Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the most hallowed grounds in auto racing. On July 27th, Nascar's elite will visit the speedway for the 15th time, as one driver will etch his name into history books, and get the chance to kiss the bricks. Here are the likely contenders:


Toyota:


Tony Stewart-

A native of Indiana, Tony Stewart has contended for the win at Indianapolis almost every time he's raced there, especially since he finally claimed his first victory there in 2005. Last year he made a late pass on Kevin Harvick to claim his third win in three races there. He also has four straight finishes of 8th or better at the Brickyard, and it wouldn't be a surprise if he earned his first victory of 2008 here.


Kyle Busch-

With the simply amazing season he's had so far this season, it's hard to doubt that Kyle Busch will be one of the drivers to beat, but his statistics make just as strong of an arguement. In three races at Indianapolis, Busch has finished 10th, 7th and 4th. If that trend continues, he'll be first when the cars come across the bricks for the final time.


Brian Vickers-

Vickers is a darkhorse pick out of the Toyota camp, but a likely contender nonetheless. In four career starts Vickers has managed a third place finish, but that's not why he's one of my picks, this team has improved so much over last year and the past couple of months have been one of the most consistent teams on the circuit, with a worst finish of 16th in the past seven races.

Honorable Mention- Denny Hamlin



Chevrolet:


Jeff Gordon-

When you think of drivers who have success at Indianapolis in any form of racing, Gordon is one of the drivers that comes to mind. Gordon won the inaugural event here in 1994 and has gone on to win three more times, most recently in 2004. Gordon is still searching for his first win of 2008, and it could come here for the fifth time in his career.


Kevin Harvick-

Harvick has been consistent at Indianapolis, with only one finish worse than 11th in seven career starts. Harvick has kissed the bricks here before as well, winning at the Brickyard in 2003. He was a few laps from winning last year before being passed late in the race. Harvick will be one of the drivers to watch when the cars take the green on Sunday.


Jimmie Johnson-

Johnson is either really good at Indianapolis, or way off. In six career starts he has two top-10's, but also three finishes of 36th or worse. Johnson has been able to find victory lane at Indianapolis in 2006. The fact that Johnson's team has greatly improved their COT program since the beginning of this year makes them a threat to contend for the win.


Honorable Mention- Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Clint Bowyer



Ford:


Matt Kenseth-

After struggling in his first two starts, Kenseth has been a front runner the past six races, with five top-10's. Kenseth has finished second twice, and would like to finally win this year. If he could accomplish that, he would be the first Ford driver to win at Indianapolis since Dale Jarrett did in 1999.


Carl Edwards-

In three starts at Indianapolis, Edwards has finished in the top-10 once, with a worst finish of 18th. However Edwards' team has been strong all year long with a COT program that has improved greatly over last year. If Edwards is given another strong car at Indy, he'll likely be doing backflips after the race.


Honorable Mention- Greg Biffle, David Ragan, Travis Kvapil



Dodge:


Kasey Kahne-

Kahne was stellar in his first two starts at Indianapolis, with a 4th and 2nd place finish. In his last two starts he's been caught up in wrecks, but he's had good cars. This year he's been strong since his win in the All-Star Race, with cars that can contend almost every week, and that may be the case once again at the Brickyard.


Kurt Busch-

Busch has struggled most of the season, but has earned top-5's in two of the past three races. He's also been consistent at Indianapolis, with five finishes of 12th or better in seven career starts. If Busch can avoid the bad luck that has plagued him for most of the season he may have a good run at the Brickyard.


Honorable Mention- Ryan Newman, Sam Hornish Jr.

For much of the Lifelock.com 400, it looked as though Kyle Busch would run off to his 7th victory of the season. Busch led a record 165 laps, and as competitors such as Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth fell from contention to win, it seemed that there was nothing in Busch's way.

Then there was Jimmie Johnson, who took the lead with 17 laps to go from Busch on a late restart. Johnson was in the lead when the caution came out with six laps to go, and led to the field to the restart with just two laps to go. And that's when Busch made his move, darting to the outside of Johnson entering turn one. The two raced door-to-door down the backstraightaway and into turn three, and coming off turn four Busch had the advantage coming to the white flag.

Busch held off Johnson's final efforts to earn his seventh victory of the season, and third in the last four races.

“I gave up on myself. I just didn’t think I could do that. I’ve watched Jimmie do that several times," Busch said in victory lane. "I don’t know how I did it... I pushed Jimmie to go. This is a dream season, man. I just cannot believe this.”

While Busch was celebrating in victory lane, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards were left wondering what could have been.

For Kenseth it started on lap 125 when he had to pit under green when he suspected a flat tire.This left Kenseth a lap down in 30th place, just minutes after he had battled for the lead with Busch. After getting the free pass Kenseth was able to recover for a 7th place finish, but didn't have enough time to get back into contention for the win.

Edwards was leading when he also suspected a flat tire with just 55 laps to go while leading the race. He made a green flag pitstop and fell a lap down, but his problem was worse than a flat tire. One of the braces to Edwards' splitter had snapped, and the splitter was now dragging on the ground, giving Edwards a huge aerodynamic disadvantage. Edwards would lose another lap and finish 32nd, a disapointing end to what started as a good race.

There was controversy before the race even started as J.J Yeley's car sat in the inspection bay just minutes before the start of the race. Nascar officials found two water bottles filled with 15 lbs of lead each, one of the oldest tricks in the book for losing weight. Yeley was given a pass-through penalty at the start of the race, and would go on to finish 23rd. For the 96 team, which is 38th in owner points, more penalties could come later in the week.

Last week rumors spread around the garage that Teresa Earnhardt was going to sell the company that her husband, the late Dale Earnhardt, founded. She has recently denied these claims, but one has to wonder why she wouldn't. Dale Earnhardt Incorporated has quickly fallen from being one of the top-notch organizations in 2004 to it's mediocre status it holds today.

