavalry raids by forces under Nathan Bedford Forrest and Earl Van Dorn tore up his supply lines. On December 13, 1862, at Fredericksburg, Virginia, Union forces suffered one of their worst defeats of the war when wave after wave of Yankee attackers were cut down in front of the stone wall at the base of Marye's Heights. And in Tennessee, on December 26, Union General William Starke Rosecran's Army of the Cumberland left their base at Nashville to confront Confederate General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee near the little town of Murfreesboro. The ultimate goal of this Federal campaign was to drive the Rebel army out of Tennessee, and, in the process, capture Chattanooga, Tennessee, a key strategic position where the railroad lines of the eastern and western sections of the Confederacy converged.

Rosecrans's campaign also had important political ramifications. The mountains and valleys of east Tennessee were filled with pro-Unionist yeoman farmers who detested the slaveholding secessionist aristocrats. On June 21, 1861, Tennesseans had voted by a 2-to-1 margin for secession, but east Tennesseans had voted against it by a 3-to-1 margin. President Abraham Lincoln had made liberating these Unionists a priority early in the war, but distance, logistics, and the forbidding terrain had hampered military operations. Now, Rosecrans and his 42,000-man army were on the offensive.

Braxton Bragg's army was lined up in an arc just north of Murfreesboro. The Stones River, the Nashville Turnpike, and the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad all sliced perpendicularly through his position. Bragg had about 8000 fewer men than Rosecrans, but a much more effective cavalry. On December 29, he sent Joseph Wheeler's cavalry off on a ride completely around the Union army to wreak havoc on Rosecrans's supply trains. Rosecrans kept coming, and by the next day had his army in line of battle confronting Bragg.

In keeping with their habit on naming battles after nearby towns, the Confederates would call it the Battle of Murfreesboro. The Federals preferred to name battles after nearby bodies of water; they called it the Battle of Stones River. (This naming preference would also apply to the names of armies. Confederates named their armies after the sections to be defended: the Army of Tennessee. Federals named their armies after rivers: the Army of the Cumberland.)

Both commanders planned similar attacks: attack the enemy's right flank and knock it back, and get into his rear, cutting him off from his base. If they had attacked simultaneously, the two armies might have spun around in a great circle, but Bragg beat Rosecrans to the punch.

At dawn on December 31, 1862, 13,000 men massed on the Confederate left flank attacked, catching the Yankees at breakfast. General Alexander McDowell McCook's corps took the brunt of the attack - two of his divisions were scattered. Philip Sheridan, commanding McCook's third division, saved the Union army from disaster. Sheridan had his division awake and ready by 4:00 a.m. When the attack came, they were overwhelmed, but gave ground grudgingly and at great cost to the enemy - and themselves. More than one-third of his men were killed, wounded, or missing after four hours of fighting; all three of Sheridan's brigade commanders were killed. Despite Sheridan's efforts, the Union right flank was driven back nearly three miles. During the crisis, Rosecrans was constantly on the move, riding from one danger zone to another to rally his men, barely pausing even when his chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Julius P. Garesche, was beheaded by a cannon ball while riding right beside him.

By noon, the Union line was bent back at almost a right angle. Bragg focused his attention on the angle at a patch of woods called the Round Forest. John Bowers, author of Chickamauga and Chattanooga - The Battles that Doomed the Confederacy, said of the ground that "if Bragg had studied the map for a year, he could not have picked a worse spot." Troops were sent across an open field, already littered with their comrades' bodies, to strike at an enemy dug into tree-lined fortifications. A Mississippi brigade charged and fell, followed by a brigade of Tennesseans, who also fell. Finally, four brigades commanded by John C. Breckinridge, James Buchanan's vice president and a presidential candidate in 1860, went forward, attacking the position until nightfall. The Union army held.

During the night, Braxton Bragg wired news to Richmond of his army's great victory and the enemy's retreat. He was more than a little astonished when he awoke on New Year's Day, 1863, and found Rosecrans's army still in his front. But the two armies were all fought out. All was quiet along Stones River expect for some desultory skirmishes. The most noteworthy action of the day was the occupation of a hill on the east side of the river by a Union division. On January 2, Bragg ordered Breckinridge to clear the Yankees off that hill. Breckinridge vehemently protested the order. His men would have to cross open ground exposed to enfilading artillery fire from the west side of the river. When Bragg insisted, Breckinridge had no choice but to follow orders. The attack went just as Breckinridge thought it would. His men swept forward and reached the Union line, only to be cut down by fifty-eight Union guns. The survivors were driven back to their original position by a Union counterattack. Breckinridge lost 1500 men in an hour.

Bragg mulled over his options. His army was exhausted, and more than a third of his men were killed, wounded, or missing. Recent rains were causing Stones River to rise. He feared being trapped where he stood. When he awoke on Jonuary 3 to find the Union army still in place, receiving reinforcements from Nashville, he ordered a retreat. He pulled his army back behind the Stones and Duck Rivers. The Union army was in no condition to pursue Bragg's army. They had suffered a casualty rate of 31 percent. Stones River was the most deadly battle of the war in proportion to the number of men involved.

