8 - THE DERRICK. / The News-Herald Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Childress Racing expandsRichard Childress Racing will return

with three full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series entries and five full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series teams for the 2017 season. It will be the first time in team history that RCR will field five full-time XFINITY Series entries, and the first time since 2011 the team has fielded eight full-time teams.

Austin Dillon, Paul Menard and Ryan Newman return to carry the banner for the RCR Cup Series program in 2017. Richard “Slugger” Labbe, Matt Borland and Luke Lambert have been assigned

crew-chief duties.With the addition of rookie driver

Daniel Hemric, RCR will operate five entries out of its Xfinity Series stable. There will be two cars with multiple drivers. The other three seats will be occupied by Brandon Jones, Brendan Gaughan and Hemric.

NBCSN celebrates second season

NBCSN closes out the second year of NASCAR’s return to the NBC Sports Group with seven 30-minute special editions of “NASCAR America.” The feature episodes showcase the most

memorable victories, interviews, sto-rylines and highlights from a season full of surprises. The series will begin Jan. 5 with three 30-minute specials begin-ning at 5 p.m. Other episodes will air on Jan. 6 and Jan. 9-11. One show drawing interest is titled “Stories of NASCAR Legend Tony Stewart.” The show will broadcast Jan. 6 at 5:30 p.m. 

RPM to one carRichard Petty Motorsports will field

just one stock car in NASCAR Cup Series action in 2017. The No. 43 Ford will be wheeled by Aric Almirola. Petty leased his No. 44 entry to another team for the 2017 season. 

Martinsville lights upMartinsville Speedway’s “Light

Up Martinsville” project hit a major milestone as the first of 19 light poles was put in place. The project will make the track the first major motorsports facility in the United States to have LED lighting. NASCAR’s only remaining track from its original 1949 schedule will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2017, and track president Clay Camp-bell said he doesn’t know of a more fitting way to celebrate the past than by celebrating the future.

— Godwin Kelly, godwin.kelly@ news-jrnl.com

NASCAR NEWS AND NOTES

QUESTIONS & ATTITUDE

Compelling questions... and maybe a few actual answers

Ken Willis has been covering NASCAR for The Daytona Beach News-Journal for 27 years. Reach him at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

Godwin Kelly is the Daytona Beach News-Journal’s motorsports editor and has covered NASCAR for 30 years. Reach him at godwin.kelly@news-jrnl.com

TOP-FIVE CUP RACES OF 2016

ONLINE EXTRAS

SPEED FREAKS A couple questions we had to ask — ourselves

Questions? Contact Godwin Kelly at godwin.kelly@news-jrnl.com or Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

news-journalonline.com/nascar

facebook.com/nascardaytona

@nascardaytona

Excluding the obvious (Las Vegas), which NASCAR race city would be best for New Year’s Eve?GODSPEAK: I wanna go to Pocono. I think the slopes are open right now, so grab your snowboard and let’s rocket down the side of a mountain. Cheers!KEN’S CALL: I’m thinking warmth is in order, so I’m going with Homestead, but avoiding the Miami side and heading south to the Caribbean Club in Key Largo, where Larry serves ’em cold.

And the worst?GODSPEAK: There are so many candidates, but I’m going with Auto Club Speedway located in Fontana, California — built in an industrial park and a bit too far away from the action in Los Angeles.KEN’S CALL: Sparta, Kentucky. Population: 231. You probably have to brew your own bubbly and build your own fireworks. Wait, that ain’t so bad ... Well, by week’s end, Junior Earn-hardt will be married. Gut reaction?

GODSPEAK: He had a terrific run as a bachelor, probably better than any of us can imagine. Mar-riage is the next logical step, but you have to wonder, in three or four years when he looks over at committed bachelor Tony Stewart, if he doesn’t sigh just a little. KEN’S CALL: To quote Don Mer-edith, who was quoting Willie Nelson, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.” Junior is happy, but his friends have to be wor-ried about their memberships in the long-running parade of fun.

THE ROSTER

With a few question marks among teams and drivers remaining, here’s the current lineup of drivers for the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series, with car number, driver and manufacturer:

1: Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet2: Brad Keselowski, Ford3: Austin Dillon, Chevrolet4: Kevin Harvick, Ford5: Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet6: Trevor Bayne, Ford10: Danica Patrick, Ford11: Denny Hamlin, Toyota13: Ty Dillon, Chevrolet14: Clint Bowyer, Ford17: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ford18: Kyle Busch, Toyota19: Carl Edwards, Toyota20: Matt Kenseth, Toyota21: Ryan Blaney, Ford22: Joey Logano, Ford24: Chase Elliott, Chevrolet27: Paul Menard, Chevrolet31: Ryan Newman, Chevrolet32: Matt DiBenedetto, Ford34: Landon Cassill, Ford37: Chris Buescher, Chevrolet38: Dave Ragan, Ford41: Kurt Busch, Ford42: Kyle Larson, Chevrolet43: Aric Almirola, Ford47: AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet48: Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet77: Erik Jones, Toyota78: Martin Truex Jr., Toyota88: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet95: Michael McDowell, Chevrolet

By Godwin Kellygodwin.kelly@news-jrnl.com

NASCAR This Week is in the process of identifying the top-five races of the 2016 NASCAR Cup Series based on the race as a whole and not just the finish. This is the third of that five-part series.

