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• Why Bristol Motor Speedway is concrete instead of asphalt like most tracks.
• Jeff built the track himself and told us how that came about and why he wanted to build an asphalt track there.
• We talked about the types of racing vehicles on short track and how they compare to NASCAR and open-wheeled race cars.
• We talked about some drivers who have raced on his track and why owners are interested in younger drivers.
• Jeff explained more about his track including the seating, VIP, corporate events, car shows, and training events.
• We also got Jeff’s opinion of Danica Patrick going from open wheeled to stock car.
• We talked about their negotiations with NASCAR to be a sanctioned track or an ASA sanctioned track. Right now they’re running independent.

After the interview Foss and Rees bantered about which sport is more exciting: Open Wheeled racing or Stock car racing. This turned into an argument over which racing movie was best, Days of Thunder, Talladega Nights, or Driven.

We want to thank Short Track owner Jeff Vaughn for coming on the show and we wish his track success in the future! You can check out his track at http://www.shenandoahspeedway.com/

You can download the podcast by right-clicking and selecting "Save As..."

or Click HERE to Listen

Used with permission from "The Sports Piece " presented by Global Data Finder.

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Jeff Gordon understands the boo bird phenomenon as he gets plenty of cheers and boos every time he is introduced at races at least 36 times a year. Gordon recently discussed rivalries and Jimmie Johnson dominance.

“Even in football, people love to hate the dominating team out there,” Gordon said. “But in the NFL you don't see a whole lot of domination.

"I just think it depends on the rivalries and the stories. If you're dominating but you're battling a Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Tony Stewart and you build that rivalry; the good guy/bad guy kind of thing; the Ford vs. Chevy and all that sort of thing. I think the stories are still there. The interest is still there. But when you're out there dominating and nobody is really your enemy, then I think it pulls away from you a little bit.

“What we need is Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart to be butting heads and banking and trying to beat one another and talking trash, that's going to be good television.”

Recent NASCAR rivalries have resulted more than just spirited verbal exchanges, high speed airborne crashes like Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski at Atlanta have dominated motorsports news. NASCAR announced at the 2010 Charlotte Media Tour that they were going to let the drivers police themselves, a “have at it” policy. It’s very likely they didn’t mean crash your adversary at will so Edwards did go beyond that with his deliberate nudge.

Edwards drives a Ford, Keselowski drives a Dodge, but Ryan Newman sees rivalries between teammates as substantial discord.

“I think it has the biggest potential for conflict of all things we do in NASCAR, any teammate is a competitor,” Newman said. “That sense of pressure I guess, especially with the extra hype now with the Chase and everything else, it makes it a higher level of potential for that conflict on the racetrack.

“I think that's the biggest reason why. You got the same equipment. You got the same a lot of things. The biggest difference is your results. That creates a little internal rivalry at times.”

Keselowski has probably drawn more ire than Edwards as a track foe in the past with aggressive driving angering Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch among others, but drivers are expected to compete. In the aftermath of the Atlanta episode, NASCAR responded with a three race probation period for Edwards. They were very concerned about the car getting airborne at a mile and half track and will study that data over and over. Both drivers will undergo a face-to-face session with team owners present. 

The Edwards/ Keselowksi crash ignited many passions pro and con and probably took away from the exciting victory by Kurt Busch at Atlanta. Maybe even boo birds were busy taking new sides.

Busch gets his share of boos still, but there is nothing like winning to attract a larger fan base. That won’t silence boo birds, but increasing cheers is a good way to improve introduction moments. Busch commented on fan perception and media focus.

“I’ve always tried to make everyone’s job in the media center easy by giving good answers, but sometimes that will hurt you as well,” Busch said. “The other night, the NASCAR officials didn’t chuckle like everyone did when I gave that quote that I was making too many laps in the ambulance versus the racetrack. The track safety guys took it as, ‘What is Kurt complaining about? Did we take too long to get him to the infield care center?’ Sometimes things get misconstrued when it comes out of my mouth and maybe I haven’t connected to the race fans out there as easily as I should.