Rosecrans went into winter quarters at Murfreesboro. After the failures at Vicksburg and Fredericksburg, the North was rejuvenated by the news from Stones River. Lincoln wired Rosecrans to congratulate him on his "hard earned victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could hardly have lived over."

Bragg settled into winter quarters at Tullahoma, with his wings guarding the passes through the mountains. Bragg's army was rife with dissension from top to bottom. He was never a popular general (Sam Watkins, a private in the Army of Tennessee, wrote of Bragg in his diary, "Not a single soldier in the whole army ever loved or respected him."), but now the men in the ranks felt that they were winning great victories that Bragg was throwing away. Twice in three months, at Stones River and at Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8, 1862, the Confederate troops had routed the Federals only to have Bragg lose the momentum and retreat. The dissension in the ranks went right up the chain of command. In January, 1863, Bragg sent a letter around to all his corps and division commanders, asking for their views on his ability to lead the army. There was almost unanimous agreement with Patrick Cleburne's assessment that "you do not possess the confidence of the army...in that degree necessary to secure success." Corps commanders William J. Hardee and Leonidas Polk wrote to President Jefferson Davis, asking him to replace Bragg with General Joseph E. Johnston, the overall commander of the western department. Division commander John Breckinridge was ready to challenge Bragg to a duel over his "poor orphans." The Orphan Brigade, Breckinridge's first command, so called because they were Kentuckians fighting for the South while their state remained in the Union, had been decimated in the January 2 attack.

Davis sent Johnston to Tullahoma to investigate. Johnston reported back that he had found the army to be in good condition with high morale. Yes, some of the officers were hostile toward Bragg, but the army was well disciplined and ready to fight. Johnston suggested that if a change in leadership was to be made the new commander should come from outside the Army of Tennessee, perhaps James Longstreet. Davis had probably expected Johnston to take command, but Johnston, letters to his friends suggest, was angling to return to his old command, head of the Army of Northern Virginia. In March, the War Department ordered Johnston to take command. He refused. Bragg's wife was ill. It wouldn't be right to remove him under such circumstances.

William Starke Rosecrans was a rising star in the Union army. He had been instrumental in the Union victories in western Virginia that "liberated" the pro-Unionists of that section from Confederate control, allowing the federal government to carve out the new state of West Virginia. He had fought with Grant's army in Mississippi, helping to win the battles of Iuka and Corinth. But Lincoln's admiration for Rosecrans after Stones River turned to consternation in the spring of 1863. Ulysses S. Grant was on the move again in Mississippi. General Joseph Hooker, now in command of the Army of the Potomac, was ready for another offensive in Virginia. Lincoln wanted Rosecrans to advance in concert with Grant and Hooker, keeping pressure on all of the main Confederate armies at once to keep them from reinforcing each other, but Rosecrans refused to move until he was ready. He wanted more men, more ammunition, more horses, more supplies. Lincoln was beginning to believe he had another McClellan on his hands - another general with a case of "the slows." Lincoln was especially perturbed when Rosecrans's failure to advance allowed Bragg to send reinforcements to Mississippi.

Fighting Joe Hooker moved swiftly and trapped Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia between the two wings of his army. Lee turned the tables and won an astonishing victory. James McPherson summarized the Battle of Chancellorsville: "Without Longstreet and with little more than half as many men as an enemy that had initially outmaneuvered him, Lee had grasped the initiative, gone over to the attack, and had repeatedly divided and maneuvered his forces in such a way as to give them superiority or equality of numbers at the point of attack. Like a rabbit mesmerized by the gray fox, Hooker was frozen into immobility and did not use half his power at any time in the battle." In Mississippi, Grant started a new campaign. In seventeen days, he marched 180 miles, fought and won five engagements, and finally reached Vicksburg. After two attacks in four days failed to penetrate the town's defenses, Grant settled in for a siege to starve the defenders out. Rosecrans, facing Bragg in Tennessee, was still not ready to advance.

Finally, on June 24, almost seven months after Stones River, Rosecrans began to move. By then, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was roaming around in the Pennsylvania countryside, heading for a showdown at Gettysburg. Rosecrans moved rapidly, sending General Gordon Granger's corps off to the right and General Thomas L. Crittenden's off to the left. Both had instructions to make feints to confuse Bragg. The main attack would come from General George H. Thomas's and General Alexander McCook's corps; they were rushing straight up the middle. Then came the deluge, a driving rain that sank the wagons axle-deep in mud. The Union troops withstood it as best they could, and kept moving forward.

Bragg was on the ropes. He explained the problem: "It is easy to defend a mountainous country, but mountains hide your foe from you, while they are full of gaps through which he can pounce upon you at any time. A mountain is like the wall of a house full of rat holes. The rat lies hidden at his hole, ready to pop out when no one is watching. Who can tell what is hidden behind that wall?" After a brief counterattack at Liberty Gap that accomplished little, Bragg began withdrawing his army back toward Chattanooga.

