Tag Archive | nascar

3-Time NASCAR Champ Inducted into the USAC Hall Of Fame

2016 USAC Hall Of Fame Inductees Announced

On June 20 the United States Auto Club (USAC) announced their Hall of Fame Inductees. The class of 8 five drivers, two officials and a car owner-chief mechanic. Alphabetically Russ Clendenen, Jimmy Davies, Bob Higman, Tommy Hinnershitz, Dick King, Pat O’Connor, Tony Stewart and Bob Tattersall.

It’s that 3-Time NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart that caught my attention. USAC’s announcement profiles each of their inductees. All 8 have overcome challenges, persevered through trials, set backs and hardships. And all of them have lived their dream and triumphed.

Tony Stewart, of Columbus, Ind., became the first driver ever to claim all three of USAC’s National championships in a single season (in 1995) and is one of only six USAC “Triple Crown Champions.” He won the 1994 USAC National Midget title, then added the Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown honors the next season. Proficient in virtually every form of motorsports, he has earned three NASCAR Cup championships (2002, 2005 and 2011) and a 1997 Indy Racing League title. He has 27 USAC National Midget wins to his credit, as well as 10 wins in the Sprint cars and three in the Silver Crown series. A member of the National Midget Hall of Fame (2001), his list of impressive motorsports awards and accolades continues to grow. In five Indianapolis 500 appearances, he started first in 1996, finished fifth from the front row in 1997, was ninth in 1999 and sixth in 2001. His charitable contributions through his Tony Stewart Foundation are endless. In addition to his USAC driving titles, he also has seven Sprint Car Owner championships as well as seven in the Silver Crown Series as an owner.

Tony also owns Tony Stewart Racing a title-winning World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series team.

He’s also part owner in Stewart-Haas Racing. Another title-winning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team co-owned with Gene Haas, founder of Haas Automation – the largest CNC machine tool builder in North America.

Online voting for the final four 2016 inductees into the USAC Hall of Fame will be available on the USAC website Monday (June 20) at www.usacracing.com.

More About Tony, NASCAR and Racing

NASCAR & Racing ~ My Racing Musings (with more on Tony)

Weekly Observations For – May 21st

May28

Weekly Observations

What We Saw This Week

Some of my observations from around the social media networks. Comments I made, events I shared. Stories with some laughter and some concern. Some news stories that created annoyance with politics or moments of joy with a few good news stories too.

May 27th
Smithsonian Magazine
May 27th at 12:46pm ·
A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921
smithsonianmag.com
A recovered manuscript holds the 95-year-old eyewitness account of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot.

May 27, 2016 11:09pm
There are many things history teaches us. One of them is to NEVER FORGET, so that we NEVER REPEAT THE PAST! Continue reading →

My Favorite Tony Stewart Autograph

May15

Anthony Fox

In 2012 my son and I went to Build-A-Bear and picked up a couple of new friends. The Fennec Fox is the smallest fox in the world and is easy to recognize by its very large ears. It was his ears that attracted me to this little guy at Build-A-Bear. At the time, the shop was donating part of the proceeds from the Fennec Fox to the World Wildlife Federation to help animals. So when it came time to give him a name, Anthony Fox just seemed like the perfect name in honor of my favorite NASCAR driver Tony “Smoke” Stewart.

Tony is a philanthropist who focuses on funding organizations serving children who are critically ill or physically disabled; animals at risk or endangers and drivers injured in the sport of motor racing through The Tony Stewart Foundation.

A few years earlier, a friend sent me a promo picture of Tony in a very dapper 3-piece suit. It’s one of my favorite Smoke pictures. And that picture inspired the attire for my new friend Anthony Fox.

Each year NASCAR comes to the Richmond International Raceway for a spring race. Last year in 2015, Tony was available for an autograph session at the shop. So of course I had to take Anthony to be signed. I asked Tony if he remembered the promo picture. He giggled and said yes. So I told him that picture inspired my ‘bear’ that we named “Anthony Fox”. Tony giggled and signed his vest “To Anthony Fox, Tony Stewart”. It is my MOST favorite Tony autograph ever!

Anthony Fox and 3-Time NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart

Today on Tony’s Facebook page, I shared my favorite autograph story and someone asked for a picture. You can’t post pictures to Smoke’s page, so I decided this was a good time to share our 1st meeting with Tony here in Richmond. It was exciting and Smoke was very nice too!

More About Tony, NASCAR and Racing

NASCAR & Racing ~ My Racing Musings (with more on Tony)

NASCAR – Shortens Xfinity Series Race

Apr23

NASCAR Mobile App – Notice the 0/250 Laps

With No Explanation, Fans Lose 40 Laps

NASCAR Fans generally love racing at Richmond International Raceway in Virginia. It’s a short track, has a lot of action, drivers love the track and RIR really knows how to put on a good show!

The sanctioning body decided some changes were needed to improve the spring weekend of racing at this venue. So last year they announced the night races would be moved to the day time. The Xfinity Series race moved from Friday night to Saturday day. The Sprint Cup race moved from Saturday night, to Sunday day. A lot of people really liked that idea.

But then NASCAR decided that wasn’t enough and the 2016 ToyotaCare 250 happened going from a 250 lap race to 140 lap race. And that isn’t a good thing. Any time you decide to shorten a race, you’re taking action away from fans.

