NASCAR’s New Year’s Eve is here — with the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway!
It seems like the hiatus (that began nearly three months ago) went by fast and slow all at once. Of course, there were the three different testing sessions (Daytona, Las Vegas, and California) to help the time go by and feed our racing “addiction,” but in all honesty it really wasn’t enough. We really didn’t get to see any racing except for the few programs on ESPN2 and Speed that showed clips and highlights of the sessions. Real racing — as short as it may be Saturday night — is still more then enough to hold us over until the Gatorade Duels and the highly anticipated Daytona 500 next week. Don’t you agree?
There are several things to look forward to — good and bad. Several drivers and teams get new rides. A few get new sponsors, many of which most of us don’t care much about.
Finally, after hearing so much about many of them, we get to see the new rides of several drivers/teams including:
- Casey Mears — switching from the No. 25 to the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports (HMS) Chevrolet;
- JJ Yeley — switching from No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet to the No. 96 Hall of Faming Racing Toyota;
- Mark Martin — switching from the part time duty of driver of the No. 01 to part time duty driver of the No. 8 Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI) Chevrolet;
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. — switching from the No. 8 DEI Chevrolet to the No. 88 HMS Chevrolet; The subject of the most talked about topic in the off-season, he’ll have a lot to “live up” in the sense that there are many expectations from both sides of the spectrum. Will he win a race? races? a championship? Will he even have championship potential? These questions as well as several others, are lingering in the minds of Earnhardt Jr. fans and critics.
- Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) — switching from Chevrolet to Toyota after 16 years with General Motors; Another hot topic of the off-season, JGR’s switch to Toyota has caused many to wonder why? Despite their good testing speeds over the last few weeks, many are still optimistic about how this switch will effect JGR teams, more importantly two-time champion Tony Stewart’s chances to make a solid run for the championship.
And we finally are going to be able to see old cars with new sponsors. Some that we are all anticipating and some that we could care less about. One in particular, Budweiser leaving Earnhardt Jr., DEI, and Chevrolet to move to Kasey Kahne, Gillett Evernham Motorsports (GEM), and Dodge. Now, this topic wasn’t talked much about in the off-season as it was during the regular season last year, but many, including his fans want to see if Budweiser made a mistaken. Many believe they have and many would beg to differ with them, but we all need to wait and see. And Saturday, albeit it’s Daytona, a superspeedway and a short race (70 laps divided into two sessions), will be a chance to see what the team (GEM) will be made of. Yes, it’s one car and not the other two GEM cars/teams, but like many other things this Saturday holds, it’s a great opportunity to see just what everyone has in store for the fans — the sport — for the 2008 season.
Don’t miss
From Daytona
- Random drawing for starting position, tomorrow night at 8 on SPEED.
- Budweiser Shootout, Saturday night at 8 on FOX.
- Gatorade Duels/Daytona 500 Qualifying — Sunday, Feb. 10 at 1 p.m. on FOX.
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