Rosecrans halted again. In just over a week, his Army of the Cumberland had driven Bragg's Army of Tennessee eighty miles in an almost bloodless campaign. On July 7, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sent Rosecrans a message. Lee's army had been defeated at Gettysburg. Grant had captured Vicksburg. "You and your noble army now have the chance to give the finishing blow to the rebellion. Will you neglect the chance?" Rosecrans, feeling decidedly unappreciated, answered back, "You do not appear to observe the fact that this noble army has driven the rebels from Middle Tennessee...I beg in behalf of this army that the War Department may not overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood."

Rosecrans planned strategy and repaired his supply lines. Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck pressed him to begin moving again. They had General Ambrose Burnside, in command of the 24,000-man Army of the Ohio, ready to move in concert with Rosecrans. When Rosecrans moved on Chattanooga, Burnside would move south from Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap to take Knoxville and cover Rosecrans's left flank. Finally, on August 16, Rosecrans was ready to begin his campaign to take Chattanooga.

NASCAR: Darlington Preview

Updated below

This is the weekend NASCAR makes its yearly pilgrimage back to its origins, back to Darlington Raceway, a quirky little track on the outskirts of Darlington, South Carolina. Like last weekend at Richmond, we've got night races again. Don't look for races on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Look for them the evenings before. The Sprint Cup race, the Dodge Challenger 500, kicks off at 7 p.m. EDT Saturday evening (Fox). The Nationwide Series race, the Diamond Hill Plywood 200, starts Friday evening at 7 p.m. EDT (ESPN2).

Darlington is The Lady in Black or the track that's Too Tough to Tame. It's a pretty unique place, an egg-shaped oval with high banked turns and high speeds. Turns 1 & 2 are long and sweeping while Turns 3 & 4 are a lot tighter. The story is that Harold Brasington, who had the idea for building the track, wanted a 1-1/4 mile oval, but had to reconfigure his blueprints to accommodate a small minnow pond on the property. Because both ends of the track are so different, it's very hard to set up a race car properly. It takes drivers a while to get used to the track. Patrick Carpentier is in this year's rookie class and has just driven practice laps around Darlington for the first time:

"I was lost," Carpentier said. "I've never been on an oval in my life where you turn twice in the same corner. In the beginning, I was in everybody's way but as we kept running, it was good to see [where] those guys run and where I'm losing a bit of time.

"Most of it is in [Turns 1 and 2]. That's a trick corner there, just to go against the wall, down against the wall and back down against the wall again. It closes down very quickly at the end of [Turn] 2. It's just a matter of timing it right and getting used to it but at first, it was surprising. I was kind of zigzagging on the track so I don't think the guys enjoyed my presence there."

Most drivers preach the philosophy of driving against the track, not the other drivers.

Jeff Gordon is the all-time money winner at the track with 18 Top 10s, 15 Top 5s and seven wins in 27 races. Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson have average finishes under seven at Darlington, but neither have a lot of experience there with two and nine starts respectively.

Saturday evening's race will be the first since a new repaving job. The last time the track was repaved, twelve years ago, Ward Burton set the track qualifying record of 173.797 mph. 31 drivers bested that mark in a practice session Thursday. Sprint Cup qualifying takes place today at 5 p.m. EDT (Speed). Expect Burton's record to fall.

If you're into that kind of thing, this is the weekend that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to be driving the retro Mountain Dew car, kicking off a new Mountain Dew promotional campaign, "Old School, New School."

News

Michael Waltrip and Casey Mears have buried the hatchet after their confrontation at Richmond last weekend and Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn't blaming Kyle Busch for their Richmond confrontation, but Busch was still escorted around Lowe's Motor Speedway during testing by security guards. Meanwhile, there was a little conspiracy theory talk about whether Denny Hamlin brought out the caution to help his teammate, Busch, catch up with Earnhardt.

It all started with "Humpy" Wheeler proposing to open Lowe's Motor Speedway for testing. NASCAR took him up on it and teams took advantage earlier this week. It was an opportunity to learn more about the new car on the larger tracks just ahead of next weekend's All-Star Race and the May 25 Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's.

With gas prices going through the roof, even NASCAR, which mostly uses free fuel from Sonoco, is not immune. Non-sanctioned tests, haulers and jets add up to a big price tag.

Tony Stewart, who's contemplating his future at Joe Gibbs Racing, put in a brief appearance Wednesday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He held a press conference to unveil the new engine for his U.S. Auto Club midget team. He says "never say never" about running in the Indy 500 again, but says that if he does, he'll do it right by starting in March at Homestead instead of waiting until Indy practice in May, a full-time IRL gig.

After four months of renovation work, Hendrick Motorsports has reopened its museum.

The Darrell Waltrip Racing Experience will open at Belle Island Village in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, this fall. Sounds like a lot of fun.

The Sprint All-Star Race is next weekend. You can vote for your favorite driver (that's not already in the race) at NASCAR.com. The driver who receives the most votes will be added to the field.


Update

They didn't just break Ward Burton's track record of 173.797 mph in Friday's Sprint Cup qualifying, they shattered it. Greg Biffle captured the pole, averaging 179.442 mph over the freshly repaved asphalt. 41 of the 44 drivers who completed at least one lap bested Burton's old mark. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start on the outside of the front row. Kasey Kahne scraped the wall and didn't complete a lap. He will start in the rear in a backup car. Johnny Sauter and Jeff Green failed to qualify on time. (Race Lineup)

Tony Stewart won his first race ever at Darlington, winning Friday night's Nationwide race, the Diamond Hill Plywood 200. Stewart survived a few late restarts and a couple of red flags for his fourth win in six Nationwide starts this season. It was Joe Gibbs Racing's eighth Nationwide win in twelve races. It was the fourth win in a row for the #20, with Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch all getting in on the fun.

