NASCAR News

Joe Gibbs Racing:  It turned out just as expected -- no points penalties, but hefty monetary fines for bringing the unapproved oil pans to Michigan.  The three crew chiefs -- Mike Ford, Dave Rogers and Greg Zipadelli -- were fined $50,000 each.  The crew chief, the car chiefs and competition director Jimmy Makar were all put on probation until the end of the year.

Red Bull Racing:  The news that Red Bull was pulling out of NASCAR seems to have leaked a lot quicker than the company might have liked.  Anyway, they're searching for a buyer to keep the team going and will even throw in some sponsorship.  Whatever it takes.

Silly Season:  Carl Edwards is still the top free agent.  His decision -- to stay at Roush Fenway or move on -- will affect everyone else, but the situation at Red Bull throws a big monkey wrench into the works.  It's currently a two-car team, but Kasey Kahne is going to Hendricks next season and Brian Vickers's contract is up at the end of the season.  And what about Mark Martin...and Clint Bowyer and Danica Patrick and Juan Montoya and all the others?

It's a strange weekend coming up for the new official sport of North Carolina.  No Truck race, but the Cup and Nationwide Series are both at road courses -- just not the same one.  The Cup race is at Sonoma, California, at Infineon Raceway.  The Nationwide race is in Wisconsin at Road America.

Road courses?  Yea or nay?  I think they're fun and take a lot of driver skill.  I'd like to see maybe one more road course track on the Cup schedule, maybe even during the Chase.

NASCAR News

Some stories to check out:

• The news has leaked out that Red Bull will be leaving NASCAR at the end of the season.  It sounds like they are going to concentrate on their much more successful Formula One team.  They've had some bad luck and made some bad decisions since they've been in NASCAR, but I thought they were finally turning the corner.  Oh well.
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• Did you notice Hendrick's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at Michigan?  Mark Martin had the best finish of the group (ninth), but that was after he ran Junior into the wall with about 15 to go.
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• Carl Edwards has become the lead spokeman for doing something about the downforce in the Cup cars.  "I'm really hoping that NASCAR will take the opportunity in 2013 to take downforce away, so the fans can see the guys race race cars and not race downforce. That would be cool."
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• And Fox is trying to work out an agreement with NASCAR to allow them to move some of their races to Speed.  This is probably good news unless you don't have Speed.  Eh, it probably won't happen for a couple of years anyway.