"Your most valuable option for Midwest sports"
36-year-old Shannon Spake is a NASCAR correspondent for ESPN. You’ve seen her on both NASCAR Countdown and NASCAR Now, and she occasionally appears on SportsCenter when they expand NASCAR coverage.
Before coming to ESPN, Spake worked at the Speed Channel, where she co-hosted NASCAR Nation and served as a reporter. She also co-hosted Back Seat Drivers with online columnist Marty Smith. Her previous on-air jobs included WCCB Charlotte and Carolina Sports and Entertainment Television.
Since March, Go Daddy IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe has been campaigning to be the new face on the GoDaddy.com homepage. ”Hinch,” as he is known, wants to replace the iconic Danica Patrick as the “face” of the GoDaddy.com brand. Now, it looks like his “Hinch for Homepage” viral campaign worked … at least to keep him in the running. GoDaddy.com is officially opening up the campaign to a public online vote.
Hinch is Go Daddy’s charismatic IZOD IndyCar driver who earned 2011 “Rookie of the Year” honors and is now running in the Top Five of this season’s IndyCar competition. He is also an avid Internet “geek” who enjoys engaging with the world via his website, Hinchtown.com. He’s affectionately known as the “Mayor of Hinchtown,” which might explain his campaign-approach to appear on Go Daddy’s website.
While the result shows Danica Patrick finished 31st in the Southern 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race Saturday night at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, the valuable experience she gained can’t be summed up in a box score.
Patrick, driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet Impala for Tommy Baldwin Racing (TBR) via a collaborative agreement with Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), had never seen the 1.336-mile oval until last Thursday. But she had heard plenty of stories about the treacherous egg-shaped oval and its knack for being difficult for even the most veteran drivers.
Actress and former supermodel Brooklyn Decker will be a special guest at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Coca-Cola 600.
Decker, who is a Charlotte, North Carolina native, will also serve as honorary race director. Nascar is huge in Charlotte, it’s where the Hall of Fame is, the headquarters. Auto racing is BIG there, big just like Brooklyn Decker’s….
In January, Danica Patrick made big news when she said she would compete in the Coca-Cola 600 on the same weekend as the Indianapolis 500. Yesterday, she made really big Coke related news again. (And on the same day she found out NASCAR wouldn’t punish Patrick or her bump of Sam Hornish Jr. at Talladega as well, good day for Team Danica).
from Market Watch:
Saturday night, “The Lady in Green,” Danica Patrick, driver of the green No.10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, will meet “The Lady in Black” for the very first time when she competes in the Bojangles’ Southern 500 Sprint Cup race at Darlington.
Last week Danica held a late lead at Talladega on Saturday, and remained in the top 10 inside 30 laps to go, but fell off to finish 13th. She also made news for her dust-up with Sam Hornish Jr., bumping him and sending him into the wall.
Patrick, who has never been to Darlington, will also compete in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race Friday night at the 1.366-mile oval before competing in just her second-ever Sprint Cup race the next night.
“Shake and Bake?”…”If you’re not first, you’re last.” NASCAR racer Kurt Busch brought the sport’s greatest movie spoof to life. Sort of.
His Phoenix Racing team didn’t have a sponsor for this weekend’s Sprint Cup race at the Talladega Superspeedway, the Aaron’s 499, so Kurt Busch’s girlfriend Patricia Driscoll, came up with an idea while watching the Will Ferrell comedy “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”
And the awesome paint scheme is all for a good cause. See the pics after the jump. From Sporting News:
Krista Voda is a cougartastic pit reporter for NASCAR on Fox and host of The Setup, the pre-race show of the Camping World Truck Series, as and Trackside on Speed Channel. The-soon-to-be-38-year-old Voda was born and raised in Clinton, Iowa and attended the University of Northern Iowa.
Voda used to co-anchor Totally NASCAR on Fox Sports Net. She was also co-host on NASCAR Nation when it aired on Speed Channel. Before moving to FSN, she worked for various local television stations in Iowa and Kentucky, including WLEX, the NBC affiliate in Lexington. Among her first radio jobs was working the night shift at KROS AM/FM in her hometown of Clinton, Iowa.
Danica Patrick had a very eventful Aaron’s 312 on Saturday. She was leading the Nationwide series race with 40 laps to go, and she was in the top ten with approximately 14 laps to go.
But she fell back and eventually was a part of the big wreck at Talladega, the one which sent Eric McClure to the hospital.
And she had a post race dust-up with Sam Hornish Jr.
Danica Patrick took retaliation against Sam Hornish Jr. Saturday in the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega, sending him into the wall in Turn 1 after both drivers had finished the Nationwide Series race. The acrimony between the two is not new, as both raced in IndyCar before making the switch to NASCAR.
Quoting From the Marbles:
The two drivers were racing for position through the tri-oval of the 2.66-mile superspeedway on the final lap with Patrick outside of Hornish. As it looked like Patrick got close to Hornish and Elliott Sadler in an attempt to side draft off the two cars, Hornish moved up to protect his position and, in the process, both cars hit the wall. Patrick took exception to the move and as the cars slowed entering Turn 1 on the cool-down lap, she rammed into his back bumper and turned him into the fence.
Watch the video, with post-race comments about the incident from both Hornish and Patrick after the jump
Talladega is a track known for wrecks. There have been many pile ups and crashes there over the years, largely because of the track’s high velocity and high banking turns. And the superspeedway’s higher than average speeds have led to some devastating crack-ups. Today’s Nationwide series race brought another one.
With a couple laps to go in the Aaron’s 312, a big crash led to Eric McClure’s No. 14 Toyota to hit the inside wall at a very high speed.
Eric McClure hit the SAFER barrier virtually head-on. After coming to a stop, safety workers scrambled to the car and removed the window net, which is usually lowered by a driver after a crash to indicate they are OK.
From USA Today:
The roof was peeled off the car to help aid extrication of McClure, who was placed on a stretcher and taken to University of Alabama Birmingham Medical Center for further evaluation, according to ESPN and the Motor Racing Network. ESPN reported NASCAR said McClure was taken for evaluation and treatment.
You probably might not know who NASCAR racer Maryeve Dufault is, but you soon will. First of all, she is an actress/model, an ex-Hawaiian Tropic bikini model and “The Price Is Right” Barker Beauty. In August of 2011 she made her Nationwide (the minor of the two NASCAR racing leagues). She was the first Canadian (from Sorel, Quebec) woman to ever compete in a Nationwide race.
And this exotic French Canadian is way hotter than Danica Patrick. As you’ll see here. But I let make the judgment on that statement, comment below.
Follow @paul_m_bankstsb on twitter.
