Hot Rod Diecast

Turner Sports hit the track this past Sunday with the first of it’s six 2008 Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing Sprint Cup Summer Series races on Turner Network Television (TNT) and unveiled RaceBuddy, Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing.COM’s live online companion to the network’s televised coverage, with both platforms delivering strong early results. TNT’s coverage of the Pocono 500 earned a 3.9 US rating, up 27% over last year’s coverage on the network. Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing.COM’s RaceBuddy shined in its debut, garnering 712,000 live streams to Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing’s official site during the race.

“At Turner Sports we pride ourselves on successfully delivering an enjoyable and high-quality multi-platform experience to our audiences for the sporting events we cover; be it Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing, NBA, MLB or PGA,” said David Levy, Turner Sports President. “We are thrilled at the early feedback on both our telecast and online offerings and look forward to continuing the momentum this weekend in Michigan.”

Other TNT Ratings and Demo Highlights from the Pocono 500:

The race was also the top-ranked program for the week on cable among total viewers (6,098,000), households (4,393,000), adults 18-49 (2,780,000) and adults 25-54 (3,271,000).

TNT saw tremendous growth in Total Viewers ×22% (6,098,000 vs. 4,987,000), Adults 18-49 ×18% (2,780,000 vs. 2,348,000), Adults 25-54 ×26% (3,271,000 vs. 2,605,000) Men 18-49 ×17% (1,848,000 vs. 1,581,000), Men 25-54 ×24% (2,179,000 vs. 1,756,000).

RaceBuddy, which offered live feeds from the Pit Road Cam, In-Car Cameras, Battle Cam, Race Robo and Mosaic View, also guided fans to online chats, answered poll questions and submitted questions to “Ask the Booth” which were answered during the pre-race coverage and throughout the race telecast by TNT announcers Bill Weber, Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach.

Darrell Waltrip planned to attend his first Kentucky Derby last year, but Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing’s top series was in Virginia that weekend and he couldn’t get away.

Now it’s possible the three-time Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing champion and FOX analyst could see a Sprint Cup Series race in his home state before the Run for the Roses. Either way, the Owensboro native believes a Cup race at Kentucky Speedway would trump the Derby.

“I know that doesn’t sit well with my old Kentucky home,” he said, “but that’s a fact.”

The pending sale of Kentucky Speedway to Speedway Motorsports Inc. has Waltrip excited about the possibility of Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing’s marquee series coming to the Sparta track either next year or by 2010. The 61-year-old even interrupted a vacation with his wife just to talk about it Monday.

“How can you not think that Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati could be a great market?” he said. “Toyota is there. Cintas is there. Procter and Gamble is there. With Louisville and Cincinnati and all the surrounding areas, it’s a great market and it proves it by selling out that (Nationwide) Series every year.”

Track officials announced Monday afternoon that about 2,000 tickets remained for the Meijer 300 on Saturday. The speedway boasts enough grandstand seating for 66,089 and has averaged an announced capacity crowd of 70,952 for its seven previous races featuring Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing’s No. 2 series.

Waltrip once worked as a paid consultant for Kentucky Speedway and contributed to its design. He still stays in touch with track officials.

“Kentucky is as nice a facility as has been built in this modern era,” he said. “With all the conveniences, it’s a great race track. Everything is first class.”

The Enquirer

Can a former oil tank farm go from potential Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing race track to nature preserve?

The state plans to include the 600-acre Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing site on its revised open space plan — a land acquisition list that makes it possible to purchase and preserve private lands with public money.

Inclusion on the list indicates the state’s interest in buying all or portions of the sprawling industrial, waterfront site where an 80,000-seat race track was once planned. But it’s no promise of a purchase, especially for a site that cost more than $100 million when International Speedway Corp. (ISC) bought the former oil tank farm in 2004. ISC dropped its race track proposal in 2006 in the face of mounting political opposition, and a deal last year to sell the land to warehouse developer ProLogis fell through.

The open space plan, meanwhile, can be more than just an acquisition wish list. It allows the state to pool a variety of public funds to buy such lands. Large chunks of Mount Loretto were purchased and preserved by the state after they were listed on the open space plan, as were the woodlands surrounding St. Francis Friary on Todt Hill.

“Being on the priority list allows the state to use environmental protection fund money to acquire the property, and that’s why it’s really important,” said Arturo Garcia-Costas, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which will release the final version of its revised open space plan early next year.

Sensitive wet and grasslands made the Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing site an attractive candidate for the open space plan, but some local leaders are objecting to the site’s placement on the list. A representative for Borough President James Molinaro told the state that the site’s potential economic development should keep it off the open space plan.

“I need jobs — that’s what I need, especially when times are getting tougher,” said Molinaro.

More at silive.com

HANS Performance Products announced today that Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing has approved the use of the new Vision Advantage PLUS sliding tether system and the HANS Device Sport Series.

The new Vision Advantage PLUS sliding tether system permits improvements in left and right visibility by allowing easy but controlled rotation of a racer’s helmet. The proven results are tethers that allow over four times the field of view of competing head and neck restraints.

The HANS Device Sport Series provides drivers with class leading performance at a value price. Starting at $595 for youth sizes, the Sport Series features a revolutionary carbon fiber composite combined with an innovative and proprietary molding process.

Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing did extensive testing to ensure their driver’s protection. Sales Director Howard Bennett said, “We’re very pleased that Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing approved the Vision Advantage Plus sliding tether and HANS Device Sport Series. We recognize they trust us to keep Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing participants secure.”

Introduced at the PRI show in December of 2007, the Vision Advantage Plus sliding tether and HANS Device Sport Series have been approved by the SFI Foundation and the FIA.

In a slow yet consistent pace, Brian Vickers, the same driver who failed to make 13 races last season, is making a chance at the Chase a possibility.

Brian Vickers’ crew was clocked for speeding coming off pit road twice during Sunday’s Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway, but it left the driver perplexed as to how it could even happen.

Blame it on the paint scheme change from blue to silver. But more likely it was the five-race hiatus he spent watching from atop the pit box while Mike Skinner drove his car.

It was a strange night capped by an even stranger finish, a fuel-mileage scramble that resulted in perhaps the most unlikely lead quintet in modern Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing history. The winner had never won before, the runner-up had never been in the top five, the third-place finisher hadn’t placed that high in a decade. Fourth place had struggled to finish races, fifth place just to make them. To each driver, the events of that evening at Lowe’s Motor Speedway seemed a needed career boost.

Mike Metcalf just missed out on the start of Appalachian State’s run of three consecutive national championships in football.

Brian France, chairman and CEO of Nat\’l Assoc for Stock Car Racing, said Wednesday that a former employee who has filed a lawsuit against the organization did not follow clear-cut company guidelines that should have resolved any complaints she had about her co-workers.