“I love racing. I’m a racer at heart. I’ve come from nothing, very humble beginnings. My story is the same as anyone out there sitting in the grandstands except I got a unique opportunity to drive a race car when I was 17 years old. Back in Las Vegas a guy called me up to go race his Late Model, but years before that I was sitting in the grandstands at Las Vegas Motor Speedway watching races. I was at Phoenix International Raceway watching races. My dad and grandfather went to the Milwaukee Mile year after year watching races. I was just a spectator, but I got a unique opportunity to drive a race car.”

Authentic boo birds have to respect those words, even if they won’t let it alter their throaty tone.

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Years from now we will look back upon this date with vivid feeling, for March 9th, 2010 was the day NASCAR decided that you can wreck whoever you want, whenever you want, with disregard to the safety of drivers and fans without repercussion.

NASCAR had a chance to make a strong statement against the actions performed by
Carl Edwards this past Sunday. It is unlikely any major sport in this country or
the world would want to condone such a dangerous maneuver.

For reasons we may never understand, NASCAR decided that Edwards had punishment
enough from his parking at the end of the Kobalt Tools 500. They decided that purposefully wrecking someone, whose car then became airborne and came frighteningly close to entering the stands, is just an example of "good ole’ boys racin’."

Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if NASCAR uses the incident in their ‘Back to
Basic’ ads that they are so fond of.

So where do we go from here? Can the media and fans continue to watch a sport in
which the sanctioning body dictates that it is acceptable to possibly injure or
kill another competitor at their leisure?

What must the drivers feel at this declaration today? A sport which is already
dangerous in its own right chose to increase the danger rather than mitigate
it.

A pessimist would say this decision could have been based under the premise that
it will help the sagging ratings of the last couple years. No one will actually
claim that is the case, but the idea is not without merit.

The credibility that NASCAR has been striving to recover over the past year has
taken a serious blow today. For the public who are exploring the sport solely
for the spectacular incident at Atlanta, it is understandable if they step away
disgusted.

Already there is a group on Facebook dedicated to boycotting the next Sprint Cup
race at Bristol. Perhaps this will be the fans' answer to this deplorable decision.

For NASCAR, they have now officially put their own needs ahead of the safety of
the drivers and their fans. One can only hope that NASCAR brass has a little
trouble sleeping tonight.

As a fan, I know I will.

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The situation began unfolding on lap 40 of the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and came full circle when Edwards used the right front bumper of his car to send Brad Keselowski flying into the turn one catch fence.

Helton made it clear in his short speech that NASCAR will not tolerate this kind of behavior at any level.

While speculation and the the build up to this announcement has been monumental, the delivery of the penalty was short and to the point.

“Carl will be put on probation for the next three NASCAR events, and we're sure he understands what that means.”

The penalty assessed is sure to send a very clear message throughout the NASCAR community.

If retaliation is on a driver's mind, as of this situation, three-race probation is in their future.

The debate now will be if the penalty fits the crime and will any situation of this magnitude be handled the same way in the future.

In the late evening after the race, Edwards posted his version of the situation on the popular web site Facebook.

In the final statement of that posting, Edwards said every person has to decide what code they want to live by, and hopefully this explains mine."

NASCAR made it clear what code they govern by. Helton said they take what Carl did seriously and have reacted appropriately.  

Earlier in the year, Keselowski stated he thought Edwards was one of the toughest drivers in the garage, but, with a 3,500-pound race car, he could kick some ass.

Keselowski was already making good on that statement long before he made it.

Helton said there will be more meetings between the driver of the No. 99 and the No. 12 and their car owners. He feels the input of Roger Penske and Jack Roush will be very important to this situation.

These meetings are expected to take place before the Bristol race.