NASCAR decided to change the qualifying format for the Xfinity Series race starting at the spring Bristol race on April 16. The series would now qualify for starting positions in 2 heat races. Not many people were a fan of this idea, but ok, let’s give it a shot. Some folks believed the shortened Main race was better at Bristol than years past, and attributed that to the heat races. Others thought it was merely coincidence. After all, it’s Bristol. Continue reading →

Share A Coke

Jun18

ShareACoke with Your Family

It’s The Little Things
A little moment from my morning.

Coca-Cola has a promotion going on right now for personalized coke bottles. Many people are finding a bottle with their name on it and tweeting pictures with the hashtag #ShareACoke.

Now I’m a Coke fan. Diet coke specifically. But I haven’t found a personalized bottle anywhere with my name on it. Not a Vicky, Vicki, or my spelling Vickie. Then I found out that you can order one for $5 at ShareACoke.com.

Ok that’s kewl. So I went there and ordered one for me and my boys (Daddy and our son <- my boys). And of course my favorite Coca-Cola Racing driver Tony Stewart.

Then I thought, wouldn’t it be kewl to have one with Springwolf on it? Now if I can’t find Vickie, of course Springwolf wasn’t going to be out in the world. But I discovered that Coke regulate what it will and will not put on the label. Smart move on the company’s part really. But you can make special requests. So I submitted Springwolf and waited to see if it would be approved. Continue reading →

Decoration Day 2015

May22

Thank you

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of the United States of America. Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day.

Regardless of the exact date or location of its origins, one thing is clear – Memorial Day was borne out of the Civil War and a desire to honor our dead. It was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.

The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
~ USMemorialDay.org Continue reading →

Tony Stewart’s Plane

May6

Tony Stewart’s Dassault Falcon 50 N500TS-Tail Markings

NASCAR Flying

Today my 11-year-old told me about an idea he had for us to have a plane and commute to work by air. I made mention that if we had a plane, we would be using it to fly on vacation and probably going to the races around the country. I don’t think commuting to work would get much done. Well not in the kind of plane he was talking about.

Which brought up different kinds of planes, other than commercial planes, what they’re used for and who uses them. Which of course brought me to NASCAR. Hey, it’s what I do.

If you have a favorite race car driver you know most of them have a private plane to get around the country for business. Whither they’re flying to a race, back home again or to visit with Sponsors and their staff, race car drivers do a lot of traveling. Continue reading →

Big Kudos To NASCAR

Mar31

NASCAR Issues A Press Release

Yesterday I tweeted a comment to NASCAR about the “Religious Freedom” act issued in Indiana.

@NASCAR Should support Equality Rights in #Indiana; pull the Indy race and go to another Road Course instead!
— SpringWolf ❦ (@SpringWolf)
March 30, 2015

One of my friends asked me if I was trying to start-up trouble. Of course I was!

Today NASCAR issued their own press release on the matter.

Statement from NASCAR on Indiana legislation
March 31, 2015, Official NASCAR release, NASCAR.com
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (March 31, 2015) — “NASCAR is disappointed by the recent legislation passed in Indiana. We will not embrace nor participate in exclusion or intolerance. We are committed to diversity and inclusion within our sport and therefore will continue to welcome all competitors and fans at our events in the state of Indiana and anywhere else we race.” — NASCAR Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer Brett Jewkes

Way to go NASCAR! So proud to be a fan of your sport!

Getting NASCAR Calendar Reminders

Feb25

3-Time Cup Champion Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick
2015 Daytona 500 Speed Week

Add The Schedule To YOUR Calendar

NASCAR has made it easy for you to never miss a race in 2015! That’s right, you can now add race events to your Google, Apple or Outlook calendars complete with a preset 15 minute reminder.

Personally I don’t think 15 minutes is long enough to get ready for a race, but ok. You can edit the events and add an earlier reminder once it’s in your calendar.

So how do you do that? NASCAR hooked up with CalReply, a Calendaring platform that enables TV networks, pro-sporting leagues and businesses to enable fans and viewers to subscribe to event schedules via their mobile calendars. Continue reading →

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

Feb5

Three Time NASCAR Champion Tony Stewart

Kids Say The Darnedest Things About Tony Stewart

You know how that Old Wives Tale says women marry their Dad? Yeah..um…..

I was looking at Twitter this afternoon; Nascar has released the format of the Daytona Shootouts. I know they’re not called that anymore, but they’ll always be the Shootouts to me!

So anyway, one of the people I follow, a fellow Tony fan posted a picture she found of our favorite driver. Checking it out I discovered it was originally shared on the SHR VIP Garage. A message-board for Stewart-Haas Racing fans.

I’m looking at the picture as my 11 year old boy is walking down the stairs and looking into the reflection of my pc in the window behind me.

He says “Why are you looking at a picture of your Dad?”

“Wow. Well that’s interesting”, I responded, “I’m not”.

The child gets to the bottom step, still looking in the window and says “Oh it’s Tony”.

I tell this to the child’s Dad in an IM who responds “Wow”.
…I like that the man and I often think the same thing and have similar responses to things. Often times, it’s more than similar; it’s exactly the same, such as this response to the boy’s comment.

But anyway..I thought it was an interesting observation from the child! Kind of insightful if that Old Wives tale is true. Which I think it is. So do I like Tony because he reminds me of my Dad? Hmm.