Clint Bowyer is trading racing for talking this week

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series star Clint Bowyer trades his driving suit for a microphone on Wednesday night, joining the FOX Sports’ SPEED broadcast team and its live coverage of the inaugural CarCash Mudsummer Classic from Tony Stewart’s half-mile Eldora Speedway dirt track in Rossburg, Ohio starting at 9:30 p.m. ET

 

Bowyer and Krista Voda co-host all the action from the “Hollywood Hotel,” which includes qualifying races at 7 p.m. ET, NCWTS Setup with Krista Voda at 9 p.m. ET and the Mudsummer Classic, a historic first dirt race for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

 

Calling the race is long-time Truck Series voice Rick Allen, teamed with color commentators Phil Parsons and Bowyer’s Sprint Cup Series car owner Michael Waltrip. Truck Series insider Ray Dunlap, former driver Hermie Sadler and NASCAR analyst Bob Dillner are set to cover everything unfolding throughout the pits.

 

Bowyer replaces Kenny Wallace, who received late entry into the race and will handle in-race reporter duties for the show.

The driver feud that won't end continues at Bowman Gray Stadium

This week's incident



A wild driver feud at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., which became a YouTube hit this week, took another crazy turn on Saturday night.

Bryant Robertson, who was spun from the lead a week earlier by Derek Stoltz, slammed into Stoltz’s car under caution in the closing stages of the second of two Sportsman races Saturday night. Robertson was immediately suspended for the remainder of the 2013 season by track officials.

Last week, Mike Robertson, Bryant's brother, climbed aboard Stoltz's car and was dragged across the track and flung into a wall. Mike Robertson felt like he got bumped out of the way by Stoltz. Stoltz said he felt Mike was blocking for his brother Bryant.

Last week's incident:

Elliott Sadler 'still ticked' over incident with Regan Smith

   NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Elliott Sadler was asked Saturday at Chicagoland Speedway about whether he and Regan Smith had spoken about their on-track incident last weekend at New Hampshire.

    This was Sadler's complete response:

    "You can ask us all you want, and we understand you have a job to do also. Yes, Regan (Smith) did reach out to me this week and we had a 20 or 30 minute conversation and also Dale Jr. (Earnhardt) reached out to me this week because he's the owner of the car and he and I have been friends since we were teenagers, and had some good conversation. 

   "I'm still pissed about it and Regan knows that and he knows where I stand. He took 100 percent of the blame and understood why I'm upset and why I was upset. The biggest problem I had with it is I gave him a huge break at Iowa -- a huge break -- he hit the wall off Turn 4 and went into Turn 1 and I could have easily made it three-wide, that was the same day as the Pocono race, so none of us, a lot of us that use spotters, so I knew he didn't have his (regular) spotter at Iowa and I gave him a huge break and could have easily -- he could have easily wrecked.


   "I felt like he didn't give me the same courtesy and I actually gave him a big break at the beginning of the race at New Hampshire -- I caught him from a straightaway behind, raced him for 15 laps and got in the back of him in the middle of (Turns) 3 and 4 and I just slowed down and stopped and let him get back in front of me and then tried to race him clean again. For him to do what he did at New Hampshire -- I'm still ticked about it. But, we talked and we agreed that our racing is going to change a little bit between us, but we know that we're going to be racing around each other a lot between now and Homestead and they feel like they have a chance to win the championship. We feel like we have a chance amongst other drivers, so we're probably going to see each other a lot between now and November."

Tough day? See how this Hendrick Motorsports employee gets through his

   The Sunday, July 21, 10 a.m. ET edition of ESPN's flagship news and information program SportsCenter will include a feature on Richie Parker, an engineer for the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team. Parker, who was born without arms, has risen to the top of NASCAR through determination. The program airs on ESPN2.

   You can watch a video teaser here.


  

NASCAR suspends use of aerial camera systems at its events

   NASCAR on Friday issued a statement indicating that it has suspended all use of aerial camera systems at its events pending further investigation of the incident which took place during the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May.

   Here is the statement issued by NASCAR:

   "Pending further investigation of the cable camera system incident during the NASCAR race in Concord, North Carolina in May, NASCAR has decided, in collaboration with its broadcast partners, to suspend all media partner usage of aerial camera systems that hang over race tracks during its sanctioned events. The safety of our competitors and our fans remains NASCAR’s number one priority, and until total evaluation and analysis have been completed, usage of this particular technology enhancement and any similar enhancements, has been suspended."

   You can read the original story of what took place at Charlotte here.

Ryan Newman is going Truckin'

   Sprint Cup Series star Ryan Newman, a former Camping World Truck Series winner, will to the Truck series for the first time in over two years for Wednesday's Mudsummer Classic at Eldora Speedway.

   Newman will pilot the No. 34 Oral-B/Aggressive Hydraulics/WIX Filter Silverado for Turner Scott Motorsports. Newman has four previous starts in the series, collecting one victory, one pole and four top-five finishes. Newman's most recent Truck start was at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the fall of 2011, where he started and finished fifth while competing for Turner Scott Motorsports.

   Newman participated in a recent test session for Turner Scott Motorsports on July 8 at 311 Motor Speedway in Pine Hall, N.C. TSM's NASCAR Nationwide Series crew chief Chris Carrier will be calling the shots atop the pit box for Newman in the race.

Kyle Busch clarifies his comments about Ryan Newman

   NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Busch posted the following message Tuesday evening to his Twitter account in which he said he wanted to clarify comments he made regarding driver Ryan Newman after Sunday's race at New Hampshire.

   Here is his message:

   "I want to clarify that I was answering what I felt was two separate questions asked to me at the same time in an interview following the race in Loudon. The first was about how fast Kurt was and the second was how I felt about Ryan Newman blaming me for him getting wrecked.

    "First I answered the Kurt part. He was fast... Great to see them running well... Was a shame to see him crashed... Nowhere there did I place blame on who wrecked who. I didn't see it and I still haven't seen it.

    "My second answer came from being upset over an incident I had with RN on the track during the race. I answered it in the same response, but it was intended as a completely separate answer.

    "I was upset because I felt RN raced me poorly, making contact and causing damage to my RF fender that affected the handling on my racecar. This isn't the first time that I've been raced poorly by RN either, which added to my frustration. All this built up and allowed my emotions to spill over for how I felt. I'm not sorry for how I feel in those moments, but could have expressed it better and certainly my comments about someone's livelihood went too far."

   You can see Busch's original comments here.