SM Staff

With the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series in Texas this weekend and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series heading to Rockingham, this weekend marks the first split schedule between the three series and the first night races of the season at Texas.

This past weekend, Penske Racing announced that they have added Long Beach later this month to A.J. Allmendinger's 2013 IndyCar schedule.

If you were planning to take in the Pit Crew Challenge this year while attending the races at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May, you will have to wait another year and hope that NASCAR is able to get things back on track for 2014.

Refreshed from an off-weekend and ready to go short track racing, here is what was surprising and not surprising when the Cup drivers returned to racing in the STP Gas Booster 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Long before the green flag fell in Martinsville on Saturday afternoon, ThorSport Racing had declared war on the rest of the Camping World Truck...

There is no doubt that Tony Stewart, three-time NASCAR champion, is a fierce competitor. This past weekend, however, Stewart was more successful on the local short track circuit, including Williams Grove and Selinsgrove Speedway, than he was in the Cup race at Martinsville.

Blocking. It has become the topic of discussion after Tony Stewart voiced his displeasure with Joey Logano a couple weeks ago at Auto Club Speedway. Stewart wasn’t pleased with Logano’s block on a late race restart. The result was Stewart fuming after the race, ensuing in some comments towards Logano.

Whenever you go to Martinsville Speedway, you always know that Team Hendrick will win, but you watch anyway, maybe hoping they won’t or maybe hoping they will. It’s a matter of personal opinion.

So, is 5-time better than Richard Petty and even the late, great Dale Earnhardt? Let's crunch some numbers first and see how the three compare. It took Richard 15 years to win 5 championships while Earnhardt did it in 13...a feat that took Johnson just 9 years to accomplish in arguably the most competitive era in NASCAR history.

While everyone focused on the battle for the win at Martinsville, there was a team that quietly finished 16th and continued their steady climb up the standings. They are Germain Racing with driver, Casey Mears who scored his 4th top 16 finish of the year at the historic short track.