Oooo , Hey howdy and good day. Welcome Gabbers, gawkers, lurkers and others to another NASCAR update and other fast stuff. There is so much buzzing around in my head right now I don't know where to start. Lets see here. There's a driver that stepped out of a car, 2 drivers that swapped rides but then one of them crawled into the first drivers car and then a driver who lost his license and got it back has stepped into the ride of the one that crawled into the first car. Are you with me so far? Not sure who's on first but I can tell you who went where. Let me see if I can get it right.

 This guy here is Dale Jr and he has had a press conference to tell everyone he's out of the car for 2 races. Why? He says he suffered a concussion in the big wreck at Talladega. As he tells it, it started back 5 weeks ago while he was testing at the Kansas track. His right front tire blew and he hit the wall hard. He says he remembered everything before and after the crash but began experiencing head aches. By the time the Chase started he felt better and by Talladega he felt 100%. The wreck at Talladega wasn't even half of what he experienced at Kansas but the head aches returned and by Tuesday he had to see someone about it.

Good news is that a MRI revealed no damage but his neurosurgeon Dr Jerry Petty suggested 2 races out of the car and then Dale should be tested again before he's left to go back racing. A press conference was held where Rick Hendrick ( Dale's Boss), Dale Jr, Steve Letarte ( crew chief ) and Dr Jerry Petty were all in attendance to talk about the concussion. Hendrick said he was proud of Dale for not playing hurt and coming forward. It remains to be seen how this plays out. He may and most likely should just end his season now and rest till February. 

After Talladega Dale Jr was very vocal about the wreck. He felt it wasn't racing and that the wreck cost a lot of money. He felt if NASCAR wants us to race that way then NASCAR should build the cars and save the teams money.

So enter Regan Smith. He's Mia's man and he's been driving the #78 Furniture Row car till this week. He was forced out to put Kurt Busch in. Regan was going to finish out the season driving Kurt's old ride the #51 Phoenix Racing car but Hendrick gave him a call to drive the #88 that Dale wouldn't be driving this week and next.

 Here's Kurt saying good bye. So with Kurt in the #78 and Regan in the #88 that left the #51 open. Enter...yes...that would be one AJ Allmendinger. Freshly re - instated. 

So to recap, Dale Jr is out for 2 races and possibly the season.

                    Kurt Busch to the #78 Furniture Row car

                   Regan Smith to the #88 Mountain Dew car

                   AJ Allmendinger to the #51 Phoenix Racing car (interesting........ Allmendinger is a phoenix rising? )

THE DEMISE OF SPEEDTV

Don't know when but it's apparent that parent company FOX is about to pull the plug on SPEEDTV. They want to make an all sports network. I'm guessing they think they can out do ESPN. They have FOXSports.com. I'm not understanding why they need to wipe out SPEEDTV. Do we really need more stick and ball channels? My dad was freaking about all the college ball on tv before we watched the race tonight. There's lots of racing type coverage that will be lost if it goes away. 

BETTER HALF DASH UPDATE

Lyn-2 Adams Hawkins Pastrana won the Better Half dash. She is an 8 time X Games skate board medalist and wife of Travis Pastrana.....Nitro Circus....rally car driver...and now Nationwide Series rookie.

Motorsports analyst for SPEED Wendy Venturini came in second.

So this would be a wreck at Talladega. The big one as it were.  

This would be Jimmie Johnson hitching a ride back to the garage on Dale Jr's door.

                                      Matt Kenseth. Winner of Talladega. 

Talladega was the race I thought it would be. Well mostly. There should never be a Green-White Checker at Talladega or Daytona in my opinion. When you do it's a 4 wide parking lot moving along at 200 mph and coming around the last turn the drivers go nuts. They all start weaving back and forth changing lanes. It is a recipe for disaster. I propose tacking on 10 laps. This could get the cars spread out a tad bit. I wanted to see a race to the finish but not that. The smaller tracks you can get away with a Green-White Checker which is a 2 lap shoot out. 

We're so lucky Dale Jr was the only one to get a concussion. Or was he? Jeff Gordon said if he were in the Chase that he would never admit to a concussion. This makes me wonder how many race with concussions. Back around 1985-ish or so Ricky Rudd wrecked at the then Busch Series Daytona race so bad that his face swelled up and he had to tape his eyes open to race in the Daytona 500 the next day. Of course NASCAR never knew how bad he was because he refused treatment. After the Daytona 500 everyone saw him and NASCAR made it a rule going forward that from then on if you wrecked it was off to the infield care center you went for a mandatory check up. You can go to You Tube and look up Ricky Rudd's wreck. It was violent and he came really close to hitting the end of a wall in the grass. If you factor in the safety of the cars then compared to now the wreck is that much scarier to watch. He was one lucky guy.

NASCAR has work to do. That was one expensive race and we're so lucky not to have had anyone killed or carted off to the hospital. 

