Jimmie Johnson Motivated to Go for Fifth-Straight Title
Day three of the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte
Motor Speedway included a lunch stop at the campus of the top team in the

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Hendrick Motorsports.
And the top driver on that team the last four years has been Jimmie
Johnson. He’s the winner of the last four NASCAR Sprint Cup championships,
and set a NASCAR record for most consecutive titles last year with the 2009
championship.

Hendrick Motorsports honored its fans by asking questions from its
Facebook and Twitter accounts, and Johnson was asked about finding
motivation after winning four titles in a row.

“Success makes you want to experience more success,” said Johnson.
“We’ve had an amazing run of four years. We certainly want to keep it up,
keep it going. I feel very good with the fact that our team is intact and
together.

“The things that are coming through the pipeline from Hendrick
Motorsports, the unity of all four teams – I know you guys hear it every
week, every time a microphone is put in front of us – but that stuff really,
really is important and separates Hendrick Motorsports from other teams.
“I’m excited. It’s there. There’s a desire inside of me to do the
best I can week in and week out.”

One side benefit of Johnson’s titles is the competition could psyche
itself out before the season starts. And Johnson said he’ll take any
advantage – real or imagined – he can get.

“It is a benefit,” Johnson said. “It’s a short-term benefit. In some
ways, it could be bad for us. We’ve been a motivational tool for a lot of
teams over the offseason the last few years. Only time will tell how it
really plays out, but I’ve always been in the other position where I looked
up to the guy or team. It’s pretty damn cool to be that person right now, so
I’m going to enjoy it.

“It’s short-lived because we go to Daytona, and you reset and you
worry about what takes place there. Three or four races in, we’ll know who
the players are and what that’s going to look like.”

Guest Column By Cathy Elliott

It’s kind of funny how a single word can become a rallying cry for an entire nation. Some notable examples from the past include things like “freedom,” “equality,” and tragically in the past couple of weeks, “Haiti.”

While it can hardly be called new, NASCAR Nation can happily claim a rejuvenated buzzword of its own in 2010. From Victory Lane at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November 2009 through every speech at Champion’s Week in Las Vegas and every announcement made at the annual media tour in Charlotte earlier this week, one small word has been made into a very big deal.

Fans.

Considering myself relatively normal, I think most people are a lot like me and don’t necessarily limit their sports interest to stock car racing (although it goes without saying that NASCAR is the number one choice).

Most years — yes, even this one — I am firmly camped in front of the TV anytime the UNC Tarheels are playing basketball, not even caring that my tent and sleeping bag don’t match the decor. Although they do cover up that scorch mark from the time I tried to make s’mores in the living room. For the record, a bad idea.

But Roy Williams has never made himself available to talk to me in the off-season.

Being a Washington Redskins nut, I have no dog in the Super Bowl hunt this year.

But I have kept a flow chart for the past 10 years to keep track of the Redskins’ coaches, and the only thing they have in common so far, with the exception of that Gibbs fellow, is being noticeably absent from anyplace where I am present.

And while I truly believe this could the Cubs’ year, I have begun to notice that Alfonso Soriano has never stopped to chat with me in a hotel hallway. Not even once. Can you believe that?

The NCAA, the NFL and MLB and all other sports seem to make an effort to take care of their players, and that’s as it should be. But from where I sit, the only one of the top four American sports currently going out of its way to take care of its fans is NASCAR.

Lots of statistics out there maintain that NASCAR is the number one spectator sport in the country. Race fans are passionate. They are also outspoken. So when fans in general seemed to be dissatisfied with “the product” over the past couple of years, NASCAR not only remarked that opinion, but took action to change it.

On January 21, NASCAR President Mike Helton said that this season, competitors would have more latitude behind the wheel, a “more driver, less car” type of approach.

“It doesn’t mean that you get a free pass out of jail card or anything from some of the characters we have got in the sport, but it certainly means that what we are encouraging the competitors to do … is for their character and their personality within reason to be unfolded,” he said.

Also, the wing affixed to the back of the cars will be replaced with the more traditional-looking spoiler sometime in the first half of the season.

Bottom line? The racing will be more exciting and competitive, and the cars will look better while they’re out there beating and banging.

Why? For the fans.

We all work hard and feel we deserve those all too rare vacations. We have earned them. After completing the longest season in professional sports, surely NASCAR athletes deserve a vacation, as well.

Here’s how they spent those days off. More than just the top 12 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers traveled to Las Vegas for the season-ending banquet festivities. Many were involved in team and sponsor changes and the negotiations that go along with them.

