Top 20 Countdown: No. 8 Kurt Busch (Yahoo! Sports)

January 27, 2010

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Editor’s note: Yahoo! Sports is counting down the top 20 drivers of the 2010 season. The order was determined by a survey, which asked five NASCAR journalists – Jay Busbee and Jay Hart (Yahoo! Sports); Jenna Fryer (Associated Press); Dustin Long (Landmark Newspapers); and Nate Ryan (USA Today) – to predict the final standings for the 2010 season. The countdown will conclude on Feb. 5 with the unveiling of the No. 1 driver.

2009 finish: 4th

Our 2010 predictions:

• Jay Busbee: 3rd• Jay Hart: 7th• Jenna Fryer: 9th• Dustin Long: 9th• Nate Ryan: 11th

2010 outlook: Considering that in 2009 he beat everyone but Rick Hendrick’s Yankee-like arsenal and that he did it all by himself – that is pretty much without the benefit of a teammate to rely on – Kurt Busch might as well be called the One Man Gang.

So imagine, then, what Busch could accomplish if he actually got some help.

Well, in 2010 he should get some. Sam Hornish Jr., entering his third season in Cup, is on the hot seat. Team owner Roger Penske has already gone on record as saying this is the season he expects Hornish to realize his potential. Tack Penske’s expectations for Hornish onto the skill set of Brad Keselowski, the newest member of team Penske, and Busch should be able to capitalize on the team concept that has certainly aided Jimmie Johnson in his four-peat effort.

Of course, this assumes that Hornish actually progresses and that Keselowski is as good as advertised and not just the benefactor of good equipment.

Success for Busch in 2010 also hinges on how well he meshes with new crew chief Steve Addington. Yes, you read that correctly, Steve Addington, Kyle Busch’s recently terminated crew chief, is big brother Kurt’s new crew chief.

Kurt Busch reportedly didn’t consult his younger brother before going after Addington. The 12 races Kyle won with Addington in the last two seasons was all the proof Kurt needed.

The challenge, Busch explained, is meshing what was working for him in the late stages of 2009 when he finished the season 1st-6th-4th with Addington’s ideas.

“There’s no real timeline on when we have to have everything clicking on all eight cylinders,” Kurt Busch explained, “but we just can’t beat ourselves while we’re going through that process.”

What you need to know: Only two drivers led laps in more races in 2009 than Kurt Busch’s 22. Jimmie Johnson led in 29 races, Mark Martin in 23.

Jay Hart is the NASCAR editor for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jay a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Written by chris · Filed Under NASCAR | Comments Off

NASCAR Hall of Fame may prove well worth the wait (NASCAR.com)

January 27, 2010

Some artifacts are already inside the building — like Ricky Cravens car from 2003.

One day there will be interactive displays and video screens and cabinets full of memorabilia, but on this night four months before the official opening, there are still dangling wires and workers scurrying to get the job done. With its bare white walls and unfinished touches, the interior of the NASCAR Hall of Fame still looks very much like a construction site, to the point where visitors are required to wear hard hats, orange vests, and protective glasses.

On May 11, though, this will seem like a different world. Soon race cars will adorn a spiraled, progressive banking that right now is made of plywood. Soon exhibits dedicated to the first five inductees will sit atop platforms that now stand empty. Soon visitors will be able to sit in a 275-person theatre featuring a curved projection screen and built-in air vents that allow for a sensory experience, even though the seats have yet to be installed. For a facility scheduled to open to the world in only a few months, the NASCAR Hall of Fame seems startlingly empty. But you can see the promise, through even all the plaster and the paint.

"We're looking forward to getting her open. She's not a sonogram anymore. She's almost a baby," said Buz McKim, the Hall's historian in residence, and the man tasked with tracking down many of the relics that will soon give the place life. And rest assured, regardless of how it looks today, it's going to be completed on time—crews are working around the clock to finish it, and many exhibits are being assembled off-site, and will simply be snapped into place. Even so, the facility will open late. Years late. Decades late. Because in retrospect, it seems astounding that this idea has not come to fruition before now.

People have tried. There are a hundred roadside museums like Memory Lane and the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame up in Mooresville, N.C., charming places well worth their modest admission price. There are more polished halls of fame at Talladega and Darlington, and even a few stock cars in the museum at Indianapolis. But those facilities have only been filling a vacuum. NASCAR has long lacked its own signature hall, a showpiece exhibit as fundamentally connected with stock-car racing as Canton is to football, as Springfield is to basketball, as Cooperstown is to baseball.

