It looks like Mark Martin will be making another run for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship in 2010.  NASCAR.com is reporting that his contract with Hendrick Motorsports has been adjusted to run all 36 races in 2010.  Martin, running full time this year, originally agreed to run just 26 races next season.

“It means a lot to drive the No. 5 Chevy for Rick [Hendrick] and for Hendrick Motorsports,” said Martin, 50, of Batesville, Ark. “I’m in the best condition of my life, I’m recharged, and I’m motivated. Going to the race track every weekend is still really fun, and that’s the key. There’s more gas in my tank.”

Mark Martin will run a full Cup schedule with Hendrick Motorsports in 2010.
(Photo by cbgb_chopper on flickr.com, CC 2.0.)

After 10 races in 2009, Martin has a win (at Phoenix) and three poles, but three finishes of 40th or worse have relegated him to 15th in the point standings.

The 2009 season started off well for Martin and the #5 team, starting the Daytona 500 from the outside pole. But then the team suffered engine failures in the next two races at California and Las Vegas. The team quickly bounced back with consecutive poles at Atlanta and Bristol, and then four consecutive top-tens, including the win two weeks ago at Phoenix. Martin got caught up in the first big crash at Talladega and finished last, but rebounded to a fifth place finish at last week’s Crown Royal 400 at Richmond.

See the full story at NASCAR.com.

Here’s an interesting article from ESPN.com:

CONCORD, N.C. — The chairman of Speedway Motorsports says NASCAR should mandate a standard catch-fence system for all sanctioned tracks following the recent crash at Talladega Superspeedway.

“Let’s fix it because the sport is at risk,” Bruton Smith said on Monday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “Cables [that provide strength to the fence] are just like fishing lines. You have a certain test lines. Cables can be like a quarter inch and have a 90,000 PSI [pounds per square inch].

“That’s the things we need to do at all these speedways to make sure we have the strongest there is.”

Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc. owns about half the tracks on the NASCAR circuit.  NASCAR’s sister company, International Speedway Corp., also owns about half of the tracks, including the Talladega Superspeedway.

I picked up on a bit of Smith’s obligatory adversarial tone towards NASCAR in this article. Though, I agree with him on this one.  NASCAR should lead the way and at least offer guidance on fence heights and strengths — then maybe phase in a mandate.

Here’s a headache that NASCAR just really doesn’t need to deal with right now.  According to USA Today, the NFL is considering expanding its regular season by one or two games, which would likely shift the Super Bowl to Presidents’ Day weekend.

Talk about the Super Bowl as a national holiday.

How about as a lead-in to Presidents Day?

The prospect of extending the NFL’s calendar and staging the league’s signature event in the latter half of February is gaining momentum as team owners contemplate an expanded schedule with a typical end-game mission: More money.

What does that mean for NASCAR?  Well their own Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, would most certainly have to move to a new weekend as well.  But moving the race would be a logistics nightmare.  The schedule is already packed with nearly 40 events across 22 venues as it is.  The series begins and ends in cold months, limiting its early- and late-season races to Southern tracks.

The NASCAR season hasn’t always started with the Daytona 500, but the 500 has always been run in mid-February.  Some would argue that NASCAR will have to buck tradition and move the race off Presidents’ Day weekend to, perhaps, the end of the season.  However, the Daytona 500 is not just a race, but also the premier event of Daytona Speedweeks.  NASCAR and the Speedway have built a nice little two-to-three week series of races and events to help build excitement leading into the 500 (let alone the pre-season testing traditionally done in January at the facility).  NASCAR would have to abandon the Speedweeks approach altogether or attempt to juggle a variety of racing series’ schedules to move it later in the year.

Running the Daytona 500 at the end of the season in November would pit it against the heart of the NFL season, a clear detriment to TV ratings and advertising revenue.  Running it in summer is out since the facility already hosts a 400-miler on Independence Day weekend.

What we do know is that the 2010 Daytona 500 is scheduled for February 14.  But as for 2011…?  Maybe it’s best to hold off making those hotel reservations.

NASCAR announced Tuesday night that Jimmy Watts — gas man for the No. 47 car driven by Marcos Ambrose — has been suspended for four races for actions in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The suspension applies to races at Bristol, Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix. He and crew chief Frank Kerr were also placed on probation for the remainder of the calendar year. No fines were announced.

Watts was penalized under NASCAR’s catch-all rule, 12-1: “actions detrimental to stock car racing” and also rule 9-15-U: “crew members must not go on the race track for any reason while the cars are racing or while the cars are running under the yellow flag or the red flag, unless otherwise directed to do so by a NASCAR official”. Kerr was penalized for violating rule 12-1 and rule 9-4-A: “crew chief assumes responsibility for the actions of the team”.

Watts initiated a lap 67 caution period in the middle of pit stops by attempting to retrieve a loose tire that had rolled into the quad-oval grassy area on the front stretch. The yellow flag put much of the field a lap down early in the race, dropping most drivers out of contention. (See this report filed by Nicole Manske for ESPN.)

Kurt Busch took back his lead with two laps to go and conquered a very slick racetrack at Atlanta Motor Speedway to win Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500. It was the first win for both he and manufacturer Dodge on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit since June of last year in Loudon, NH. Busch dominated the event, leading 234 of the 330 laps run.

Busch was leading the race with four laps to go with Brian Vickers chasing him down when Robby Gordon blew a tire in turn two, throwing debris on the racing surface and necessitating a final caution period. During the yellow, all lead lap drivers elected to pit for gas and tires. Carl Edwards came out of the pits with the lead after deciding to take on only two tires. He was followed by Busch and Jeff Gordon.

On the ensuing restart, Busch blew by Edwards exiting turn two and held off a challenge from Gordon on the white flag lap to take the victory. Edwards finished third, Kevin Harvick fourth and Vickers fifth.

Most drivers struggled to get grip on the surface all day long with Goodyear’s tire package. By the final third of the race, shadows from the sun setting and partly cloudy skies helped tighten the track up and bring many teams to the front of the field, but few were ultimately able to challenge Busch.

The strangest incident of the race resulted in the ejection of Jimmy Watts, crew member on Marcos Ambrose’s team. The incident occurred on lap 67 during green-flag pit stops. Most of the field had pitted except a handful of the leaders. During Ambrose’s pit stop, a changed tire rolled away from the car. Watts chased the tire down, which had rolled well into the grassy area separating pit road from the front straightaway, forcing NASCAR officials to throw the yellow flag. This placed most of the drivers a lap down, and after the few remaining leaders had pitted, forced them to restart on the tail end of the lead lap.

The Sprint Cup series takes next week off, and then returns to action at Bristol, TN on March 22.