Each driver in the garage will have their opinion about this situation and about the outcome. Its doubtful today’s teleconference is the last we will hear of this.

Helton also made it clear that NASCAR’s have at it statement was promoting typical NASCAR driving with side-by-side racing in our type of race cars.

"We were telling the drivers were going to back off on that grip we had, but, there is a line you can cross and when you cross that line, in our opinion, were going to get involved with you."

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In pulling Edwards off the track and speaking with him in the trailer, Helton said that NASCAR "wanted to make it clear that this goes beyond what we said in February, and we think the driver of the No. 99 understands that."

In his opinion, he thinks their "reaction of putting Carl in the garage for the rest of the event and our probation is enough."

He went on to add that in talking with both Roger Penske (Brad Keselowski's owner) and Jack Roush (Edwards' owner), they came to this decision and plan to meet up with both drivers to "clean the slate so they can get back to hard racing" as the "drivers need to sort it out themselves."

Of the drivers, Helton added, "If there's a rivalry that goes beyond racing, they need to figure out how to manage that before we get involved in it. It's not as much us mentoring at this point, as it is the two drivers talking it out with the owners listening."

Though Helton went on to add, "There is a line you can cross, and we'll step in to maintain law and order when we think that line is crossed."

When Helton was asked what's crossing the line, he said, "We'll see it when we see it" and then went said, "We may react to first incident different then we'd react to third, forth or fifth incident."

Helton also emphasized the seriousness of the Keselowski's car getting airborne, stating that NASCAR will be taking a serious look at that.

"The 12 car getting airborne is a much more serious issue for us right now," Helton said in the press conference. "We take what Carl did seriously, but airborne is the biggest issue. A car getting airborne on a mile-and-a-half track doesn't happen regularly. Been years since we've seen that. A lot of the discussions will center around why it happened, what caused it to happen and to prevent it.

The event of the 12 car getting off the ground contributed to the spectacle of the event and what made it looked severe. We're looking to preventing that from happening."

This announcement comes after an incident that originally started back on lap 39 of the Kobalt Tools 500.

On lap 39, Keselowski and Edwards made contact on the restart, sending Edwards and Joey Logano into the wall. On the initial replay, it looked as if Keselowski got into the back of Edwards.

Though upon further review, Edwards actually came down in front of Keselowski, causing Keselowski to get into him. Either way, blame was placed on Keselowski for the incident.

After spending numerous laps behind the wall, Edwards returned to the track, looking to make the points loss due to the incident minimal. However, with six laps to go, Edwards retaliated.

Edwards got behind Keselowski with eight laps to go and took three swipes at him, finally wrecking him on the third try. The result was Keselowski flipping upside down on the front stretch at Atlanta Motor Speedway, not injured, and Edwards being parked for the remainder of the race.

As the announcement broke, drivers and NASCAR members alike began tweeting their opinions, in which some turned out to be quite interesting:

"I wonder what would of happened to me in that situation?" Robby Gordon (@RobbyGordon) questioned. "Hmmm someone playing favorites?"

"Huh!" Kevin Harvick (@KevinHarvick) tweeted soon after. "Surprised by the penalty or lack there of..... I'm thinking about asking for a refund for all of my penalties!!!!"

"Rules or comments of unintended consequences, all any league can do is act, then react,u make rules based on what you know at the time!" Darrell Waltrip (@allwaltrip) tweeted.

"Gotta say I think NASCAR handled the situation the right way, glad 2 c they ackowledged the car getting airborne is the biggest issue." Regan Smith (@Regan_Smith_) tweeted.

"My heading is spinning," Delana Harvick (@DeLanaHarvick) tweeted. "I can't understand what a 3-race probation actually does. Maybe @kevinharvick should awe shucks more. Seems to work." 