And now, finally, it is almost at hand, a full 62 years after its namesake association was founded in that famous meeting in the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Fla. Consider that the football shrine was opened a mere 43 years after the NFL was founded in 1920. Consider that basketball's Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame opened its doors only 22 years after the founding of the National Basketball League, the NBA's predecessor. Although 63 years elapsed between the founding of what became Major League Baseball and the shrine in Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame has been around in some form since 1939.

Granted, all of those halls of fame encompass their sports in their entirety, and are not limited to a single sanctioning body, as the NASCAR hall will be. Even so, it's quite obvious that big-league stock-car racing is coming a little late to the game. The backlog of candidates worthy of enshrinement, the plethora of available NASCAR racing memorabilia, and the level of fan interest all make it clear that this is an idea that perhaps should have become reality 20 or 30 years ago. And yet, the wheels on this project—which Atlanta, Daytona Beach, Kansas City and Richmond also bid for—didn't really begin turning in earnest until 2004.

Now, though, that tardiness may work to NASCAR's benefit. Yes, there are too many people worthy of getting in, too many cars and trophies and artifacts to display. But even in its half-finished condition, it's easy to see that the place is going to be state of the art, full of the kind of interactive exhibits that separate good museums from mediocre ones. Compare that to say, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, which was built in 1963 and feels stuck there, with a lot of things in glass cases and none of the multimedia flash that defines the NFL today. Other halls face similar battles, constantly upgrading to stay relevant in a digital age. One day, the NASCAR Hall of Fame will face that battle, too. But now, its late start gives it a huge jump on the competition.

There are going to be plenty of bells and whistles, like a spiraling ramp showing the progression of banking from Martinsville to Bristol, and accessible exhibits like an old orange Unocal tower and a real race hauler, the latter set in place before the walls were finished. There are going to be cars ranging from Richard Petty's 1967 Plymouth (which won more races than any car in NASCAR history) to Ricky Craven's 2003 Pontiac (which won the closest finish in the era of modern timing and scoring). There's the movie theatre where air will blow on viewers to make them feel like cars are going by, a massive ballroom space that may one day host a national political convention, the tall spires—the equivalent to the busts at the NFL hall—that will memorialize the enshrined and line the interior of a circular room.

And yet, it's the smaller, nuanced items that seem most memorable, at least now. Like the information sheet Dale Earnhardt filled out for NASCAR in 1975, before his first race when he was living at his mother's house in between marriages, where he mentioned that he wrestled in high school, was superstitious of peanuts and the color green, and had absolutely no ambitions other than racing. There are the treasure trove of awards won by lesser-known regional racers, donated by grandsons or nephews. McKim said the Hall found about 98 percent of the items it sought to put on display. "You just need to tell me what you want," Petty once told them.

There's one thing McKim still wants—a gold membership card given by series founder Bill France to Red Vogt, the genius mechanic of the 1940s who won the sport's first two championships with driver Red Byron, and came up with the acronym "NASCAR" during the meeting at the Streamline Hotel. The card identifies Vogt as NASCAR member No. 1. McKim calls it the holy grail. "That's the one thing that's kind of stuck in my craw," the historian said during a recent media visit to the facility. "I'd love to have that card."

Card or not, the hall is scheduled to open May 11. Its first five inductees—France, Bill France Jr., Earnhardt, Petty and Junior Johnson—will be enshrined May 23 in a ceremony that is still taking shape. There are still movie screens to hang, display cases to erect, cars to be rolled into place. There is still a lot of work to be done in a relatively brief period of time. But for NASCAR, a facility like the one taking shape off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard is long overdue. And if the early previews are any indication, it will be more than worth the wait.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Written by chris · Filed Under NASCAR | Comments Off

Michael Schumacher could extend F1 comeback (PA SportsTicker)

January 27, 2010

FRANKFURT(AP) —Seven-time champion Michael Schumacher may extend his Formula One comeback beyond the current three-year contract he has signed with Mercedes.

Though he will be 44 years old when the deal expires, the seven-time world champion told Bild newspaper in Germany that it may not signal the end of his F1 career.

“It doesn’t have to be the end after three years,” Schumacher said in comments published Wednesday.

The three-year contract was Mercedes’ idea and it was a sign of confidence, Schumacher said.

Schumacher said he was “sure” he would be competitive, although it might be a “a little optimistic” to win the title in his first comeback season.

“But that has to be our target and our motivation,” he said.

Schumacher, who won five titles with Ferrari, said the Italian team will always remain in his heart.

“I have to watch out not to drive into the red (Ferrari) box when I change tires,” Schumacher joked.

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Schumacher could extend F1 comeback (PA SportsTicker)