What to Watch: February 11-14
- It's time to go racing. Thursday will see the ARCA Racing Series teams (all 46 of them) take to the 2.5 mile tri-oval for two hours of practice ahead of their 200-mile season opener on Saturday. Sprint Cup teams will be loading into the garage later today.
- Tony Stewart is on the mend from injuries suffered out in the deserts of Southern California. Stewart-Haas Racing has scheduled a press conference for Friday morning in the Media Center at Daytona International Speedway to announce Stewart's substitute. However, as you can see below, there are some reports on who that might be.
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Editor's Note: Over the past few days, Frontstretch.com has transitioned to a new hosting company. As a result, we could not post to the site for most of the last week. Access for posting was just restored (for me, at least) last night. As a result, we were unable to post information about Tony Stewart's injury last week to the website. In addition, we could not send out a Newsletter due to being unable to post news.
This will be the final weekly newsletter of the winter. At the absolute latest, daily newsletters will begin being sent Monday morning as the NASCAR season is back underway. - Phil Allaway, Newsletter Manager
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Editor's Note: The Critic's Annex will return next week.
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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: In the early 1990's, Phoenix Racing had a close relationship with Morgan-McClure Motorsports. That allowed the South Carolina-based team access to great chassis. In 1993, Jeff Purvis won the ARCA 200 at Daytona going away. What pedigree did the Chevrolet Lumina that Purvis drove have?
Check back Monday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Friday's Answer:
Q: Back in 1997, Joe Nemechek raced the Daytona 500 in a No. 73 Chevrolet with Bellsouth sponsorship. Why did this occur?
A:
In 1997, Nemechek had just sold his Winston Cup operation to Felix Sabates. Once merged into SabCo Racing, it was re-numbered from No. 87 to 42. Nemechek had a rather miserable 1996, finishing 34th in points. Qualifying was worse, as Nemechek only put up the 47th fastest time, meaning that he had to race his way in. He was unable to, finishing 22nd in his Gatorade Twin 125.
Phil Barkdoll, on the other hand, surprised some onlookers by qualifying 25th quickest. He was unable to back that up in his Gatorade Twin 125 (the same one Nemechek was in), where he finished 24th. The qualifying time was good enough to give Barkdoll the 38th starting spot in the Daytona 500 (the last spot in the race on speed).
Sabates made Barkdoll a substantial offer to give his car and starting spot to Nemechek, which Barkdoll ended up accepting. In the race, Nemechek kept the No. 73 on the lead lap until getting caught up in the final crash of the day with a few laps to go.
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COMING THIS WEEK AT FRONTSTRETCH:
We'll
have some more news if and when it breaks. We will also have recaps of the Sprint Unlimited and Daytona 500 Qualifying. The offseason is over. Next week, Frontstretch returns to a regular schedule of articles.
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