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Around SBN: Will Rhymes 'Fine' After Being Hit By Pitch And Fainting

10 Things To Watch For Heading Into The 2008NASCAR Season


1. Toyota's emergence as a force to reckin' with. With the addition of Joe Gibbs Racing in the Toyota racing family look for this car manufacturer to do well this year.

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr racing for Rick Hendrick. This old news from last year will remain current throughout this year, especially if Dale wins races and makes the Chase.

3. The CoT. Complaints about the current version of the CoT will still be made by both the drivers and the fans. My suggestion? Get used to it, as it isn't going anywhere.

4. New open-wheel drivers in NASCAR. Look they can drive a stock car, but who will the Rookie of the Year? Not Juan.

5. NASCAR Wives, especially Ashley Judd. Dario Franchitti's wife will bring new headlines to this sport, and a newer focus will be placed on the wives and girlfriends of the drivers. Who gets along with who, who is fighting with who, etc. If you thought the spotlight shifted more to the wives and girlfriends when Jeff married Ingrid, just wait until Ashley shows up.

6. New Hampshire Speedway. Now under new ownership, will it lose a date or won't it? If it does, which track will get it? Also, will New Hampshire be revamped? All I can say is wait and see, because I can't even venture a guess - actually I could but I will let this one play out a little more before I voice my opinion.

7. Will the Grand National Series, now sponsored by Nationwide, finally get its own identity? This series over the last decade or so has lost it's identity and has become a poaching series for Cup Teams and their drivers, hopefully Nationwide and NASCAR will put the proper people in place to help the series grow and establish itself as something other than the Victim Series to that of the Cup Series.

8. As always the question when someone wins the Championship twice in a row - will he three-peat? Good question, will Jimmie Johnson win a very rare 3rd Championship in a row? Certainly all the key factors are in place for it to happen, so don't ever underestimate the possibility of him and his team doing it.

9. Who going to loose their ride at Roush/Fenway as they must cut a team to meet the NASCAR mandated maximum of 4 cars per owner for 2009. Since Jack currently has 5 cars in his stable, who is going to be the odd man out? More importantly where is he going to go? My guess is that the team (lock, stock, and barrel) will become a team over at Yates, or another Ford team, and remain 'ever so slightly' under the Roush/Fenway umbrella like Boris Said currently is.


10. Brian France. Will he live up to his Father's and Grandfather's reputations, or will he fail miserably at his CEO job? I think he has a long walk ahead of him - up hill no less - but I also think that if he can survive and if he gets help from people such as Mike Helton he might just be able to pull it off - eventually. It isn't going to be a short journey either, this will take years. In the end he will do a good job once he earns the respect that he needs from those within the walls of NASCAR, all the way from pit road to the board room.






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And finally, will Rusty make up more terms and phrases during this broadcasts???

by Tiredawg on Feb 6, 2008 5:48 AM EST reply actions  

9 out of the 10 where interesting, however you have touched on one issue that hits home to me, New Hampshire Motor Speedway... my home racetrack for NASCAR events and I too am wondering just what Smith is going to do to the race track.

I can say, he hasn't changed ticket prices yet, however I expect them to be lower in 2009, what's the chance of that. Who knows for the rest.

Question for you, what fo think of TSN's new NASCAR schedule, they are televising all 39 Sprint Cup races live plus the Nationwide Series, IRL and Formula 1?

Hopefully it will work better for you this year.

by RaceDriven on Feb 6, 2008 12:37 PM EST reply actions  

Racedriven,

These last few years hasn't really been a problem with Cup race coverage from TSN, it is their coverage of the Nationwide series races that has been suspect (although, in the past it used to be their coverage of Cup races that was suspect, son in this regard they have gotten better).

My other problem is the lack of coverage other than the actual races (except when they do tape delayed events and edit out large portions of the race in order to make the race fit a certain time frame, which they have been doing with the Nationwide races).

The people who host their version of SportsDesk do not even know how to say the drivers names.

Also, the coverage of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series has been less that steller.

I think that this poor coverage is aweful since TSN is supposed to be the 'official' NASCAR network in Canada.

I'm not expecting something like the Speed Channel here, but they can certainly do better, like learn the drivers names and know what 'drafting' is.

by 4ever3 on Feb 8, 2008 12:47 AM EST reply actions  

Very interesting. You've addressed some challenges without sounding like some nagging old woman.
Like you- I agree that Toyota's here to stay and the old schoolers had better get used to it. In one of my preview posts, I predicted a Cup f Smoke in 2008.

by Jim on Feb 9, 2008 1:04 AM EST reply actions  

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