"Yo go #nascar!!!" Scott Speed (@scottspeed) tweeted. "3 race probation for Edwards! Awsome I love it!!! I bet Keslowski is scared now lol"

Marty Smith (@MartySmithESPN) tweeted it best with, "Agree or not, precedence is set. If I'm Driver-X, and somebody's holdin' me up, I ain't a damn bit scared to bomb into 1 and send 'em now." 

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NASCAR President Mike Helton is set to address the media at 12:30 p.m. with further details on what's in store for Carl Edwards.

On lap 39, Keselowski and Edwards made contact on the restart, sending Edwards and Joey Logano into the wall. On the initial replay, it looked as if Keselowski got into the back of Edwards.

Though upon further review, Edwards actually came down in front of Keselowski, causing Keselowski to get into him. Either way, blame was placed on Keselowski for the incident.

After spending numerous laps behind the wall, Edwards returned to the track, looking to make the points loss due to the incident minimal. However, with six laps to go, Edwards retaliated.

Edwards got behind Keselowski with eight laps to go and took three swipes at him, finally wrecking him on the third try. The result was Keselowski flipping upside down on the front stretch at Atlanta Motor Speedway, not injured, and Edwards being parked for the remainder of the race.

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For only the second time since 1996, Australia won't be hosting the first race. As in 2006, Bahrain gets that honour, which is a shame as Melbourne usually throws up a good race, and I do quite enjoy getting up at early o'clock for F1. It makes it feel special as a season opener.

Anyway, Bahrain. It's been part of the calendar since 2004, and was the first race to be held in the Middle East. The facilities at the track weren't quite finished for the first race, but it went ahead anyway. Up until this year, the layout of the track had remained the same.

The Track

For 2010, an extra half a mile has been added just after turn four, bringing the total length of the circuit to just under four miles. There are a few places to overtake—the slow corners following the long straights tend to provide the best chances.

One of the most difficult things for the drivers and teams to cope with is the heat. The cars have to cope with some pretty high temperatures, with forecasts suggesting air temperature will be around 36 degrees Celsius. It wouldn't be surprising if several cars blew up during the course of the weekend.

History

All of the previous winners of the Bahrain GP will be present, with Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa taking two victories each, and Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button both winning one.

Last years race saw the two Toyota's on the front row of the grid, with Button starting in fourth. Jenson managed to overtake Sebastian Vettel on the first lap, but Lewis Hamilton had taken them both, moving from fifth to third. Button's impressive move on Lewis on the next lap moved him up a place, and once the Toyota's pitted, he was in the lead, and went on to win the race.

Prediction

As it's the first race of the year and I'm doing this before practice or qualifying, this is going to be a complete guess. With it looking like there could be four teams challenging for the title in 2010, that means there are potentially eight drivers who have a realistic chance of the victory here.

1. Fernando Alonso
2. Sebastian Vettel
3. Felipe Massa
4. Lewis Hamilton
5. Michael Schumacher
6. Jenson Button
7. Rubens Barrichello
8. Mark Webber
9. Nico Rosberg
10. Kamui Kobayashi

Bahrain GP on the BBC

First Practice: Friday, 12th March. 0655-0835, BBC Red Button
Second Practice: Friday, 12th March. 1055-1235, BBC Red Button
Third Practice: Saturday, 13th March. 0755-0905, BBC Red Button
Qualifying: Saturday, 13th March. 1010-1230, BBC One
Race: Sunday, 14th March. 1110-1415, BBC One

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Starting even before the season started, Hornaday lost his crew chief Rick Ren to Kyle Busch Motorsports. Hornaday went into the first race at Daytona, finishing 27th after starting fifth after a wreck. However, something didn’t feel right and the new crew chief was gone as of Monday.

A new crew chief was hired and Hornaday headed to California. Qualifying went well as Hornaday won the pole, though after a tire rub resulted after contact with Kyle Busch and cut the tire, Hornaday finished 33rd.

With this bad start to the season, can Hornaday make up the ground and win the championship again?

