NASCAR champions, drivers honored at White House

President Obama's homage to NASCAR nation will have to wait.

The president had planned to welcome champion NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson -- and his car -- to the White House today. But Sunday's race in Pennsyvania got postponed a day for rain, and the White House had to change its schedule.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs said the event will be Aug. 19, instead.

Here's a picture of Johnson earlier this year at the Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.

NASCAR has also become a symbol for white, rural voters who are courted by both parties. And given the fact that presidents love to associate with sports champions and other winners, expect the Johnson visit to be re-scheduled fairly soon.

Montoya Looks Like a Contender with Another Strong Finish

Juan Pablo Montoya boosted his Chase chances with a second-place run at Pocono.

Juan Pablo Montoya, could easily be riding a two-win streak -- on an oval and a triangular track, no less -- into his strongest suit, road racing, this week.

In other words, Montoya could be the hottest driver in NASCAR.

Had he not been bumped up the racetrack by Kasey Kahne on the final restart, Montoya might well have won the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono on Monday. And that of course came right on top of the pit-road speeding penalty that snuffed his domination at Indianapolis on July 27.

So as it is, Montoya settled for second to Denny Hamlin at Pocono and is still looking for his first win of the season heading to Watkins Glen, N.Y., this weekend.

Yet he's exactly where he wants to be -- on a tear toward making the Chase, eighth in points, 169 ahead of the current odd man out, 13th-place Kyle Busch.

"Ifs and buts out," Montoya told reporters at Pocono, shrugging off the two near misses, "my goal is making the Chase."

Of the momentum he is building without quite the results to show for it, "I think we got fast race cars," he said of his branch of the otherwise-struggling Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing team. He and crew chief Brian Pattie are "just starting to push more the envelope with everything we do.

"I think if we make it [the Chase], we might have a shot at this."

A shot, he meant, at the Cup, and becoming the first foreign-born driver ever to win it.

Going to the Glen this weekend certainly doesn't hurt the playoff chances of the former Formula One star from Colombia.

"I know we can probably win the race," he said, "but if we can get a top-5 out of there, the points for the Chase would be huge."

At Pocono, Montoya and Kahne started in the second row of the final double-file restart, with Hamlin sixth. But Hamlin shot to second, and set sail after then-leader Clint Bowyer, after Kahne was pushed into Montoya going into the corner, sending Montoya's car skating up the track.

"It's good Juan Pablo is one of the best drivers, or he would have been wrecked," said Kahne, who went to Montoya to apologize afterward.

"I get pushed on restarts because my car isn't as fast," Kahne explained. "So I got pushed on it, and I missed the corner and drilled him. Most guys would have wrecked right there, but the 42 kept going."

"Actually it came out pretty good," Montoya cracked, drawing laughter from the media corps.

He didn't win, but he didn't wreck, and he's well on his way to the Chase.

50 Cent and Nascar

Who would have thought you would ever see 50 Cent at a Nascar event...

NASCAR was born from the moonshiners

Race – NASCAR was born from the moonshiners who ran from the revenue-ers. I remember when it was bad luck to have green on your car.

Starr gazing

David Starr is on pace for his best season in the Camping World Truck Series since 2006, sitting fifth in the point standings heading into Saturday's Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway.

Starr, in his first season driving for HT Motorsports, is happy with how the No. 24 Toyota has run, but he's not pleased with the results.

"If you look back on all the races, we've had strong trucks all year," Starr said. "Four or five times, we've had top-three trucks and the races haven't played out in our favor. It's been a solid season, but we know we're better than that. You've got to win, and we haven't done that yet. We're knocking on the door.

"If you go to the race track week in and week out and the trucks are fast, things will start falling your way. There's nothing we can change. If we just keep doing what we're doing, we'll get our win."

Starr finished third in his most recent race, at Memphis. He also was third at Dover and fourth at Auto Club Speedway in California. Starr has six top-10s in 11 races. Teammate Terry Cook also was third in the season opener at Daytona, and he has three top-fives, six top-10s and is eighth in the points. Their performances point to a major improvement over 2008 when the team owned by Jim Harris had eight top-10s with Ted Musgrave (18 races), Cook (five races), Stacy Compton (one race) and Joey Logano (one race).

Harris decided to expand to two trucks this season. Starr was 12th in the points for Red Horse Racing in 2008, 10th for Circle Bar Racing in 2007 and a career-best fourth for Red Horse in 2006. Starr has four wins in the Truck Series, most recently at Martinsville in 2006.