NASCAR Basics: The Tracks: Darlington

"You never forget your first love, whether it's a high school sweetheart, a faithful old hunting dog, or a fickle race track in South Carolina with a contrary disposition. And, if you happen to be a race car driver there's no victory so sweet, so memorable, as whipping Darlington Raceway." -- Dale Earnhardt

People call Darlington "the Lady in Black" and the track "Too Tough to Tame," but, while Harold Brasington was building it, they called it "Harold's Folly." Brasington's dream, a wild one indeed, was for tiny Darlington, South Carolina, located about 70 miles from anywhere, to have its very own world-class speedway, a track to compare to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He wanted to build a 1 1/4-mile oval, but had to alter his plans to work around a minnow pond on the property. He ended up with a track that was 1.366 miles and a little egg-shaped.

Darlington Raceway opened in 1950, back when NASCAR was still mostly run on dirt. The first race, co-sanctioned by NASCAR and the Central States Racing Association, had more than 80 entrants. Brasington set up a two-week qualifying process (similar to that of the Indy 500) to cut it down to 75 cars. Many of the drivers had never driven on an asphalt track. Californian Johnny Mantz started in the rear of the field, but won that initial Labor Day race with an unusual tire strategy: he used truck tires, which held together much longer than car tires of the day. Many drivers ran out of tires during the race and bought tires from spectators in the infield.

For many years, Darlington hosted two Cup races a year and the Labor Day race, the Southern 500, was one of the biggest events on the NASCAR calender. But time caught up to it. Attendance started slipping as textile mills in the area closed. Race fans began seeking "destination" sites where there was much more to do besides just watch a race. NASCAR wanted sleek, new facilities with luxury skyboxes and modern amenities. NASCAR moved the Labor Day weekend race to California Speedway, and moved the Southern 500 to November to be part of the Chase for the Cup. In 2005, NASCAR finally eliminated the Southern 500 all together and many feared that they would soon close Darlington like they had North Wilkesburg and Rockingham. Darlington now hosts one Cup race per season, a night race held on the evening before Mothers' Day.

Over the years, the track has been modified. The original frontstretch is now the backstretch and vice versa. The pits, which used to be split up along both straightaways are now all located along the frontstretch. Capitol projects in recent years have added lights and more seats, repaved the track, and added a larger access tunnel to allow modern car haulers and motorcoaches to get to the infield.

Most drivers will tell you that, at Darlington, you don't race against the other drivers, you race against the track. The high banked turns (25 degrees in Turns 1 & 2, 23 degrees in Turns 3 & 4) allow for high speed racing. Both straightaways are 1229 feet long. The closest finish in NASCAR history occurred at Darlington. On March 16, 2003, Ricky Craven edged Kurt Busch by 0.002 seconds for the win.

See also: "The Track That Defied the Writing on the Wall" (NY Times)

(diagram from NASCAR.com)

(The master list of NASCAR tracks)

The Civil War: Prelude to Chickamauga

Okay, this is odd. I was looking through some of my old blogs that I've closed down and ran across this at my old Civil War blog. I started writing this and forgot all about it. It's supposed to be a history of the Western Theater of the Civil War up to the Battle of Chickamauga. The plan was to post this, then write a bunch about Chickamauga and the Battles for Chattanooga, then maybe another post-Chattanooga post. But, like I said, I forgot I even started writing it until I ran across it the other day. I never even posted it. I'm posting it now, hopefully as a spur to begin writing more about Chattanooga history in the future.

This is a very general summary. Don't try to use it as a reference for a term paper or thesis or anything...


When the Civil War started in 1861, Chattanooga was a very young town. The first white settlers, illegal squatters on Cherokee land, began arriving at Ross's Landing, an outpost on the Tennessee River, just a ferry landing, a few warehouses and a few crude cabins, in the mid-1830s. The Treaty of New Echota soon led to the Trail of Tears and then the white settlers had the area to themselves. Soon after the Cherokee Indians were gone, they met in a schoolhouse and voted to change the name of the town from Ross's Landing to Chattanooga.

An early settler, A. M. Johnson, described the young town:

"Chattanooga up to this time had been to Georgia what Texas had been to the South - a rendezvous for broken merchants to escape the bail law for debt, then in force in Georgia, and fugitives from justice all over the South. You can imagine the state of society, a new place, merchants without money or credit, boatmen, railroad hands, all coming and going, whiskey sixteen cents a gallon, every man for himself, but little law or order among that class."

The railroads changed all that. In just a few years, by the start of the Civil War, Chattanooga was a major rail center with connections to Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis and points beyond, vitally important for both sides' strategic success. The city was also an important political target. East Tennessee was a bastion of Union sympathizers and Lincoln desperately wanted to "liberate" them.