In Hornaday’s past two championships, his first two races of the year have had a finish no worse than seventh.

In 2009, he finished fifth at Daytona and sixth at California, followed by seventh at Atlanta.

In 2007, he finished seventh at Daytona and second at California, followed by 11th at Atlanta.

Hornaday has the team behind him that could comeback to win it as they have been impressive in the past, such as the five wins in a row last year. Though what could stop them is 2006 champion Todd Bodine, whose got off to a good start, and his biggest competitor last year Matt Crafton.

Martinsville will be the key if he can make the comeback as to make up the points loss, he will need a make sure to get a good finish. According to Truck Series history, no driver whom has started the year with three straight bad finishes has gone on to win the truck series championship.

Though Hornaday has done well at Martinsville in the past as last year he finished second and sixth in 2007 so Martinsville could be the turning point.

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Hornaday and his No. 33 Longhorn team came to Atlanta looking to rally back and hoping for a good day. Unfortunately, the team gambled on a tire rub, rolled the dice, it came up snake eyes and ended there day early finishing 34th.

The chemistry looked good between Horn and his new crew chief Doug George and the 33 team. They looked good in both practices running 30 laps between the two, making multiple changes to his truck.

Horn was the fourth fastest in the first, and ran 15th fastest in the final one.

Then he went out and won the pole for the race. One thing about Horn, he's one of  several drivers in the series. That you can't judge how they are in practice, and it's how well they qualify as to just how really good they are.

It goes without say that he had one stout Chevy on Saturday. Horn took the green heading into turn one it was three wide with Busch and Crafton.

When Horn trying to hold his line, got loose on the cold tires and made slight contact with Busch. The end result was his left rear fender slightly bent in rubbing on his tire.

The team debated making a pit stop for fresh tires and to pull the fender out. While for several laps his truck did have tire smoke, it did dissipated and stop.

His spotter Rick Carelli thought it didn't look too bad and teammate/boss Kevin Harvick did drive right behind also saying the same thing.

So Horn would stay out, rather than lose a lap or two early and not because he would not have made it up later in the race.

He would remain among the leaders, continue fighting for the lead and actually led Lap 11 before quickly surrender the lead to Busch.

Horn would settle into third, with his truck getting looser each lap and was patiently waiting for a pit stop. Unfortunately Horn became the first caution on Lap 23, when his left rear tire explode and sent him into the wall.

His No. 33 Longhorn Chevrolet received extensive rear end damage and also the right side was pancaked in.

His team worked pretty hard trying to get Horn back out to log some laps for points but the damage was too great to repair.

Horn finished 34th for the day, add that to his 28th place finish at Daytona and many have written him off too repeat.

But Horn along with Skinner are two guys that you just can never write off and throw the statistic's out the window with them.

It is what it is, but adversity like this will only make the No. 33 Longhorn team strong and they'll battle back to factor into the championship at Homestead.

Photo Credit: sports.yahoo.com

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After reading post after post about what should and should not be done, it's time to take a deeper look at just how serious and dangerous the act that NASCAR driver Carl Edwards actually committed.

This is not a case of Edwards just seeking pay back, as the term is loosely used around the drivers themselves, but instead it goes beyond the normal way of thinking especially when you look at who was put in harm's way, and how lucky this man was that no one was seriously hurt.

What Edwards committed on Sunday was a cold-blooded act of revenge by using of all things, a 3,500 pound rolling chunk of metal.

By admitting that his intentions were to intentionally take out fellow NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, in the world that we live that is considered assault with a deadly weapon, and the price for such an act does not come cheap.

It is not normal behavior for one driver to stalk another driver, while thinking when would be the best time to carry out the dirty deed that he already had instilled in his mind.

Not only did Edwards make his intentions clear to the heads of NASCAR, but he also put this survey up on his Facebook page which clearly reads where his mindset was after the race.

