I recommend that you all watch the 4 part HBO series called 24/7 Jimmie Johnson: Race to Daytona.

For NASCAR fans, it gives us a glimpse into the psyche of Jimmie Johnson & Chad Knaus.  Until Dale Earnhardt Jr joined Hendrick Motorsports, I viewed Jimmie as an arrogant driver with way too much good luck.  He still has way too much good luck but I must say that after 4 NASCAR Sprint Cup championships in a row, his & Chad’s arrogance was confidence in what they could obviously accomplish.  (They need to get with Junior and pass on at least a bit of a confidence.  I guess that’s for another entry, though.)

For non-NASCAR fans, it gives you a glimpse at the world behind “racing in circles”.  Let me be the first to say that, if all NASCAR was was watching cars go round and round in circles, I’d be bored out of my mind and would not be a fan.  The goings on behind the scenes at the track and off the track are sometimes much more interesting than who is leading the race.  This series is giving a behind the scenes view of Hendrick Motorsports, Jimmie Johnson, & Chad Knaus as they prepare for the Daytona 500 (which is 2 weeks from today!).  Folks try to explain away NASCAR as not being a sport.  Just watching the first episode demonstrated that the drivers & the crew members work out a lot to prepare for the hard work that is driving a car for 3-4 hours during a race and also accomplishing 12 second pit stops.  Not many sports make a team member lose up to 10 pounds a game/race/etc.  That fact has always made me say Wow! when thinking of a driver’s stamina to race.

By the way…I loved the milk & cookies re-enactment with Rick Hendrick!  Rick always has the best stories to tell.

You can watch the series on Tuesdays at 9pm CST and on re-runs.  There are 3 new episodes left.

Here is the website for the show where you can see several clips of the show.

Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus, Hendrick Motorsports, & Lowe’s on their 4th championship in a row!

From Marty Smith (ESPN) on Twitter:

Just asked Johnson to be honest with me about where he stacks up among the greatest ever: “This puts us up there. No doubt.”

Hendrick teammates Mark Martin & Jeff Gordon finished the season in 2nd & 3rd, respectively.

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished the season 25th.  This season has been a bumpy season for Junior & team.  Lance McGrew was finally named the official crew chief (removing the interim designation) a while back.  I really think Lance, Junior, & the 88 team can do great things together.  I’m very optimistic about 2010!

Brad Keselowski’s last race with JR Motorsports was Saturday.  He will be joining Penske Racing & driving the #12 in the Sprint Cup series next year.  Good luck, Brad!  Kelly Bires will be joining JRM next year.  I’m very excited to see how he does for JRM.

Today is the first Arkansas Razorback football game of the season.  The Razorbacks are taking on the Missouri State Bears at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.  Go Hogs Go!

Some Exciting Former Hog News:

• Former Hog baseball player Craig Gentry has been called up from AA Frisco to the majors – the Texas Rangers.  Northwest Arkansas has been fortunate enough to keep up with Craig’s progress through the Rangers organization because Frisco plays the Northwest Arkansas Naturals.  Good luck, Craig!

Brad Keselowski has helped Dale Earnhardt Jr make JR Motorsports a weekly contender in the NASCAR Nationwide series.  Brad has 5 wins in the NW series and got his first Cup series win in April at Talladega.  Penske Racing announced Tuesday that Brad will join them beginning in 2010 and will drive the #12 Penske Dodge in the Sprint Cup series.  Congratulations Brad on this great opportunity!  Just remember that Rick Hendrick & Hendrick Motorsports isn’t out of reach!

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals have 3 games left (with only 1 win needed) and they will have clinched a Texas League playoff spot for the 2nd straight season (in only 2 seasons in existence in NWA).  Good luck Naturals against the Tulsa Drillers this weekend!

Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

NASCAR 2009 has officially begun.  I’m quickly realizing that it is going to take a few races for me to get used to all of the new teams and also who is driving for who and in what car.  Even Hendrick Motorsports had a driver change in the off-season.  Mark Martin is now the driver of the No. 5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet.  (The 2009 HMS team is pictured above with their HMS 25th anniversary cars.)  The new HMS team and Tony Stewart’s new team – Stewart-Haas Racing – are going to make for one great group of drivers in 2009 (and great unofficial teammates at Daytona & Talladega).

Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR

The first race (albeit a non-points awarding race) was last night.  Kevin Harvick won the 2009 Budweiser Shootout.  I wasn’t able to watch the race last night because my family went out to celebrate my mom’s birthday (which was actually during the ice storm last week).  It looks like Dale Jr finished 18th after a bit of run-in with Paul Menard (actually, PM running into him).  On to qualifying this afternoon, the Gatorade Duels Thursday, and finally the Daytona 500 next Sunday!

What do you think about the race last night?

What are your predictions for 2009?

Andi mentioned to me back in Michigan that she noticed a special black seat on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s pit box for car owner Rick Hendrick.  I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to see it…until Sunday.  The above picture is of the seats on the Hendrick Motorsports 88 (Junior’s) pit box.  Each of the Hendrick Motorsports pit boxes have a seat labeled for Rick to sit on when he visits during the race.

I title the above picture…”Where are you going, TJ?”  For those that do not know the guy above in black, his name is TJ Majors.  He is Dale Earnhardt Jr’s spotter.  We saw TJ walk upstairs to the spotter’s stand high above the track.  A while later (and pictured above), he walks back by us toward pit road.  He disappeared back behind and reappeared a few minutes later with what, I swear, looked like a radio.  Crazy guy.