Most Civil War history concentrates on the Eastern Theater, the small area between the two capitals, Washington and Richmond. There, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia faced off against the Union Army of the Potomac, led by many commanders. Lee briefly attempted two invasions of the North. The first, in the spring of 1862, into Maryland, ended with the Confederate defeat at Antietam. The second, an invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, ended at Gettysburg. Lee eventually surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox in April of 1865, effectively ending the war.

In the west, the story was very different. The Confederacy went through a few commanders, but never found one to compare to Lee. The Union also went through a few commanders before they found a few who would fight; these commanders would eventually be the ones to win the war in the east. Also, in the west, the Confederacy began the war with a thin line of troops to defend hundreds of miles of territory from the Carolinas to the Mississippi River, and had the added handicap of two rivers, the Tennessee and the Cumberland, that flowed south, facilitating invasion.

The first Confederate commander in the west, Albert Sidney Johnston, deployed his thin line along the Tennessee-Kentucky border. His left flank was a small force at the Mississippi River at Columbus, Kentucky. The line stretched eastward through Bowling Green to the Cumberland Gap in the East Tennessee mountains.

Johnston immediately began suffering setbacks. In January of 1862, an inexperienced political officer, Felix Zollicoffer, crossed the Kentucky River and attacked Union General George Thomas's army at Mill Springs. The Confederates were repulsed, Zollicoffer was killed and Johnston's right flank was shattered. This was just a prelude. Combined Union Army and Navy forces captured the forts on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, Forts Henry and Donelson. Nashville and Middle Tennessee had to be abandoned. The way was open to the heartland of the Confederacy. Johnston regrouped, concentrating his army, some 40,000 men, at Corinth, Mississippi. On April 4, 1862, they launched a surprise attack on General Grant's army in the vicinity of a small church called Shiloh.

Shiloh was a bloodbath that resulted in more casualties in two days than all previous American wars combined. The Confederate surprise attack almost destroyed the Union army, but they were stalled at a sunken road and at the "Hornet's Nest" and were unable to finish the job. Grant called up reinforcements during the night and drove the Confederates away the next day. Johnston was killed during the first day's fighting and General P. G. T. Beauregard, a hero of Fort Sumter, replaced Johnston in command. Beauregard would become the scapegoat for the Confederate defeat. General Braxton Bragg would assume command of the primary Confederate western army, the Army of Tennessee.

In August of 1862, General Kirby Smith, who commanded a small force in East Tennessee, convinced Bragg to join with him in an invasion of Kentucky. The Southern high command was convinced that Kentucky was full of Southern loyalists who, if given the chance, would rush to join the Confederate army. Bragg transferred his army by rail to Chattanooga and launched the invasion. General Don Carlos Buell, commanding the Army of the Ohio at Nashville, finally gave chase. After some time-consuming moves, including installing a Confederate governor at Frankfort, a portion of Bragg's army fought Buell at Perryville. Despite what was at worst a draw, Bragg made plans to give up the invasion and return to Tennessee. The mass influx of Kentucky recruits never materialized. Bragg retreated to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. General William Starke Rosecrans replaced Buell and his army was renamed the Army of the Cumberland.

As 1862 drew to a close, Rosecrans moved out from Nashville to confront Bragg at Murfreesboro. By December 30, the two armies faced each other and both commanders made plans for an attack. The Battle of Murfreesboro (Stones River) began the next morning when Bragg beat Rosecrans to the draw and drove the Union general's right flank back several miles. That night Bragg wired Richmond with news of the great victory. Imagine his surprise to wake up the next morning and find the Federals still in his front. The two armies were silent on New Year's Day, 1863, as the two generals contemplated their next moves. On January 2, Bragg launched an ill-advised attack on Rosecrans's left flank. The attacking brigades had to advance over open ground, exposed to flanking fire from Union artillery. They were decimated. Bragg retreated south to Tullahoma.

An exasperated Abraham Lincoln and the rest of the Union high command spent many months trying to get Rosecrans moving again. Finally, in June of 1863, Rosecrans was reinforced and resupplied to his satisfaction and moved out. Lincoln was looking for an attack that would destroy the rebel army, but Rosecrans executed a series of almost bloodless flanking manuevers that forced Bragg to retreat south through Chattanooga and into North Georgia. Rosecrans was convinced that Bragg planned to retreat all the way to LaFayette, Georgia and beyond. He divided his army to cross Sand and Lookout Mountains at the available gaps to give chase. It was almost his undoing. Bragg was not in the full retreat that Rosecrans thought. He was digging in in north Georgia, awaiting reinforcements, General James Longstreet's corps from the Army of Northern Virginia. Bragg tried to launch a series of attacks to destroy Rosecrans's army piecemeal, but his subordinates were not up to the task. Rosecrans was finally able to reunite his army in the dense woods of North Georgia, near a creek called Chickamauga.

To be continued...

Random Thoughts About Commercials

Granted we've seen Meat Loaf (the singer/actor, not the entree) in some strange roles, but isn't it disconcerting to see him playing the suburban dad in those Go Phone commercials? To add to the disconcertability factor, they're using a song about premarital sex to hawk said Go Phones. I wonder if that's his real wife and kids.