"My options: Considering that Brad wrecks me with no regard for anyone’s safety or hard work, should I:

A-Keep letting him wreck me?

B-Confront him after the race?

C-Wait til Bristol and collect other cars?

D-Take care of it now?

"I want to be clear that I was surprised at his flight and very relieved when he walked away. Every person has to decide what code they want to live by and hopefully this explains mine."

How much more blatant could he have made it, and at which time did he actually realize that what he did was wrong?

After reading this excerpt from his page, it’s obvious that he still doesn’t realize the extent of his own actions, and he even went to the extreme of allowing those who read this to leave what they felt would have been the appropriate course of action.

First off, the word “option” should have never been selected, especially when you are dealing with the safety of those around you, and that word has nothing to do with remorse.

Instead, the word “decision” would have been more appropriate, followed up with a more appropriate way of describing as well as looking out for another person’s safety.

Edwards, just like all the other drivers, knows the consequences, as well as the emotional roller coaster ride that takes place once they strap themselves into these high speed racing machines.

NASCAR was born on rubbing and racing one another hard, but it was not born on one driver deliberately going after another for the sake of evening up the score.

Anger along with frustration can easily play mind games on a person, which in turn can cause him to react in ways that are way beyond a person’s normal way of thinking.

What Edwards did was totally uncalled for no matter what the circumstances were, even though he may have felt that something needed to be done to put a stop to Keselowski’s rough driving behavior on the track.

After all, they were participating in an automobile race and there are other ways to even a score, that is unless his intentions were to hurt someone, which they clearly were.

How does someone say I meant to take you out, but didn’t expect the car to fly, especially when no one, not even the engineers, knows what will happen once a car is knocked off of its directed path?

If that was the case, wouldn’t have NASCAR already solved the problem that they are still facing trying to keep the cars from getting airborne?

Edwards has a short history of letting his anger get the best of him, and he displayed it back in November of 2007 when he went after his teammate Matt Kenseth while he was doing a post race interview.

Edwards appeared to be joking when he grabbed Kenseth and pulled him away from the interview. However, things didn't turn out so friendly.

Edwards drew back as if he was going to punch Kenseth as the heated exchange ended.

In 2006, Edwards threatened Tony Stewart physical pain, and then a couple of weeks later he grabbed Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in victory lane following an incident in the Busch Series race.

Edwards also had a heated discussion with Kevin Harvick in October of 2008, when witnesses said Edwards approached Harvick in the garage stall housing Harvick's No. 33 Chevrolet and engaged in conversation.

Following what a witness called a heated discussion, Harvick turned to walk away and Edwards grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.

We have all heard the saying that, “The bigger man is the one who can walk away and avoid confrontations.”

We also know that because of the pride that we carry within ourselves, we sometimes let it get in the way by allowing it to take control of our better judgment.

Two wrongs have never made anything right, and it’s really sad that in this particular case there is no winner, but instead there will only be one loser.

Edwards clearly let his emotions take over at a time when he should have had them in check, and Edwards knew that Keselowski was headed for a good, solid finish when he tried to dive bomb him the first time and missed.

All that did was make him angrier, since he already had his mind set that Keselowski wasn't going to finish the race without first feeling his wrath.

The anger that he displayed towards his fellow driver, along with the frustration of not winning a race in over a year, has taken its toll on him.

Even though Edwards felt that Keselowski was the problem, that does not give him the right to take matters into his own hands, especially when he knows the nature of the sport that he is involved in.

NASCAR is already dangerous, and there is no room for a driver to act out of rage, or to purposely go after his fellow competitor especially when there are other ways to settle the score.

Not once did Edwards ever apologize for his actions, so why should NASCAR show any leniency to a driver who clearly followed his own agenda, without the slightest concern for those around him.

With all of this said and done, Edwards needs to be punished to the fullest extent that NASCAR can hand down, and hopefully it will send out a message that behavior such as this will not be tolerated in the future.

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