Race No. 3: Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway

This is one of those races you remember the rest of your life because one of NASCAR’s favor-

ite sons found his way to Victory Lane one more time before hanging up his helmet at the end of the 2016 season.

Tony Stewart, who announced his 2016 retirement midway through the 2015 NASCAR Cup Series season, got a late start on this year’s schedule.

Only weeks before the start of 2016 Speedweeks, Stewart severely injured his lower back riding a “sand rail” in the desert with friends.

He went over a sand bank and his machine landed hard on all four wheels, causing his suspension to bottom out. The impact came through the seat and caused a burst fracture to his L1 vertebra.

Stewart said he was rendered inca-pacitated by the injury. He was found by a group of people who had joined in

on the desert romp.“When you're only going 5 mph, it’s

hard to make that sound cool at all,” he joked with the media weeks after get-ting hurt.

Stewart missed the first eight races of the 2016 Cup Series. Some thought he would miss the Chase playoffs because of the injury.

Instead, he rose up, won in his eighth start, finished top-30 in points and became one of 16 drivers eligible to compete for the final Sprint Cup Series championship (Sprint left as entitle-ment sponsor after the 2016 season).

The Toyota/Save Mart 350, which was Fox Sports’ last race of the season, was competitive from start to finish as stock-car drivers have become much more comfortable on NASCAR’s two road-course layouts.

Sonoma Raceway measures 1.99 miles and requires a more disciplined approach than the more forgiving Wat-kins Glen track.

Stewart, 45, figured into the race right from the first green flag and led the final 22 laps of the 110-lap race.

This race saw eight drivers take the lead, which changed hands a dozen times.

Denny Hamlin led twice for 33 laps, Carl Edwards once for 24 laps and AJ Allmendinger four times for 20 laps.

“We ran close to those guys all day,”

Stewart said.Hamlin, driving the No. 11 Toyota,

came up to challenge Stewart in a last-lap nudging match. Hamlin grabbed the lead from Stewart at the start of the lap, but Stewart kept Hamlin well within striking range.

In the last turn of the last lap, Hamlin went in too hot and his car went high in the racing groove.

Stewart seized the moment and seized the day, as his No. 14 Chevrolet slipped past Hamlin — the two made contact, of course — and took the last checkered flag of his career.

“If I could get to him, he knew what was coming,” Stewart said after scor-ing his 49th career Cup Series victory.

Hamlin said he was like peanut butter stuck between two slices of bread — in this case, Stewart on one side and a wall to the other.

“It was a drag race coming off Turn 11,” said Hamlin, who bounced off the wall trying to fend off Stewart. “We definitely had a car that should have won, but we were on the bad end of the deal.”

No. 3: Sonoma produced a race

for the ages

Tony Stewart scored his last career NASCAR Cup Series victory at Sonoma Raceway on June 26. It was Stewart’s 49th career win after a wild day of road-course racing. GETTY IMAGES/CHRIS TROTMAN

By Ken Willis ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

Should we worry about Richard Petty Motorsports?

Just because the King lost half his Cup Series team? Don’t worry yet. Shrink-ing from two teams to one (when Brian Scott retired early, his sponsors hung it up, too) isn’t ideal, but keep in mind, the Petty clan has always been at its best as a one-car operation, from Lee Petty’s prime to Richard’s best years. That'll be the spin, anyway.

Are we sure Junior is OK?We’ll trust what he tells us he’s been

told by the medical professionals, and we look forward to seeing him in something other than Wranglers when Speedweeks finally rolls around. But we have to admit, we worried about him recently when he began discussing his desire to get heavily involved in details for his and Amy Reimann’s wedding, which is now only days away. “I want to be involved in all the planning because I don't want to get married and then go, ‘Yeah, man, picking the flowers or whatever, what was that like? What did I miss?’ I don't want to miss anything.” Get back to us, Junior, on how much fun that was.

Race of Champions, international field, Busch brothers …

“What could go wrong,” you’re prob-ably going to ask. Well, we’ll see, won’t we? Though I’m not sure of the event’s accuracy in determining someone worthy as a world racing champ, it has the look of a neat show. It’s called the Race of Champions, it dates back to 1988, and is coming to the U.S. for the first time on Jan. 21-22, in Marlins Park in Miami. Kurt and Kyle Busch will be together, representing the U.S. and NASCAR.

They should dominate, right?Um, not exactly. It’s a funky course

inside a baseball stadium, with small but lightning-quick cars. Not exactly the brothers' wheelhouse. Oh, and there’s this: The field includes drivers from F1 (including Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button), IndyCar (Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Kanaan), sports-car (Tom Kris-tensen) and several other disciplines with various stars. But with the Busch brothers and Montoya in tow, it has the making of a must-see event.

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