But surely Lauren Wallace is not really related to Kenny Wallace, the NASCAR Nationwide Series driver. The kid in the Geico commercials is just too good. He has to be an actor. Yeah, just as I thought, but those commercials are hilarious -- much better than the cavemen or the "celebrities" that no one under the age of 40 knows (except Joan Rivers, who refuses to go away).

If you don't watch NASCAR, you're missing some of the funniest commercials on TV. The NAPA commercials with Michael Waltrip are the best, making light of some hard times the driver has had. There's the guy who customizes his die-cast cars (which makes light of this fire and this scary wreck), the guy with the parrot, and the fan letters. And some of the Denny Hamlin FedEx commercials are pretty funny too.

At the other extreme are those really obnoxious commercials, like the ones for HeadOn, but Sunday's Doonesbury took those on. Gary Trudeau is on vacation, so it's an old strip, but still hits the nail on the head.

Mellow Monday Music: E-Bow the Letter

Some stream of consciousness stuff from R.E.M.



Lyrics:

Look up, what do you see?
All of you and all of me
Fluorescent and starry
Some of them they surprise
The bus ride, I went to write this,
4:00 a.m., this letter
Fields of poppies, little pearls
All the boys and all the girls sweet-toothed
Each and every one a little scary
I said your name

I wore it like a badge of teenage film stars
Hash bars, cherry mash and tinfoil tiaras
Dreaming of Maria Callas
Whoever she is
This fame thing, I don't get it
I wrap my hand in plastic to try to look through it
Maybelline eyes and girl-as-boy moves
I can take you far
This star thing
I don't get it

(I'll take you over...there)
(I'll take you over)
Aluminum, tastes like fear (...there)
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
(I'll take you over)
It tastes like fear (...there)
(I'll take you over)

Will you live to 83?
Will you ever welcome me?
Will you show me something that nobody else has seen?
Smoke it, drink
Here comes the flood
Anything to thin the blood
These corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet
Phone, eat it, drink
Just another chink
Cuts and dents, they catch the light
Aluminum, the weakest link
I don't want to disappoint you
And I'm not here to anoint you
I would lick your feet
But is that the sickest move?
I wear my own crown and sadness and sorrow
And who'd have thought tomorrow could be so strange?
My loss, and here we go again

(I'll take you over...there)
(I'll take you over)
Aluminum, tastes like fear (I'll take you there)
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
(I'll take you over)
It tastes like fear (...there)
It pulls us near
(I'll take you over)

Look up, what do you see?
All of you and all of me
Fluorescent and starry
Some of them they surprise
I can't look it in the eyes
Seconal, Spanish fly, absinthe, kerosene
Cherry-flavored neck and collar
I can smell the sorrow on your breath
The sweat, the victory and sorrow
The smell of fear, I got it

(I'll take you over...there)
Aluminum, tastes like fear
Adrenaline, it pulls us near
(I'll take you over)
Aluminum. It tastes like fear (I'll take you there)
Adrenaline. Pulls us near
(I'll take you over)
Tastes like fear
(I'll take you there)
Pulls us near
(I'll take you over)
It tastes like fear
(I'll take you there)
It pulls us near

(Pulls us near)
Tastes like fear.
(Tastes like fear)
(Pulls us near...over, over, over, over)...&c.

NASCAR: Richmond Results

Like Kyle Busch last week at Talladega, Clint Bowyer was in the right place at the right time. He was in third place with three laps to go when Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch got together while battling for the lead. Earnhardt went into the outside wall in Turn Three, Busch slowed to avoid him, and Bowyer cruised past both of them, into the lead as the caution flew. Bowyer then survived a green-white-checkered restart for the win in the Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400 at Richmond International Raceway Saturday night. Kyle Busch held off a charging Mark Martin for second. It was Bowyer's first win of the season and his second in his career.

For much of the evening, it appeared that Denny Hamlin would cruise to an easy victory. He started on the pole and led 381 of 400 laps, a track record, including the first 204 laps. With just 21 laps to go, Hamlin reported having tire problems and began slowing. Earnhardt and Busch caught him just four laps later and passed him three-wide. Earnhardt took the lead with Busch stalking as Hamlin drifted further back in the field. Hamlin's tire finally blew on lap 291, and he stopped his car on the track, bringing out the tenth caution of the night and incurring a two-lap penalty from NASCAR. He would finish 24th.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was attempting to break a two-year, 71-race winless streak, a streak that began after he won the spring 2006 Richmond race. Kyle Busch challenged for the lead and the two raced side-by-side down the backstretch on lap 398. As they entered Turn 3, Busch got loose and slid up into Earnhardt, sending him into the outside wall. Tony Stewart finished fourth, followed by Martin Truex Jr.

On lap 229, we saw Richmond's version of The Big One, a huge multi-car wreck that shuffled the points standings. Dave Blaney got into the rear of J. J. Yelee and pushed him up into Carl Edwards. That wasn't a big deal, but it bunched up the cars behind them and started a massive pileup. Eleven cars were involved in all, including points leader Jeff Burton. Patrick Carpentier got the worst of it. As he slowed, Elliott Sadler hit him from behind, knocking him into the inside wall. He bounced back on the track and was tagged by four or five other cars before everything came to a halt. The race was red-flagged for over twenty minutes for track cleanup.