"Tom DeLoach [Red Horse owner] is a great friend of mine, and I had a contract to race with him this season," Starr said. "But when the economy took a downward turn at the end of last season, he wasn't able to guarantee me a full season. Jim Harris was able to come up with a full season, and that's why Tom released me. It's worked out good for everybody."

Harris hired Jason Miller to be crew chief for Starr and they've been on the same page since the start of the season.

"He was the truck chief for me in 2006 at Red Horse," Starr said. "He's very smart and knowledgeable on chassis and bodies. You hear about the driver and crew chief chemistry, we've got some good chemistry. He remembers what I like and the feel I like."

Saturday's race will be a six-year anniversary for Starr, who will be making his 151st consecutive start in the series. He has been a regular in the series since 2002, but his 2003 season was interrupted for four races when a throttle stuck during a test a Milwaukee and sent him crashing into a wall at 140 mph. Starr suffered a broken collarbone, left hand and foot. He returned July 19, 2003, at Gateway International Raceway and hasn't missed a race since.

Disney/Pixar officially announce Cars 2 for 2012

I don’t know for you, but for us, despite being an animated movie, Cars ranks among our cult car movies. The quality of the animation, the depth of the details, the quirky ideas, it all comes together beautifully. Personally, I really liked the enormous amount of research behind it and how they manage to show so much about the car culture, and they did it in such a great manner that the movie is enjoyable for the hardcore car freak, as well as for a newbie or a kid.
And what about how perfectly the characters were embodied in their vehicle form? Matter the redneck, Sarge the army vet, Fillmore the hippy… but also Jay Leno, Governor Schwarzenegger and many more. So yes, you go it by now, we’re very excited about the sequel.

Some cues about the story

They’re back, and they’re going international.

On April 10th, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer John Lasseter unveiled the studio’s schedule for the four years to come. While we know that, like all the next Pixar flicks, Cars 2 will be offerd in 3D, not much has leaked about the its story, except that “they’re going international”. Are Lightning McQueen and Sally Carrera going on a honeymoon around the world? How do their kids look like? Maybe track versions of the Porsche, or toned-down NASCAR racers… (sorry, not enough sleep seems to equal poor ideas with me). More international characters should be fun, and they will definitely help the movie outside the States.

Damn! Four years to wait…

Team notes: Drivers on track for New Hampshire visit

NASCAR team reports as the Sprint Cup Series makes its first stop of the season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway:

Tony Stewart, No. 14 Chevrolet, Stewart-Haas Racing

This week: Stewart's points lead has increased to 84 as the Cup series heads to New Hampshire for the first of two races this season. Stewart has two wins, 10 top-five finishes and 12 top-10s in 20 starts at the "Magic Mile." He was 13th last June and eighth in September.

Last week: Stewart finished second to Kasey Kahne in the season's first road-course race, the Toyota/SaveMart 350 at Infineon Raceway.

Etc.: Stewart owes much of his Cup success to his father, Nelson, who raced late model stock cars across northern Indiana when he was in his 20s. At the age of 44, Nelson's focus changed. He sold his SCCA D-Production car in favor of a go-kart for his 7-year-old son. In addition to the go-kart, Nelson gave Tony all of the traits that separate a good driver from a good racer. "He never let me settle for second," said Tony Stewart, now in his 29th year of competitive racing. "He didn't like it when we ran second, and he knew that I didn't like it when we ran second. If he saw that I wasn't giving 100%, then he was on me pretty hard about it. He pushed me to be better. He never pressured me to be the best race-car driver in the world, but he did want me to be the best race-car driver that I could be. He never compared me to anybody else. He expected that what I could do was what I could do. He never said that because this guy over here could do something, that I should be able to do it, too. He pushed me hard, but he was fair about it. That's probably why you see so much fire in me today, because he always wanted me to be the best that I could be." ... As a 37-year-old, when Tony Stewart made the massive leap from being just a driver to taking on the dual role of driver/owner with his own team — Stewart-Haas Racing — Nelson has been there to see his son succeed once again. "At the time he won the first Brickyard, I thought, 'This has got to be the biggest thing we've been involved with or ever seen,' " said Nelson, who watched Tony win his first Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in 2005 and his second in 2007. "But, knowing what it took to get to this point in this deal and seeing him win a race, I'm not going to say I'm putting it above the first Brickyard, but it's right up there with the first Brickyard. Tony is having fun. I guess it's a different side of him than everybody thought he had. It's been there all along. Right now, everything's just going really, really well and things are falling in place and he's got all good people and everybody's having fun. That's the most important thing is that everybody's having fun. With fun comes success."