Dylan Kwasniewski to run part-time this year

Dylan Kwasniewski will only run a part-time schedule in the Xfinity Series this year. The 19-year-old former K&N Pro Series East champion will split the #42 Chevrolet Camaro with Cup Rookie of the Year Kyle Larson at HScott Motorsports with Chip Ganassi. Kwasniewski's rookie season in the series was mostly average, with a handful of bright moments, and it has been speculated that this is why he is not running full-time again this year.


Kwasniewski's old team, Turner Scott Motorsports, recently merged with Ganassi, who Larson drives for in Cup. They also shut down the #31 Xfinity team that Kwasniewski competed with during most of 2014, and their remaining truck team, also the #31. Turner Scott formed an alliance with Ganassi when Larson, who was under contract with TSM in Xfinity and trucks, signed to replace Juan Pablo Montoya in the #42 Cup car toward the end of 2013. Harry Scott, who also owns a Cup team formerly run by James Finch, and Chip Ganassi will run the team as a joint venture. Ganassi has not fielded his own Xfinity cars since 2008.

What my future race posts will look like

I am planning to start adding more information to my race write-ups here, such as finishing orders and points standings after each race in all three top series.

Jeff Gordon's car was almost the #46

It has been revealed by Jeff Gordon's first Cup crew chief Ray Evernham on Twitter that Jeff's number at Hendrick was originally supposed to be #46, instead of #24 as it ended up being. The number 46 was used by Hendrick on a Chevrolet sponsored by real car dealership City Chevrolet in a couple of races during which scenes were filmed for the 1990 movie Days of Thunder starring Tom Cruise. The green and yellow #46 is still a well-known car in motorsports popular culture today.


But Days of Thunder created a licensing problem for Gordon and Evernham, who had wanted to use 46 as the number on the DuPont Chevrolet in the Winston Cup Series beginning in 1993. When they were made aware of the problems, they looked through a series of available numbers and decided to go with #24, which had achieved very little success in NASCAR's top series up to that point. Gordon drove the #24 to his and the number's first Cup win in the 1994 Coca-Cola 600, and now he has given the #24 a total of 92 wins, one of the most in the sport's history. Now we know that it was almost the #46 instead of the #24 that became one of the most famous NASCAR numbers ever. But that didn't happen thanks to Days of Thunder, although you could now say that the #24 evolved out of that movie-famous (but not competition-famous) #46 car.

Tommy Baldwin's #36 could be transferred to Jay Robinson

Tommy Baldwin Racing is not expected to run the #36 Chevrolet full-time in the Sprint Cup Series this year. The team could be making a deal to hand the car over to owner Jay Robinson to run it under that team's banner. Reed Sorenson drove the #36 in 2014 and finished 34th in points. His teammate Michael Annett is expected to remain in TBR's #7 Chevrolet for a second season in Cup. The Robinson team also has an affiliation with the #66 Toyota that started last year as a part-time rebrand of Michael Waltrip Racing's #56 team, in a partnership also including Joe Nemechek known as Identity Ventures Racing.

Changes could come before Daytona 500

A number of changes to the Sprint Cup Series are rumored to be lined up before next month's Daytona 500. The series has already undergone some modifications, including the removal of some testing sessions throughout the year. There have been talks that the 16-driver, four-round Chase for the Sprint Cup might undergo some tweaks before the new season begins, which wouldn't be surprising given the mixed feelings that drivers and fans have expressed about it since the format was announced around this time last year. NASCAR makes changes to all of its series during every offseason, although these changes vary in type and complexity.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. ready for Daytona 500

Dale Earnhardt Jr., two-time and defending champion of the Daytona 500, has said that he is ready for the 57th edition of the race on February 22. Earnhardt is looking to defend his race win and to become one of the few NASCAR drivers with three wins in the Great American Race. Earnhardt is coming off his best Cup season in a decade, in which he picked up four wins including a season sweep of Pocono and a Chase spoiler at Martinsville. He is now entering his eighth season in the #88 Chevrolet at Hendrick Motorsports, this time with new crew chief Greg Ives and new sponsor Nationwide Insurance, who has moved from NASCAR's number two series, now officially known as the Xfinity Series. Speaking of which, Dale Jr. has also encountered some changes within his Xfinity team JR Motorsports. Earnhardt believes 2015 is shaping up to be another good year in his career.

Goodbye Nationwide Series, hello Xfinity Series

The Nationwide Series is no more. The insurance company that replaced Anheuser-Busch as the title sponsor of NASCAR's number two series after the 2007 season has made a move into the Sprint Cup Series to expand its role in the sport. The series is now officially known as the Xfinity Series. Xfinity is a digital cable, home phone and internet service from Comcast, that competes with similar services such as Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-Verse. Comcast notably has an alliance with NBCUniversal, the owner of the NBC and NBC Sports Network television channels, which will play host to the second half of the Cup and Xfinity seasons for the next ten years. Meanwhile, the Cup Series will also soon go through yet another name change, as Sprint has plans to pull out of NASCAR's top series after 2016, a move that could lure cellular phone sponsors back to race teams.