Kyle Busch now leads the points standings. He is 18 points ahead of Jeff Burton. Juan Pablo Montoya dropped out of the top 12 after spinning early, then getting caught up in The Big One and finishing 32nd. Kasey Kahne takes over the twelfth spot in the standings. Jeff Gordon finished ninth and is now just six points from making the top 12, the cutoff for the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.

In an incident on lap 354, Casey Mears and Michael Waltrip got together. It is unclear whether the cars got locked together or if Waltrip was pushing Mears down the track. NASCAR thought it was the latter and parked Waltrip for the remainder of the race.

Race Results
Points Standings
Race Videos
Race Rewind

In late weekend news, the Associated Press, quoting an anonymous source, is reporting that Bobby Labonte has agreed to a contract extension with Petty Enterprises. Labonte and Petty Enterprises are not commenting.

An article posted earlier in the week at NASCAR.com related how economic troubles had spread to NASCAR both on the track and in the stands. There was some concern that Richmond International Raceway would not sell out for Saturday night's race. Late sales gave RIR its 33rd sellout in a row.

NNS: Lipton Tea 250

Fresh tires paid off for Denny Hamlin in the Lipton Tea 250, Friday night's Nationwide Series race at Richmond International Raceway. Hamlin pitted when the caution flag came out on lap 237 (of 250.) Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Mike Bliss stayed out and Hamlin blew by them when the race restarted. Bryan Clauson spun out on lap 247, setting up a green-white-checkered finish, but Hamlin held off Harvick for his first win on his hometown track.

Hamlin's win was the fifth consecutive Nationwide victory for Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin was the only JGR driver in the field. Kyle Busch was driving for Braun Racing and Tony Stewart sat out the race. JGR has won seven of the eleven Nationwide races this season. It was also the third consecutive win for the #20 car with three different drivers.

Kurt Busch traded paint with Stephen Wallace on the final lap, but held on to finish third. David Ragan got past Wallace for fourth place. After the race, Busch and Wallace had a little confrontation. Words were exchanged, helmets were grabbed, and insults were exchanged in post-race interviews.

Clint Bowyer leads Carl Edwards by nine points and Kyle Busch by twelve in the standings. The top nine remains the same except that David Ragan and David Reutimann traded fourth and sixth spots.

Race Results
Points Standings
Race Videos

The Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series will be at Darlington next weekend. The Craftsman Truck Series is off again.

NASCAR: Richmond Preview

Normally I try to do an entry previewing all the NASCAR races of the weekend before all the competition starts. This weekend snuck up on me.

It's a compressed weekend -- no Craftsman Truck Series race, just a Nationwide Race, the Lipton Tea 250, and a Sprint Cup race, Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400, the race named after a contest-winning fan. Normally, a Nationwide race would be held on Saturday afternoon and the Sprint Cup race on Sunday afternoon, but at Richmond all the action takes place under the lights...on Friday and Saturday nights respectively. Which led me to procrastinate until the Nationwide race was already over, thinking I had all the time in the world.

Richmond International Raceway, a D-shaped .75-mile oval, is the site of this weekend's action. It's a great short track venue with high speeds and a lot of side-by-side banging.

Denny Hamlin had a great Friday, first capturing the pole for the Dan Lowry 400, then winning the Lipton Tea 250. He took fresh tires during a late pit stop, then blew past Kevin Harvick on lap 242. He held off Harvick through a green-white-checkered finish for the victory. Kyle Busch traded paint with Stephen Wallace on the last lap to hold his third place position. The two then traded insults during post-race (and post-confrontation) interviews. The win, the first for Hamlin on his hometown track, was the fifth Nationwide win in a row for Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin was the sole Gibbs driver to start the race. Kyle Busch drove the #32 Braun Racing Toyota and Tony Stewart sat this race out. Busch celebrated his 23rd birthday Friday. (Race Results)

Hamlin edged out Mark Martin for the pole position for Saturday night's Dan Lowry 400. It was Hamlin's first pole of the season, his second at Richmond and his sixth in his career. Gillett Evernham Racing put all three of their cars in the top 10. Rookie Patrick Carpentier qualified in fourth position, his career best. Elliott Sadler qualified eighth and Kasey Kahne ninth. Six of the top ten qualifiers were Dodges. Ken Schrader, driving in place of Dario Franchitti who suffered a broken ankle at Talladega, Scott Wimmer, John Andretti and Jon Wood failed to qualify for the Sprint Cup event. (Race Lineup)

Jimmie Johnson is looking for his third win a row at Richmond after capturing both races last season. Richmond is the site of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s last points race win. He won the spring race in 2006, 71 races ago.

