A kickin’ new blog site

I want to go ahead and get this out of the way and let you know that I have created my own blog where I will post future columns.

Essentially, I will simply update the weekly Kickin’ the Tires column but I will also have other content as it happens in the sport. If you want to read the blog, go to www.kickinthetires.blogspot.com. I decided to create the site as a temporary measure while www.theexaminer.com is being redesigned. We will be putting our own blogs in place but that doesn’t help me now and I am tired of not being able to properly update the Web site when I cover NASCAR events live.

I am launching the site with this column and will update each frequently and even more often when I am at a race. Later this month, I will be updating daily from North Carolina as I cover both the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race and the Coca-Cola 600. During the week between the two events, I will be interviewing drivers and other racing officials and will post those interviews on the blog site, which will include photos. My hope is to upload news releases and other material to the site throughout the week in an attempt to keep my readers informed.

Now, how many of you were glued to the television, on Sunday, watching the race from Talladega Superspeedway?

With 49 laps to go in the Aaron’s 499, I was sitting on the couch waiting for “The Big One.” Some really unlikely drivers including David Gilliland, David Stremme and Juan Pablo Montoya were bouncing around at the front of the pack and it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose.

We all knew it was going to happen but who would have ever thought that it would be on the last lap with a 100-to-1 long shot battling a 7-to-1 favorite for the win.

As for the no-name drivers running up, I was holding out for Michael Waltrip or Montoya, both at 100-to-1 to sneak their way to the lead. Yeah, I had a piece of the action on the field bet, too, which had me pulling for Stremme also. For those who don’t know, the field bet is when the oddsmakers group a bunch of drivers together and jack the odds up because they aren’t likely to win the race. Brian Vickers proved to us two years ago that is not always the case at restrictor plate races.

Anyway, as bad luck would have it, the last lap caution cost me a shot at boosting my bank account. The same thing happened a year ago when NASCAR gave Kevin Harvick the win over Mark Martin at the Daytona 500.

This past Tuesday marked the birthday of the late Dale Earnhardt Sr., who just happens to share a birthday with my mom. So, Happy Birthday, mom. As for Dale Sr., the folks at Dale Earnhardt Inc. celebrated Dale Earnhardt Day with a concert and special appearances by a number of NASCAR superstars.

In other NASCAR news, there is a major corporate merger that is likely to affect the NASCAR world. Even though they will operate as two separate businesses, Mars and Wrigley, will complete their merger sometime in the next six months to a year.

And just to add a little more excitement to the buzz about Danica Patrick, I know she drives in the Indy Racing League … at least for now. This past week it was confirmed that Roush Racing has been talking to the rave-haired bombshell about a possible run in the NASCAR ranks. No word on where or if she will abandon the IRL ship but with her first win under her belt, she is once again a hot topic in the stockcar world.

Who knows, maybe Tony Stewart will buy a team and hire Patrick, Harvick and Robby Gordon for teammates. I am sure that would make for some exciting news, on and off the track.

If you like football and you like NASCAR then this latest news will make you smile. According to a press release obtained from NASCAR, New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss is starting up a Craftsman Truck Series team and should be racing by the end of the year.

"We don't have all of the details in place just yet, but I am very excited about Moss Motorsports becoming a part of NASCAR," Moss said. "I am by nature a very competitive person and this is an outlet for me to compete at another level. There are some pretty awesome challenges in building a program like this from the ground up, but I am looking forward to it. That's just another aspect of the competition – you want to find the best people available and you're competing with all the other teams out there. We're starting to look at who the best people are and working on getting them to be a part of our team."

This week the series is headed to Richmond International Raceway but NASCAR is hoping that fans receiving their government economic stimulus check will spend it next week at Darlington Raceway. Darlington officials want fans to know that tickets are still available for as little as $45.

And just to wrap things up for this week, I want to congratulate Tony Stewart for picking up a Nationwide Series win at Talladega. It was his first ever win at the superspeedway and the only thing better would have been for him to get that win in the Sprint Cup race. That’s it for this week. Don’t forget to monitor my new blog site.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

For those who don't know, I sometimes have a sidekick when I cover many of the NASCAR races. She has been to the Dallas races at Texas Motor Speedway many times and even to the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.  And while she can be a pain in the ass at times, for the most part she is a wealth of knowledge about the sport.

She was even the one that got me interested in NASCAR to begin with. She may not remember it but she was complaining that KFDM Channel 6 was preempting NASCAR races and replacing it with other shows. She, and dozens of others as I later found out, filed complaints with the station. I know because there is a caveat in the law that allows citizens to pull complaints on tv stations and review them.

Now, many of you who read my weekly column in The Examiner Newspaper don't get to see her work because it is usually posted to the Web site at www.theexaminer.com (when it works). But aside from being technologically challenged and not being able to figure out the intricacies of her Nikon D100, she gets a good shot every once in a while. And, when there is a photoshoot halfway across the track that I don't feel like walking to, she is eager to go cover it. 

This past week, she turned 60 and she probably doesn't think that I even gave it a second thought; however that was not the case. Unfortunately for her, this year's birthday fell on the day before payday (even after 36 years, I'm still broke on that day) and  a very busy Tuesday when I was working on a major story for The Examiner Newspaper.

But I knew she would be the first person to log onto this new site to see what was posted and I hope this was a big enough surprise. So, Happy Birthday, Mom!