FanHouse NASCARMediaTour

Just a few months ago, the Concord, N.C.-area was facing the prospect of losing on of the nation's premiere racing facilities. Thursday, it was announced that the area will instead get another top-notch locale for a different form of racing.

A brand-spankin' new top-of-the-line drag strip temporarily named "The Drag Strip @ Lowe's Motor Speedway".

With an initial capacity of 30,000 and the option for double that, the NHRA already has an event on the 2008 schedule at the yet-to-be-built drag strip in September for the Carolina's Nationals. The area is already well-known for its support of the stock car racing community and seemingly another form of motorsports is a great fit in a relatively untapped market -- the exception being the Bristol Dragway a few hours away.

Plans for the controversial 1/4 mile track were officially given out by Speedway Motorsports head Bruton Smith in front of the NASCAR media tour audience.

The design is definitely not going to make this venue "just another part" of the Lowe's Motor Speedway complex. A part of the 125-acre development, the main tower at the starting line of the drag strip will offer 34,000 square feet of suites, scoring, a press box, and broadcast booths.

Tunnels will be constructed underneath of the race track to allow for spectators to access both sides easily, as well as easier access to the NHRA pit area widely known for its unrestricted access to all fans.

All of that, of course, will need to be finished by September. Wow.

Frankly, the track is going to be beautiful and very, very well done and I'd be the first one to be completely shocked if Bruton doesn't sell out the eliminations day for the next five years of the venue.

H/T to Jayski on this one.

Roush Fenway Racing hosted its annual stop on the NASCAR Media Tour Thursday afternoon, but one of the Ford team's top drivers wasn't anywhere to be found. And lucky for him, this wasn't a mandatory post-race interview.

Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 26 Crown Royal Ford for Roush Fenway, decided he had better things to do -- like not going to jail -- rather than attend the meet & greet media function. Yeah, McMurray was serving his civic duty as a juror in his now-home area of Iredell County.

Like always, McMurray sounded pretty upbeat about the process in the news release from the team:

"I can't believe that I'm going to miss the media tour this year," said McMurray. "Instead of being the driver of the #26 Crown Royal Ford Fusion, I'm Juror #7 at the Iredell County Courthouse, after being selected for jury duty earlier this week.

"So rather than joining my teammates at Roush Fenway Racing this afternoon, I'll be at the courthouse serving my civic duty. I'm looking forward to returning to Daytona in a couple weeks and hope to catch up with all the media when I get there.

Now, if I'm McMurray, I don't know if I'm telling the whole world my specific juror number in a specific courthouse. That would concern me as an average person, much less someone of McMurray's fame. There's far too many weird people in the world in my book.

It is cool, though, to see that Jamie has no problem with serving on a jury. You'd think there would be multiple ways for McMurray to first avoid the interview process, but also to avoid being selected.

And heck, you just don't see famous people in a local court room on good terms everyday. Way to go Jamie.

So do you remember when TallGlassofMilk reported that Dale Jarrett would be taking over Rusty Wallace's spot in ESPN's booth back in October? (October 17th, to be exact)

Well, a lot of things have happened since then, but one thing is for sure. TGOM was right.

From the ESPN mouth itself:

Dale Jarrett, the 1999 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and one of the founding drivers of the NASCAR Nationwide Series, will expand his role with ESPN and join high school friends Dr. Jerry Punch and Andy Petree in the booth for ESPN¿s full season of NASCAR coverage in 2008.

Rusty Wallace, NASCAR Cup champion in 1989, will become lead analyst for ESPN studio programs in 2008, highlighted by serving as analyst for an enhanced NASCAR Countdown, the program that precedes all NASCAR telecasts.

I know I'm very, very satisfied with this move. What about you?

There was plenty of anti-ESPN sentiment through the end of 2007, though former-driver-turned-broadcaster Wallace shouldn't take all of the blame. Regardless, fans were by and far unhappy with some of Wallace's on-air thoughts, there seemed to be some occasional in-fighting amongst last year's ESPN team with Rusty, and, to me at least, Wallace just didn't have "it" when it came to working a race on TV.

So now, we'll get Wallace nearly every night on ESPN2's NASCAR Now as a lead analyst and as an infield studio reporter during races. I think I can handle that.

The booth changes, though, are just the start of many, many changes in the ESPN NASCAR telecasts in 2008, including:

They might as well just call this thing Prince.

Just like the singer/actor/whatever, the annual NASCAR All-Star Race has had no shortage of name and format changes over the years. Names in the past have included simply "The Winston", "The Winston Select", a revert back to "The Winston", "The Nextel All-Star Challenge", and now the "NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXIV".

Yep, you got that right, NASCAR is trying to go Super Bowl on us with the addition of the roman numerals signifying the 24th-edition of this event.

The format of the race has been changed even more times, including a change for last year. That format didn't even make it a year, as NASCAR has upped the race distance by 25% with an additional five laps in each of four segments.

Essentially, it becomes four quarters like last year, but instead of 20 laps, we've got 25. More racing? That's good.

I'm not a fan, though, of how this is being described as "quarters" and the addition of the roman numerals. The sport already has a hole that it can't dig out of by calling the Daytona 500 the "The Super Bowl of NASCAR" because it infers that NASCAR doesn't have an event that's on the same stage as the Super Bowl.

Sure, there aren't many events that big, but really, what's so wrong with really pushing "The Great American Race"?

And now, the All-Star race has just made another connection to a sport that NASCAR feels it can compete against by employing identical tactics. Frankly, that just doesn't make sense.

The first stop of the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour in Charlotte, N.C. didn't have a whole lot of buzz surrounding it, and if you ask some people, that was a very good thing.

That first stop? A stop by NASCAR's Research and Development Center in Concord for the sanctioning body to announce a few changes for the coming season. The past has seen the Top-35 rule and the Chase points system announced at this event.

This year, though, we didn't get a huge, Earth-shattering announcement.

Instead, NASCAR fans got one of those decisions that is, well, smart. In 2008, teams in all three of NASCAR's top divisions within the top-35 of owner point standings will still be guaranteed a start in the next race, but those teams that aren't in that range will all qualify together at the end of each qualifying session. From the NASCAR Scene:

"NASCAR officials have announced changes to the qualifying procedures in all three of their national series, putting the teams outside of the locked-in group on a more level playing field.

The teams not locked into the starting field in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series will all qualify as a group at the end of their respective qualifying sessions under the new rules."

The impact of this will be felt immediately during Daytona Speedweeks in February. Teams used to draw a qualifying order, so a go-or-go-home car might qualify first during the heat of the day, while another go-or-go-home entry could qualify last when the sun is going down.

That temperature change can significantly affect speeds.