Let’s hope they enjoyed the week of Christmas and their New Year’s celebration of choice, because immediately following those holidays came …

A Goodyear tire test. The National Motorsports Press Association’s annual convention, and the NASCAR media tour.

There was the hugely popular Sprint Sound & Speed in Nashville, Tenn., an interactive fan event featuring country music performers along with NASCAR superstars including Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Kasey Kahne.

On a side note, I’m told you haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard Mike Helton and Blake Shelton singing a karaoke duet. Brooks and Dunn’s decision to retire when they did was a wise one; they wouldn’t have wanted to face THAT level of competition.

From Nashville, it was on to Daytona International Speedway for Preseason Thunder, another opportunity for fans to enjoy some personal contact with their heroes.

Why are these things so important? Because “it always helps when the drivers are out and they’re visible and we can be around the fans and give the fans an opportunity to be around us and have contact with us and our cars and the main items and pieces that make the sport go — the things that they follow, which is the drivers and the cars.

“If we can give them as much access to that as we can, it’s good.”

Those aren’t my words, by the way. That’s a quote from one Mr. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who participated in Preseason Thunder 2010, along with Jeff Gordon and many others.

Race fans, you are the best. For the most part, you don’t just get around to watching the races during the Chase, or when Daytona and the Brickyard roll around. You are invested in the season from start to finish. You care about NASCAR, and you care about the athletes who serve as the ambassadors of the sport.

Isn’t it a wonderful feeling to know they feel exactly the same way about you?

The opinions expressed in this articles are solely those of the author and not this website.

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As a part of NASCAR’s announcements today, they had a pre-produced segment narrated by NBC’s Brian Williams regarding their “Green” initiatives.  The audio explains how NASCAR is helping the environment by recycling, planting trees, and even building a solar farm at Pocono Raceway.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Jan. 21, 2010) – A vision that Bill France Jr. articulated more than fifteen years ago will become reality this season with the formation of the NASCAR iRacing.com Series, an official NASCAR racing series.

On February 9th online racing competition commences with the first event of the inaugural 18-race, 39-week NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship. This series will feature the 50 top-rated drivers currently racing in iRacing’s Pro Series and will include NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., who recently clinched entry into this elite series.

Selected races from the series will be carried over the internet on iRacing.com.

NASCAR and iRacing have worked together since the announcement of the partnership in 2009 to refine the structure of the series, establish a “sporting code” or rule book, as well as develop an identity for the series.

While entry for the NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship is limited to the top 50 drivers, iRacing will also host five NASCAR amateur series open to all NASCAR fans through membership in the iRacing.com online service.
Just below the World Championship series, the 2010 NASCAR iRacing Pro Series is reserved for the 250 top-ranked oval-track iRacing drivers and commences in May to determine eligibility to participate in the 2011 NASCAR iRacing Drivers World Championship.
“Bill France Jr. was ahead of his time when he initially had the vision of an online racing series. Thanks to evolving technology NASCAR fans can virtually compete at their favorite track and have their chance to end up in a victory lane,” said NASCAR Senior Vice President Paul Brooks.

Tony Gardner, iRacing’s president, explained that iRacing’s staff has been busy fine-tuning the infrastructure and creating the organization that supports the vision of NASCAR online racing.

“We’ve created our online racing service for racers and fans,” Gardner said. “We’ve done the hard work to make it simple and easy for NASCAR fans to join iRacing and get behind the wheel. You don’t have to be a computer geek to do this. PC owners with a broadband connection, only need to purchase an inexpensive wheel-and-pedal set from their local consumer electronics store or online. In an hour, they can be racing. It’s that simple. Everything an aspiring racer needs to know to get started is on our Web site, at www.iracing.com.”

The opportunity for NASCAR fans to have extremely affordable but highly meaningful racing careers of their own will become a reality with the launch of these NASCAR-sanctioned amateur online racing series organized and hosted by iRacing.com.
Featuring four 12-week seasons each calendar year, these series feature modifieds, late models, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series trucks, NASCAR Nationwide and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars and mirror the skill ladder that NASCAR athletes typically follow, beginning with short-track racing and proceeding through virtual versions of the three premier real-world NASCAR series.

While iRacing competition licenses to participate in organized races are issued in progressive skill levels, all members are permitted to practice with any car on any track. In conjunction with the Daytona 500, the spring NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Talladega race and the NASCAR season-ending Championship Weekend at Homestead- Miami Speedway, as part of its 2010 World Tour, iRacing will organize races that are open to any member of the service, regardless of license level.