CUP POINTS 10-7-12

Keselowski - 2179...Johnson - 2165...Hamlin - 2156...Kahne - 2143...Bowyer - 2139...Gordon - 2137...Stewart - 2133...Truex - 2131...Biffle - 2130...Harvick - 2130...Dale Jr - 2128...Kenseth - 2117

So it's Charlotte on Saturday night. Biffle got the pole and set a track record. It's Mark Martin's 850th start. His career includes 40 victories, 55 poles and 270 top 5's. The track is a 1.5 mile. Pit speed is 45 mph. It was a good race and I'll have to wait to tell you about it next Sunday.

Until then, thank you for stopping by and you all have a fantastic football Sunday. I'm out of here.....

Well good morning Gabbers, gawkers and others. Welcome to my NASCAR update and just talking about things that go fast. I have more on Almendinger, a dragster profile, Dodge is packing up their wagon, The Danica and some fast chicks that win. So lets do this.

SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY

This woman is my hero. She kicked serious bootie back in the day. Men feared her when she showed up with her pink dragster because she was a threat to win. And win she did. I really had to do some serious cutting of her mile stone accomplishments or I wouldn't finish my blog till next week. HOW'D SHE DO ALL THAT???????

1965 - First woman to be licensed by NHRA to drive a gasoline burning dragster.

1971 - Won the IHRA ( International Hot Rod Association) Southern Nationals in Rockingham, NC in the Nitro Funny Car Class.

1972 - Runner up in the NHRA Southern Nationals in Rockingham, NC in Nitro Funny Car Class.

1975 - Runner up in NHRA Spring Nationals in Columbus, Ohio. Fist woman to advance to the finals of an NHRA event.

            August 24th - Broke the 6 second barrier with a 5.98. First woman to do that.

1976 - Named Drag News Top Fuel Driver of the Year

            Won Spring Nationals in Columbus, Ohio in June qualifying number one with 6.02 @ 249.30 mph

            Won NHRA Winston World Nationals in October qualifying number one with 5.77 @ 249.30 mph

1977 - Won the 1977 Winston World points Championship becoming the first woman to get a dragster title.

            On her way to winning the title she became the first driver and woman to post 3 NHRA National event back to back wins

1979 - Voted into the 250 Mile Per Hour Club. She was one of 4 members. Shirley posted a 250 mph pass 5 times. The

            others ........just once each.

1980 - Won the 1980 Winston World points Championship becoming the first driver to win 2 championships.

             Placed 2nd in the American Hot Rod Association World Championship.

1981 - Won the 1981 AHRA World Championship Championship becoming the first woman to win that title.

1982 - Won the 1982 Winston World points Championship becoming the first driver and woman to get 3 dragster titles.

1983 - Finished 4th in the NHRA points

1984 - In June Shirley wrecked her dragster while doing a qualifying run in Montreal, Canada. One of the front tires failed and  she wrecked at 250 mph breaking both her legs. Months of surgeries and rehab were needed to get back in the dragster.

 1986 - Her come back year and an award to welcome her back.

1989 - Gets the 8th position on the CRAGAR 4 - Second Club with a pass of 4.97 @ 284.00 mph.

1993 - Set a track record at Fiji International Speedway in Fuji, Japan with a pass of 5.30 @ 285 mph

1996 - Set a new IHRA speed record of 294.98 mph

             Placed 2nd in IHRA National Championship points

1997 - Set a new IHRA speed record of 303.71 mph

             Placed 3rd in IHRA National Championship points

2001 - Named 5th on the list of NHRA top 50 drivers

             Ran a career best of 4.64 @ 320.20 mph

2003 - Last year in racing. Went on a Last Pass Tour

             Shirley was always setting and then breaking records. This went on through out her career. Sponsorship issues was the reason she got out of racing. John Force has been lucky to have Castrol with him as long as he has. Sponsorship money is the life blood of a race team. At 60 I think Shirley could still do it.

UPDATE ON NHRA CHICKS

      Well last week on 8-5-12 at the 25th O,Reilly Auto Part Nothwest Nationals in Seattle, Washington, Courtney Force and Erica Enders won their divisions making this the first time in NHRA history that 2 woman won at the same event. Both got Wally's. That's the trophy for a win in NHRA. Very coveted because it's such a hard trophy to get.

       This is Courtney's rookie season and she beat dad twice now and finally an event win too.This chick is serious. She's not holding back for nobody. Not even dad.

       Courtney says, 'To have both me and Erica in the winners circle is awesome. We're not just out here to race the boys, we're here to beat the boys and today just proves that."

       So I would say that Courtney is on her way and we'll be hearing about more wins and records from her and Erica. Look out Danica. These racing chicks are about to steal your thunder. Buzz is building already.

