Joined Jan 2004
Here's to the future
Forum Thread
NASCAR 2016 No OT Please All Star Weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway
February 4, 2016 at
10:21 PM
I probably won't do as many updates during this Nascar season but I figured I would start a thread anyway. The Can-Am Qualifying Duels are just two weeks from tonight and the Daytona 500 and the start of the season is just over two weeks away.
Tony Stewart's start to his final season isn't getting off to the start anyone would have hoped. He suffered a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra after landing hard while riding in the sand dunes in southern California. He will miss the Daytona 500 for sure and likely will be out for quite a while beyond that.
There hasn't been any announcement about who will replace Stewart in the 14 car. Last year there were quite a few options for replacement drivers with so many young drivers moving up from the Xfinity series. Many of those drivers now have rides of their own and aren't available. I was kind of hoping Michael Waltrip would fill in for at least Daytona but he already worked out a deal to drive the 83 car.
Tony Stewart's start to his final season isn't getting off to the start anyone would have hoped. He suffered a burst fracture of the L1 vertebra after landing hard while riding in the sand dunes in southern California. He will miss the Daytona 500 for sure and likely will be out for quite a while beyond that.
There hasn't been any announcement about who will replace Stewart in the 14 car. Last year there were quite a few options for replacement drivers with so many young drivers moving up from the Xfinity series. Many of those drivers now have rides of their own and aren't available. I was kind of hoping Michael Waltrip would fill in for at least Daytona but he already worked out a deal to drive the 83 car.
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Either way, it's not good for the sport to have one of their "stars" out, even if Tony has been on the decline since 2012.
Either way, it's not good for the sport to have one of their "stars" out, even if Tony has been on the decline since 2012.
I didn't realize that I had become a Stewart fan until I heard the news of his injury and realized how bummed out I was that his last season likely won't be much. I don't see him coming back after this injury and dominating like Kyle Busch did last year. I already think he was mostly going to coast through this year just to fulfill his obligations to sponsors. This may even give him an out to start his retirement early.
or maybe SHR can steal Wreckhouse from Roush so he and Danica can be teammates.
The more I think about Ty Dillon the more sense he makes as a replacement. He has Bass Pro as a sponsor and I think Stewart still has a connection to them as well. I don't know if he has any Sprint Cup races scheduled at all this year already or not.
A big factor is if this looks like a long term recovery for Stewart or not.
Or maybe they are just waiting until Friday to get past all the talk about the new Charter system that was just announced. Either way they need to have the car set up for the replacement driver by Friday so they can be ready to go when Daytona practice starts.
Unofficially Brian Vickers will replace Tony Stewart for the Daytona 500. His name came up in some of the discussions I heard but I wasn't sure he had been medically to race. Apparently he has. Seems like a good choice. Also unofficially it looks like Ty Dillon will replace Stewart in the races where Bass Pro is the sponsor. No word yet whether Vickers will fill in for the other races until Stewart can return.
One more strange announcement by Nascar is that the 14 car will be eligible to run in the Sprint Unlimited even though Stewart won't be able to drive it. Likely it would be Vickers driving in that race as well even though he wouldn't be eligible by the normal standards. I don't really agree with that but if it doesn't skip over someone who would be eligible that would also be able to field a car in the race on such short notice then I guess it doesn't really hurt anything.
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Or maybe they are just waiting until Friday to get past all the talk about the new Charter system that was just announced. Either way they need to have the car set up for the replacement driver by Friday so they can be ready to go when Daytona practice starts.
carry on
carry on
And Chase Elliott winning the pole....meh.