FanHouse JR Motorsports

It's got to be tough to be in Brad Keselowski's shoes.

The full-time Nationwide Series driver has shown to be one of the brightest up and coming stars in NASCAR, and his surprise Sprint Cup victory at Talladega only added to the hype. Consider that he's got the best shot as a non-Cup regular to overtake Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards for the Nationwide points title and his 3 wins in 2009, and you're looking at a guy who's turned plenty of heads in Cup ownership.

Reports say that Penske Racing has agreed to put him in the No. 12 Cup car for 2010, but how well he'd do there as a full-time driver is very much up in the air.

For one driver, getting older in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series just means getting better.

50-year-old Mark Martin will drive the full 2010 schedule in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 car, according to the Associated Press. Martin returned to full time competition in 2009 with a two year deal at Hendrick after running partial schedules since 2007, and it was originally expected that 2010 would be another partial schedule for the driver.

While the news may be good for Martin fans, surprise Talladega winner Brad Keselowski is now somewhat on the outside looking in for 2010 if he wants to pursue racing in NASCAR's top division.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said in a recent interview that he felt bad for fans that had #8 tattoos. He fought hard to keep the number--more for his fans than for himself, but to no avail.

Nevertheless, Junior will never forget the devotion of the fans to his DEI #8 Budweiser Chevy team. Team JRM is going to make sure of it.

Ed Sullivan, President of InfieldParking.com, (join) along with JRM's Kelley Earnhardt and Thayer Lavielle, is making a collage of the tattooed fans' photos for Junior. No doubt the collection will ultimately hang in the Fan Zone or some other well-trafficked area of the JR Motorsports 66,000 square foot facility in Mooresville, N.C.

Got a #8 tattoo? Want it immortalized with other fans' #8 commemorative ink? Post a photo of your body art in the IP forum to have it included in the collage. Oh, and keep it PG ... IP and JRM are family-friendly forums. Shocker.

Brad Keselowski, the driver of the JR Motorsports No. 88, was removed gingerly from his battered race car Saturday night at California Speedway after one of the hardest NASCAR wrecks in recent memory.

Keselowski was placed on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance with noticeable pain in his legs. He was later flown to a nearby hospital for X-rays on his legs.

Keselowski, 23, of Rochester Hills, Mich. was battling with A.J. Allmendinger for 18th spot on lap 67 when Allmendinger appeared to move into the path of J.J. Yeley entering turn one. Allmendinger spun down the track and clipped the rear end of Keselowski, shooting the No. 88 Chevrolet head-on into the outside wall. Yeley then clipped Eric McClure, resulting in a four car crash.

ESPN2 telemetry the No. 88 impacting the wall at over 140mph. The impact lifted Keselowski's car into the air enough to allow Allmendinger to briefly get under the spinning, flaming race car. Allmendinger's No. 42 suffered a broken A-post on the right side of the roll cage.

NASCAR red-flagged the race for repairs to the SAFER barrier.

A.J. Allmendinger talked to ESPN2 after getting released from the infield hospital.

"I thought i was clear, but then I got clipped in the right-rear," said Allmendinger.

"I felt so bad for Brad because that was a big hit. I think he's going to be OK. I talked to him in the infield hospital, and he didn't cuss at me, so I think we'll be OK."

Fanhouse Followup
Keselowski's X-Rays Negative After Crash

People didn't put much stock in the rumor when my internet buddy Greg Engle of Cup Scene Daily wrote the story last week ... maybe they'll pay more attention now that Marty Smith is hearing the same thing from his sources:

Split sponsorship package in works for Earnhardt?

It is widely speculated that PepsiCo. is the leading candidate to sponsor Earnhardt through its Mountain Dew brand, but sources with knowledge of negotiations say National Guard is also a top candidate as part of a split sponsorship package.

Sources say the combined deal will be the richest team sponsorship in NASCAR history, somewhere between $25 million and $30 million annually.

Some fans assumed that a National Guard sponsorship would be out of the question due to Junior's relationship with the NAVY. I don't believe that was ever an issue, though, considering that Junior's relationship with the NAVY is as a car owner, not a driver. Not to mention, it's a different series.

I'm sure if the NAVY was unhappy for whatever reason, that would be taken into consideration, but I don't know that it would be a deal breaker. Unless the NAVY has some kind of clause in their contract with JR Motorsports about who Junior drives for (and why would they?), I don't know what right they would have to complain.