By the way, the contest for next season's "naming rights" is underway at the Crown Royal site. Just write an essay (more like a short paragraph -- 50 words max) or make a 60 second video to "describe a personal achievement or an honorable act that is worthy of a toast with Crown Royal. It probably goes without saying that you should be of drinking age to enter. The winner gets the ultimate NASCAR experience at RIR which "will include some or all of the following: dropping the green flag to start the race, meeting the Crown Royal NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, pre-race tour of pit row, infield access, access to the Crown Royal luxury suite and RV during the race, access to Victory Lane at end of the race, Crown Royal racing souvenirs, round trip coach class airfare to the race city from the major airport closest to the winner's residence, double occupancy room accommodations for three days/two nights, per diem, ground transportation between destination airport/hotel and hotel/race track. All other expenses are winner's responsibility. Approximate retail value is $7,500."


News

Carl Edwards announced that he is staying with Roush Fenway Racing until at least 2012. He signed a three-year contract on Thursday after about a week and a half of negotiations. Greg Biffle hopes to be the next Roush driver to get a contract extension.

Lowe's Motor Speedway will have 340 more feet of SAFER barrier along the inner wall of the backstretch before the May 17 Sprint All-Star race.

Robby Gordon has "parted ways" with crew chief Frank Kerr. Walter Giles, who was Director of Race Engineering for Dale Earnhardt Inc., will replace Kerr.

New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss has announced that he has formed Moss Motorsports, LLC. Moss expects the team to run selected Craftsman Truck Series races in the second half of the 2008 before going full-time in 2009.

Richard and Kyle Petty spent Thursday visiting with paralyzed veterans at the McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Richmond. Petty Enterprises also announced that the Paralyzed Veterans of America will be the primary sponsors of Kyle's #45 Dodge at two races later this season.

During Tuesday's Dale Earnhardt Day celebration at DEI headquarters, the Hershey Company unveiled a replica of a mosaic of Earnhardt composed of fan photos. Hershey wants Earnhardt fans to be a part of the permanent tribute by uploading their photos for inclusion in the mosaic that will hang at DEI. They are also looking for donations to the Dale Earnhardt Foundation.

The fifth annual Bobby Labonte Foundation Celebrity Golf Classic, held this past Tuesday, raised over $100,000 for the Bobby Labonte Foundation, which contributes to the Victory Junction Gang Camp and assorted North Carolina charities.

In other driver/charity news, Elliott Sadler is auctioning off a specially designed Autism Awareness helmet that he wore during races in April. Bidding is open until May 19.

Nationwide Insurance is teaming with drivers Clint Bowyer and Landon Cassill, DRIVE SMART Virginia, the Virginia State Police, Henrico County School officials and the Richmond International Raceway to raise awareness among Virginia teens about DWD – Driving While Distracted. (Registration or BugMeNot login required.)

NASCAR Basics: The Tracks: Richmond

Richmond International Raceway is a D-shaped, 0.75-mile oval, a short track masterpiece that always sees exciting races with high speeds, side-by-side racing and close finishes. Downforce and camber are key here, but teams need to leave enough openings in the front end to allow air to get in to keep the brakes cooled down. Look for a lot of racing going into Turn One and out of Turn Two, one-groove corners. There are two and sometimes three lines side-by-side through Turns Three and Four.

There's a lot of racing history at the site of the RIR, going back to pre-NASCAR days. The track opened in 1946 as the Atlantic Rural Exposition Fairgrounds and held its first NASCAR race, a Grand National Division affair won by Lee Petty, in 1953. Back then, the track was a half-mile dirt track. Petty led the 100-mile race wire to wire, averaging 45.535 mph. Since then the track has undergone three name changes, four configuration changes and the switch from dirt to asphalt. Lights were added in 1991 and now RIR is the only track to hold all its major events at night.

Richard Petty competed in his first NASCAR race at Richmond in 1960 and won there a record 13 times. Brian Vickers holds the qualifying speed record, 129.983 mph, set in May 2004. Kyle Busch has the best average finish among active drivers, 6.17, with five Top 5s in six starts. Denny Hamlin is second with an average finish of 6.5. Jeff Gordon is the track's all-time money winner with 16 Top 10s, 12 Top 5s, and two wins in thirty starts.

Richmond International Raceway hosts two Sprint Cup races per season, the Crown Royal Presents "Your Name Here" 400 in May and the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 in September. The "naming rights" of the spring race are determined by a contest of Crown Royal's choosing. The fall race is the last race before the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship begins.

(diagram from NASCAR.com)

NASCAR Basics: The Tracks Master List

Civil War Artillery: A Battery

Part of a series on Civil War artillery (Man, I'm really dragging this out, aren't I? I'll try to finish this up very shortly.)

Here's a photo that might give you some idea of what a Civil War battery looked like when it was deployed in the field. This photo was taken on Battleline Road in the Chickamauga Battlefield. Try to picture the scene without the road and the monuments. Throw in the men, horses, wagons, caissons, &c. Scatter some dead and dying men and some empty ammo boxes about and add a lot of smoke.

Bluesy Monday Music: "Too Rolling Stoned"

Here's an obscure classic (that may be an oxymoron) from the Golden Age of Rock. I'm talking mid-70's or so. It's Robin Trower's "Too Rolling Stoned" from his magnificent Bridge of Sighs album. The real attraction to this song is hearing the former Procol Harem guitarist getting down on this bluesy number. It's guaranteed to get your Monday going in the right direction or double your money back!

You can hear the original version h