THE DANICA

       Well, speaking of Danica. She was another race this week and started in the 23rd position. Bad qualifying position. The Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen. Nice road course but bad qualifying position. HHHhhhhmmmmmm I said that twice.  She made it a total of 2 laps. Ryan Truex lost control of his car and veered off course, collected himself, got back on course and was too slow getting back up to speed because Danica drove right into the back of his car. Now in Danica's defense, she had no where to go and I think he should've left every one go by and then get back onto the course. She got a crunched in fender, broken radiator and a 43rd place finish. It was the beginning of the race. For Pete sake. Like Mark Martin said a long time ago about Nationwide races....They'll let any one drive. So I guess we wait till next week to see if Danica will win.

DODGE IS LEAVING NASCAR

       That's right folks. Dodge is packing up their little Red Flyer wagon and leaving NASCAR at the end of this season. Penske Racing has the only 2 Dodge cars in NASCAR and decided they were moving over to Ford because they felt they weren't able to get enough information to win a championship because there's no other team to discuss things with. Dodge was talking to Richard Petty Motorsports and Furniture Row Racing but felt that they wanted higher profile teams. They don't just want to show up at the track, they want to win. They sited the fact that it took Penske Racing several years to get to the level he is now.

       Ralph Gilles ( with the really huge Dodge title....) CEO and president of Street and Racing Technology Brand and Motorsports had to say," In the past we had dealers literally providing a portion of every car sales to the sponsorship of the team. That was a pretty exotic set up. We did think about that and some dealers offered that up. But the issue wasn't that. It's really how do you compress time and set up a team from scratch, basically at the highest level of racing in less than seven months."

       So Dodge is leaving. Do you think Honda should step in? Fiat? Somebody else? Don't know? Don't care? It's alright. I don't either. Just fire up what you have and lets get to racing.

AJ ALLMENDINGER TALKS

       So AJ finally decided to talk this week. He says he didn't have answers so that's why no interviews till now. AJ's story goes something like this....The Wednesday before the Kentucky Quaker State 400 Cup race, he and his best buddy decided to go out on the town. AJ was very tired from all his sponsorship dutites and trying to win races. A friend of his best buddy happened to be there and offered him a work out supplement.  AJ said he took this pill not thinking anything of it because his trainer hands him pills all the time during work outs. He says he didn't get a buzz or any thing and felt fine. Then 2 days later NASCAR calls his number in the random drug test and he goes. The following week NASCAR tells him he's tested positive for a stimulant and he swears he has no idea what that is. So he searches his memory to think back to what his best buds friend gave him and finds out it's an Adderall.

       Adderall's are on the banned substance list. Especially if you don't have a script for it. If you have the hyper active A.D.D. than you won't get a speed type rush from it but if you aren't it's as good as taking a speeder. So I'm told. So any way he goes on to say that he'll be a better person and the Road to Recovery program will help him find himself. He wasn't having fun in racing any more and this whole thing has made him realize he really does want to race and who his real friends are. 

       BS????? You tell me. I personally think he just needed time to think up a story and practice telling it to the mirror till he sounded believable. How do you test well above the threshold if you only took 1 pill and it was 3 days before you get drug tested. Something doesn't add up.

       Now there is a team owner ( Micheal Shank) in the NASCAR Grand AM Rolex Sports Car Series that would like to hire AJ after he gets the green light from NASCAR. He wants to test a new Grand AM proto type for Daytona and since AJ won with his car in January. He feels AJ could do it again. No word yet from any NASCAR Cup team though.

MONKEY SHINES

       Seems there's a cute new monkey on TV. I just saw a promo for a new show on the peacock channel called Animal Practice. It stars a capuchin monkey as a medical assistant in an animal hospital. Her name is Crystal but she plays a male on the show. Supposedly she gets $12,000 per episode. Mad money for her and Johnny Monkey when they run off to the Bahama's? She is a cutie pie. Thought I saw a glimpse of Johnny in one of the scenes. Nah. Just my imagination.

WATKIN'S GLEN

       This week it's off to a road course for our Cup guys. The rain storm ended last weeks race at Pocono with 98 laps to go giving Gordon the win and I'm still #1 in my Yahoo but I'm thinking every ones picks got foiled by the rain. Jimmie spun out on the last restart and ended up 14th. Ruined my Streak pick too. Jimmie didn't get a top 10 so no points for me there.

       So this week I went out on a limb. I chose Keselowski, Ambrose, Kurt B and Vickers. You Dale Jr fans should be happy. He's still #1 in the points. Followed by Kenseth - Biffle - Johnson - Truex - Stewart - Keselowski - Hamlin - Harvick - Bowyer with Kahne as wild card #1 and Gordon with wild card #2. That Pocono win was just what the doctor ordered to get Gordon in the Chase. He needs to step it up to keep that wild card. 

So hope you enjoyed your update and you're all keeping as cool as possible. Hoping the humidity backs it off a tad or 2 this week. Breathing water sucks. Take care all and drink your fluids of choice. Got to stay hydrated.

Thank you and see you next week.......