Here is some of the news floating around in the Nascar circles this first day of February. Nascar has re-negotiated the contract that they have with Turner Sports for control over media content. Turner has been in a long term contract with Nascar to run the sanctioning body’s digital footprint for some time now, what this means is that Turner controls Nascar.com and owns the rights to all streaming content as well as the shared media aspect of Nascar. The previous contract was signed at a time before sites like Facebook and Twitter existed and it has been a bone of contention among fans that Turner was letting Nascar get left behind as far as on-line content was concerned. The largest thing that Turner did in the last few years was make “Track Pass”, where for a fee you could tune into a web page and watch and listen to your favorite drivers live during the race. I for one could not afford it.

Just Turner was promoting a free version of this service called “Race Buddy” where you could tune in for free and watch a selection of drivers that Turner thought were well loved. With the new contract that starts in 2013 Nascar will have control over these area’s Yet Turner will be in charge of marketing and advertising. Has Nascar really been left behind? I would say that they have when you can watch baseball games live on your smart phone, as well as NFL content, and many other sports. You can tune into ESPN.com and get “Live Look In” feed on many sports there, all of this content free of charge because there are advertisers involved. Lets face it, you are going to see adds, not anything is really free, it costs money to place the content up on the internet.

You may finally get Sirius Satellite Radio’s Nascar channel on an Internet spill as well. I would expect that there would be a myriad of Nascar apps for your smart phone when the 2013 season starts. My question is this; How much did Nascar have to pay Turner to negotiate control back into their court? Will there be subscription fees involved where the fans have to pay extra for the on-line streams or smart phone apps? I’m sure you will have to pay for the app before you could download it to your phone but will there be a monthly service? I may be smelling smoke way ahead of any fire here but I don’t have a lot of faith that Nascar is going to allow a bunch of free content right off the bat. If that be the case then it will be a fantastic huge mistake on their part.

Yea you read that right, today Daytona President Joie Chitwood announced that the purse for the Daytona 500 on February 26th will be 19 million with the winner taking home more than 1.4 million dollars. He also made a further announcement that I find ludicrous, there will also be a $200,000 mid race leader bonus paid out to the driver who is chief the Daytona 500 at the mid point in the race. Though if the race is under caution at the mid point the bonus will be paid out to the driver who is chief the fifth green flag lap after the race restarts. This is a dumb thought in my opinion, it slaps drivers in the face, as if to say that they are not trying to stay up front all the time. OK I know that many drivers have used that strategy in the past. Stay in the back out of harms way in anticipation of “Go Time” then make the run to the front to attempt to win it in the last five laps. But do you really reckon that stock car drivers that earn millions of dollars a year are going to get all gasping up up over $200,000?

Jimmy Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Junior are not going to get all worked up over 200k, oh they will sure like it if they are up front at the time and have a chance to grab it but they probably won’t risk tearing up equipment to do it. What I reckon will happen is that some of the back marker teams will team up in the two car draft for a couple of laps and attempt to collect this bonus money because lets face it, for teams like Robbie Gordon and Germain Racing as well as Tommy Baldwin Racing, two hundred grand goes a long way towards improving your operation. What I see possibly happening as the race approaches the halfway point is a huge wreck on the backstretch when the two-car tango emerges. I could be incorrect and I hope I am, I want to see a fantastic race.  I have to agree with Dave Temperamental today, it is an attempt to make mistaken, contrived excitement in a situation that already makes enough on it’s own. Looks like the “Extravaganza” is back in town.

In a deal with Tommy Baldwin racing Danika Patrick will be locked into the Daytona 500 by virtue of using the points from TBR’s number 36 car driven by Dave Blaney last year. Blaney who finished in the top 35 last year will have to qualify for the first five races on speed, something that he did quite regular last year. The 36 car’s points from last year will be used on the number 10 entry that Danica will drive in ten races this year commencement with the Daytona 500. The remaining 26 Sprint Cup races in the 10 car will be ran by David Reutimann. All points accrued by the 10 car will be Tommy Baldwin Racing’s points. It is my understanding that this will be a Tommy Baldwin ran team with pit crew support appearance from Stewart-Haas racing. For some reason Tony Stewart didn’t want to transfer his points to Danica’s car, it has something to do with the defending champions bonus program, something I have no clue about.

At any rate Danica is locked into the Daytona 500 and that I’m sure has her sponsor “Go Daddy” very fortunate. There are though some people out there in Nascar land that are not fortunate with this go. I have heard many callers on the Nascar channel call in complaining that this is incorrect and that it is favoritism. I say BULL; this is a common practice every year. There were points swapped last year when it came to Richard Petty’s operation shrinking down to two cars wasn’t there? I know what the problem is? It is the pure fact that Danica Patrick is a woman; this is pure sexism rearing its hideous head. If it was some young male driver for lets say, Dale Junior, would we hear any of the bitching that we are hearing now? You bet we wouldn’t! I hope she goes down there and wins that Daytona 500 and shuts the whole assemble of crybaby women haters the hell up!

Matt Kenseth lost his protect yesterday after a long battle with early onset Alzheimer’s. She was 63 years young. She worked at the county court household in anticipation of her children were born, a daughter Kelly and later a son Mathew. She then became a homemaker and later a grandmother. I read from her obituary that her grandchildren were the like of her life. Her spouse Roy survives her, by the side of with her two children and five grandchildren, thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Kenseth family as they go through this time of grief.

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