A deal assumes that Kellogg's would move over to the #25 (or #5) car of Casey Mears, but offers no closure on the future of the #8.

There must have been a sale on mergers in the month of July.

Ginn Racing led off with their merge with DEI, Robert Yates Racing hooked up with Newman-Haas and like 15 other people, and today, both Hendrick Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing added some depth to their Busch Series programs.

That depth for Hendrick Motorsports came in the form of a pact with JR Motorsports. The hard and fast facts are that Hendrick will ultimately ship its program to the JR Motorsports shop with about 30 employees and also supply engines, chassis, setup, and some sweet talent.

For Richard Childress Racing, Kevin Harvick Inc. will "take a more active role in increased technical alliance with regard to testing, aerodynamics, suspension and chassis" on the Busch side according to a statement from RCR.

Jason Leffler drove Toyota to victory lane for the first time in the NASCAR Busch Series after a nail-biting finish at O'Reilly Raceway Park. Fellow Toyota drivers David Reutimann and Mike Bliss gave the manufacturer a top 10 trifecta with their 3rd and 9th place finishes.

I've never been a huge fan of Leffler or the #38 team, but I was ecstatic about their win today, which makes for five top 5s and eight top 10s on the season. That team has struggled for the past several years--they lost Kasey Kahne to Evernham Motorsports, Shane Hmiel to drugs and several cars to the wall, many of them put there by Anthony Foyt IV. Speaking of Hmiel, he holds the record at ORP for most laps led by a non-winner (153).

What made Leffler's win even more exciting is that he is only the second non-Cup driver to win a Busch race this season (not counting Aric Almirola). But any race fan who skips Busch races thinking they aren't worth watching because of the Buschwhacking missed out on some fantastic racing today.

When the late Dale Earnhardt raced with Andy Pilgrim in the 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona, he was impressed by the veteran road-racer.

Pilgrim tutored both Earnhardt and his son, Dale Earnhardt Jr., on how to maneuver the lighter car and the team, which also included Kelly Collins, finished fourth. At the time, Earnhardt promised to one day give Pilgrim a chance to drive one of his cars in NASCAR Competition.

Earnhardt wasn't able to keep that promise, but Junior intends to make good on it:

"My dad told Andy that he'd give him a shot at driving one of his cars after racing in the Corvette at Daytona. He wasn't able to make good on that promise, so I'm doing it for him."

JR Motorsports officials announced Thursday that road-racing veteran Andy Pilgrim will drive the team's #88 Chevrolet in the upcoming NASCAR Busch Series races at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and Watkins Glen International.

I'm sure there were other motivating factors--like wanting to put the best available driver in the car--but still, this is yet another classy move by the late legend's son. I didn't know about this promise prior to JRM's announcement, but now that I do it sure has left me wondering why, in the six years since Dale Sr. made the promise to Pilgrim, Teresa Earnhardt never fulfilled it.

Are DEI officials deliberately dishing out inaccurate info to the media?

On June 25, Lee Spencer of Fox Sports reported that Bass Pro Shops had re-signed with DEI to sponsor Martin Truex Jr. in 2008, stating that "terms of the deal were not disclosed." Spencer's sources were also undisclosed, which seems unusual with an article of this nature, which would typically be accompanied by quotes from one or more parties, either from a press release or interview.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to learn that Bass Pro Shop hasn't re-signed (or exercised their option). At least not yet.

This week in NASCAR Scene, DEI general manager John Story said nothing had been signed and he had nothing to announce. The Scene article referenced the inaccurate story as reported in the Springfield News-Leader, Bass Pro Shops' hometown paper, which, like the Fox story, was also unattributed. But the Springfield article wasn't published until June 26, a day after Spencer's story.

This is now the third time--at least--in recent history that a bad story has come from DEI.

Was firing driver Shane Huffman Tony Eury Sr.'s first order of duty for JR Motorsports? Effective immediately, Huffman is out of the Busch Series #88 NAVY Chevrolet:

Dale Earnhardt Jr.:

"Upon a midseason evaluation of the performance of this race team, we decided we needed to make a change, and right now we have a window to do that. Because of the short notice, I am going to drive the Navy car Friday night at Daytona. It's a big race for us. We are carrying a special Navy SEALs paint scheme on the car, so we want to make sure we give it a good run for the Navy and all our sponsors and employees."

A mid-season replacement will be named in the near future.

So, was Huffman's termination strictly performance related as implied in the statement? Highly unlikely.