Juniors Reunite at Bristol

Throughout all the inner-family turmoil that befell upon the Earnhardt’s in the second half of last season and led all the way up to the drop of the green flag at this year’s Daytona 500 in which Dale Earnhardt Jr found himself sitting in a Rick Hendrick owned car, we heard our fair share of mudslinging and it appeared that many relationships had been severed. Amongst those damaged partnerships, however, was not the friendship that grew between Dale and his former DEI teammate, Martin Truex Jr.  Perhaps that is why this weekend Truex has agreed to drive Dale’s no. 5 Chevy in the Sharpie Minnie 300 in Bristol this weekend in the Nationwide Series.

The no. 5 car owned by JR Motorsports is currently third in the Nationwide Series owner’s standings. The car has been driven three times this year by Earnhardt himself, resulting in a 3rd, 7th, and 14th place finish, with the other race being driven by Mark Martin, who won the race in Las Vegas. This isn’t the first time Truex has raced for Earnhardt. Dale teamed up with his step-mother, Theresa, to form Chance 2 Motorsports back in 2003, and Truex raced part-time for them that season. The following two years he competed full-time, winning the Nationwide [then labeled the Busch Series] championship in both years. He also competed in three events for JR Motorsports itself back in 2006.

- In other news, as a result of the numerous complaints from NASCAR drivers over the past week combined with NASCAR denying Texas a testing date prior to their Spring race this year, Goodyear has promised not to bring the same tire to Texas Motor Speedway that they raced on in Atlanta.

- Roush-Fenway Racing has elected not to appeal NASCAR’s penalty levied against the no. 99 team of Carl Edwards. The team insists that an internal investigation was conducted to find out if anyone within the organization intentionally left the oil lid off, but they were not able to find any such proof. The stand by their conviction that the infraction was completely unintentional, but they also admit that does not excuse the situation they created.

- EA Sports has announced that Jeff Gordon will be on the cover of EA Sports NASCAR 09, which is currently scheduled to begin shipping on June 10th.