CUP: T-Shirt ‘Honors’ Montoya’s Daytona Misadventure
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Juan Pablo Montoya’s unfortunate vehicular meeting with a jet drier during the Daytona 500 continues to be a topic in NASCAR garage areas, even though the traveling circus has moved on to Phoenix International Raceway.
The most popular new attire in the Phoenix garage was a black and white T-shirt with this Montoya/Daytona reference: I Love The Smell Of Jet Fuel In The Morning.
Since the Daytona incident, several tracks – including Phoenix – have said their jet drier operators will be outfitted with helmets and firesuits.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}To Tweet Or Not To Tweet – Brad Keselowski created a storm of attention by using his Twitter account to supply fans with information during Monday night’s red-flag interruption of the Daytona 500.
Keselowski had a phone in his car and was able to communicate, a fact that eventually increased his Twitter followers by 160,000.
There is a potential issue in that arena, however, because of the possibility drivers might use communication devices to gain advantages.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kevin Harvick spoke to that Friday.
“I had no idea that was something that would even remotely come into play as far as keeping your phone in your car during a race,” Harvick said. “But I guess if you’re going to keep up with that side of it, you’re going to have to. I’m going to look for every app I can for mile-per-hour, GPS mapping, and anything I can find to put in my car. I’m looking for it because I’m looking to outlaw this rule as fast as I can because I don’t want to have to keep up with it.”
Officials do not prohibit drivers from having phones in their race cars, but the use of them during green- and caution-flag situations will not be allowed, an official said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Track Surface Groomed Again – Phoenix International Raceway has put more rubber into its relatively new racing surface in an attempt to enhance the possibility of side-by-side racing for its weekend NASCAR events.
The track used a tire rotator machine last week to work additional rubber into the upper groove of the one-mile track.
Last fall, PIR groomed the repaved race surface using a different tire-dragging device and also brought in six drivers to run more than 3,000 laps on the asphalt.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.