Brad Keselowski made his Sprint Cup series debut on Sunday.  He made me a tad nervous during qualifying but made the race on time.  He ended up finishing 19th in the race on Sunday.  I thought he did great.  He wasn’t just making laps (as another rookie appeared to be doing).  He was fighting for every spot and fought very successfully.  I’m looking forward to him getting to drive in more Cup races.

Speaking of Brad…He drove a 5th entry for Hendrick Motorsports on Sunday.  He drove the #25 GoDaddy.com Chevy.  Because it isn’t a normal entry for HMS, there were some oddities with regard to his team.  First, you’ll notice the pit box above is really the JR Motorsports 88 pit box from Brad’s Nationwide team.  (Funny side note…There were some “fans” in the pit very confused about this pit box.  They couldn’t figure out when Junior started being sponsored by the Navy.  I guess they missed Junior’s 88 National Guard/Amp pit box at the beginning of pit road.)  The other different thing is that Haas CNC Racing crew members were the crew for the team.  You can see the guy in the photo above has a Haas CNC shirt on.  Lance McGrew (from Hendrick Motorsports) was the crew chief, though, in case you were wondering.

Carl Edwards won his 8th race of the season on Sunday.  I was hoping to see a different winner than I’ve witnessed before (maybe Dale Earnhardt Jr…hehe).  Unfortunately, the gas mileage gamble Junior’s team made didn’t pay off and he finished 20th instead of 1st.

Click here to see the pictures I took on Sunday.

Friday was the longest day of my vacation.  We were at the track for 12 hours or so.  Friday included two Nationwide series practices, a Sprint Cup practice, qualifying for both the Nationwide & Sprint Cup series, and finally the Craftsman Truck series race.  Plus, SPEED TV was filming Trackside Live and we watched that for a while.

The photo above is of the tunnel we walked through many times over the course of the weekend to get to the track infield from the grandstand and back.  It is really weird walking through that when cars are driving at full speed overhead.

Jeff Gordon won the pole for the Sprint Cup series race.  The above photos is of his crew pushing the pole winning car into Victory Lane for the Coors Pole Award ceremony.

I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of Junior’s winning banner.  I pass it each time I’m at the track and have, thus far, resisted.

Brad Keselowski qualified on time for his first Sprint Cup race.  He was driving the Hendrick Motorsports 25 GoDaddy.com Chevy.  I’m glad that I was there to witness his first Cup race (more on his finish on Day 6).

Driver introductions for the Craftsman Truck race were a bit unorthodox at Texas Motor Speedway.  Instead of coming out onto a stage to wave to the crowd, the drivers actually came down out of the crowd and onto the track.  As you can see in this picture, track workers led 3 drivers at a time down the stands and then out onto the track into their respective Chevy truck for their ride-around.

Click here to see all of the photos I took on Friday.

I guess you can say Shelby & I are Hendrick Motorsports fans.  Shelby is a Jimmie Johnson fan, and I am a Dale Earnhardt Jr fan.  Because of that, Hendrick Motorsports was our first stop in NASCARolina.

Hendrick recently opened up their new museum and team store.  They’ve essentially combined the two into one big showroom/store.  It was quite impressive.  I was pretty surprised last October when I saw the size of the store.  It seemed almost like an afterthought and didn’t hold hardly any merchandise.  (Of course, they had just begun selling Dale Jr merchandise.  It all seemed to be selling out of boxes as opposed to the shelves and racks.)  Combining the store and museum allowed Hendrick to give each of the drivers specific areas on the floor and then a special section for the other Hendrick memorabilia (like Rick Hendrick’s 1931 Chevrolet, which is pictured above).

Click here to go to the slideshow of all of the photos I took while I was at Hendrick Motorsports.

Congratulations to Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Eury Jr, and the Hendrick Motorsports #88 team on their first points win as a team of the season and Junior’s first points win in 77 races Sunday afternoon at Michigan!

Around the web:

• Answer This…:  Dale Jr takes the checkers on fumes at this…
• AOLSports FanHouse – NASCAR: Welcome Back to Victory Lane, Dale Jr
• FoxSports.com: Earnhardt, Eury get that winning feeling again
• FoxSports.com: Sweet Relief
• Life in the Turn Lane: The pace car pandemonium shall pass
• NASCAR.com: Fuel gamble not trademark for Junior duo, but it works
• NASCAR.com: Junior always a contender, but never had this pressure
• NASCAR.com: Junior has enough fuel at MIS to end winless streak
• New York Times: Earnhardt Soaks in Feeling after Ending 76-Race Dry Spell
• One Bad Wheel: Winner Statistics: Earnhardt Jr wins Lifelock 400 at Michigan
• Racedriven.com: Emotions – Father’s Day Weekend ends with Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr in Victory Lane
• Sarah & NASCAR: Lifelock 400
• SceneDaily.com: A win is a win
• SceneDaily.com: Earnhardt Jr knew it was only a matter of time until he won again
• SceneDaily.com: Eury named Wypall Crew Chief of the Race
• SceneDaily.com: Father’s Day makes Michigan win special for Earnhardt Jr
• SpeedwayMedia.com: Amped Up
• ThatsRacin.com: Fumes, Caution Flags Prove to be the Winning Formula
• The Jade Gurss Blog: Dale Jr Victory: Post-Race Audio
• Unrestricted My NASCAR Rants & Raves: Happy Father’s Day Indeed