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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Back To Work
2010 has arrived and Daytona Speedweeks are only a month away, so it’s time to get busy and get ready for another season of NASCAR racing...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted January 04, 2010   Charlotte, NC
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)
Hope everyone had a nice holiday break, a little down time for family and friends, and to catch your breath.

It was great to have a few days off, but 2010 has arrived and Daytona Speedweeks are only a month away, so it’s time to get busy and get ready for another season of NASCAR racing.

We’ll get our first real crack at spending time with drivers on Saturday in Nashville during the annual Sprint Sound & Speed Presented by SunTrust, a cool two-day event that brings together the worlds of country music and NASCAR racing. You can read all about the details here: Sprint Speed & Sound or visit www.soundandspeed.org.

This is an excellent event that supports both the Victory Junction Gang Camp and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, two very worthy charities.

Among the NASCAR drivers scheduled to appear are Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Brad Kesolowski, Michael Waltrip, Clint Bowyer, Reed Sorenson, and many more. Jason Michael Carroll, Josh Turner, members of Diamond Rio, and Chris Young headline the musical acts.

One of the great things about this event is that it’s a chance to interact with drivers in a much more relaxed and informal setting than you’ll find at a race track. If you’re in the Nashville area, by all means check it out.

The following week, fans can meet their favorite drivers at Daytona International Speedway, where on Jan. 15-16 the annual NASCAR Preseason Thunder Fan Fests take place. Again, this is an ideal venue to meet the drivers in a low-key atmosphere. Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and a whole lot more drivers are scheduled to appear this year. For full details, check out www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com.

From there, the next week is the annual Lowe’s Motor Speedway Media Tour, when credentialed media members spend four days visiting with the top teams in the Sprint Cup Series.

I suspect this season, we’ll have lots to report on. Two items really leap out on the news front for 2010. The first is the opening of the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Uptown Charlotte in May. This truly will be a state-of-the-art affair, a facility that I’m sure will leave race fans stunned with the depth and breadth of its offerings. It’s great that NASCAR finally will have a world-class facility to honor the men and women who have grown this sport since the late 1940s.

The second big story for 2010 is going to be a Silly Season class that’s going to be richer and deeper than any in recent memory. The two star drivers who head the Silly Season roster are Kevin Harvick and Kasey Kahne, two proven race winners and highly marketable drivers who’d be great additions to any team.

With NASCAR’s team limit of four cars, it will be interesting to see who goes where. Will Joe Gibbs Racing add a fourth car for 2011? Will Stewart-Haas Racing be in position to expand next year? We’ll be keeping a close eye on those stories this year.

But there’s more to January than just NASCAR. The 2010 Monster Energy AMA Supercross season kicks off with the live season opener from Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., Jan. 9 at 10:00 p.m. ET. SPEED will carry the entire Monster Energy Supercross season as well as four additional live AMA Supercross class broadcasts (Indianapolis, Atlanta, Toronto and Las Vegas).

And for car lovers, it doesn’t get any better than the annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event, which this year takes place Jan. 18-24 from the grounds of Westworld in Scottsdale, Ariz. As always, SPEED will have a massive television and Internet presence at Barrett-Jackson, with many hours of live coverage and plenty of articles, photos and videos here on SPEEDtv.com. And, of course, we’ll have the popular Hagerty Fantasy Bid game again, which allows enthusiasts to compete for prizes as the guess the prices of fabulous collector cars.

Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale is one of those bucket-list events, something every car enthusiast needs to do at least once in his or her life. And it’s one of those events that’s so massive in its scope that mere words fail to do it justice. I will be out there for an entire week, anchoring the SPEEDtv.com coverage with our Autos Editor, Bob Golfen.

So, it’s back to work, folks. And I couldn’t be happier about it. Stay tuned to SPEEDtv.com – we’re just getting revved up for a great 2010.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com! Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale: Jan 19th-24th
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