It was just four years ago that Dale Earnhardt Jr. won six races and just fell short of his first championship while driving for DEI. Back then it seemed as though the success would only continue, with Jr. earning a championship driving for his father's team.

However the collapse started in 2005, when DEI switched the crews for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip. Throughout the year both teams suffered before the teams were restored at the start of the Chase. Neither driver made the Chase, and in the first 26 races Earnhardt and Waltrip only had eight top-5's combined.

It was after that season that Michael Waltrip left DEI after only having three top-5's throughout the entire season, to make his own team, eventually with Toyota. Though certainly not the best driver on the circuit, Waltrip was still a vital part of DEI, as he is a sponsor's dream. When he left he took the big bucks with him.

In 2006 the team looked to be recovering, with the addition of Martin Truex Jr. in 1 car and Earnhardt reuinted with cousin Tony Eury Jr. as his crew chief. Though Earnhardt only won one race, he was consistent all year and made the Chase, while Truex had a mediocre rookie season. However 2007 would be another stutter for DEI that has lead to it's downfall.

Throughout the 2007 season engine troubles plagued the teams, as they had a combined 10 engine failures between them. In May Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced his departure from DEI, eventually signing with Hendrick Motorsports. DEI had lost the driver with the largest fanbase and, in turn, all the sponsorship and merchandise sales that he brought.

DEI then bought Ginn racing, aquiring the talented veteran Mark Martin. However besides him they only had Truex, who earned his only career victory early in the year, and the young drivers of Aric Almirola, Regan Smith and Paul Menard.

This year DEI has been plain and simply miserable, with the exception of Martin. Their young drivers of Smith, Almirola and Menard have for the most part struggled in their starts, with only one top-10 between the three drivers. Meanwhile Truex has also struggled, with only five top-10's throughout the season, leaving him 18th in points and unlikely to make the Chase.

On top of these woes Martin, who has carried this team, will be leaving to Hendrick Motorsports next year to take one more shot at a championship, while Truex is trying to leave the team at the end of the year, possibly to Stewart/Haas Racing. This leaves DEI with only Almirola, Smith and Menard.

With these inexperienced drivers combined with low-grade equipment, things are destined to only get worse for DEI, with it's downfall seemingly imminent.

After the wild race at Daytona, the Sprint Cup Series heads north to the Chicagoland Speedway, where they will race under the lights for the first time. Adding the COT to the changed track conditions, this could be another wild race.


1. Kyle Busch

Making a fantastic save, coming from the back and making his move at just the right time to win at Daytona; just another race for Kyle Busch. Kyle has now won 1/3 of the races run this season in Sprint Cup, with six victories in 18 races. He has an average finish of 10th at Chicagoland, with a best finish of 3rd. The way he's racing right now, he'll probably improve on that.

2. Matt Kenseth

Matt Kenseth earned the best finish of his career at Daytona, finishing 3rd, rebounding from his disappointing finish at Loudon. Matt now has seven top-10's in the past eight races, and that consistency should carry over to Chicago, where he's come just short of the victory the past three races. In those races he's led 289 laps, finishing 2nd twice, with a 22nd that was the result of being spun from the lead with four laps to go.

3. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt Jr. led the most laps at Daytona, but faded from contention towards the end of the race, but still finished a solid 8th. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been a contender the past three races at Chicago. In 2005 he earned a win, then in 2006 he finished a solid 5th. His result last year, 19th, is deceiving, because he was running in the top-5 before he lost a cylinder late in the race.

4. Carl Edwards

Edwards was battling for the win on the last lap when the caution flew, ending the race. After two finished of 20th or worse, Edwards earned a 3rd place finish at Chicagoland last year. Edwards' teams has been strong on the 1.5 mile tracks all year long, expect him to contend for the win.

5. Tony Stewart

Stewart had to give way to relief driver J.J Yeley when his illness became too much to handle. Stewart has to be a favorite to win at Chicagoland though, where he's earned five top-5's in the past six races, including two wins. He is the only driver besides Kevin Harvick to have multiple victories at the track.

6. Jeff Burton

Burton finished outside the top-15 for the first time this season when he wrecked late in the race. Don't expect this to happen at Chicago though, where he has finished in the top-10 the past two races, including a career best finish of 2nd in 2006.

7. Jeff Gordon

Gordon was in position to win his first race of the season at Daytona, leading the majority of the closing laps. However, he was spun on a green-white-checkered restart, leaving him with a 30th place finish. Gordon has five top-10's in the past six races at Chicagoland, including a win.

8. Greg Biffle

Biffle finished last after and early wreck at Daytona, dropping him three spots to 11th in the points standings, just 10 points in front of 13th place Kevin Harvick. Biffle has been slumping, with no top-10's in the past five races, and Chicagoland may just continue his woes, where he's never finished in the top-10.

9. Jimmie Johnson

Johnson ran up front most of the race, but lost track position when he damaged his fender and needed repairs. This put Johnson back in mid-pack, where he was caught up in a wreck, finishing 23rd. He should rebound at Chicagoland, where he has five top-10's in six career starts, with a 37th last year that resulted from a blown tire while running 2nd.

10. Brian Vickers

Vickers finished 11th at Daytona, his sixth straight finish of 16th or better. He'll need to finish even better though if he wants to make up enough ground to make the Chase, which he is still 112 points out of. In three starts at Chicagoland, Vickers has a worst finish 14th, with a 4th in 2005.



Other Notables:

11. Kurt Busch- Busch backed up his win with a 4th place finish in a backup car. Things may just be turning around for Busch, who has three straight top-10's at Chicago.

12. Kevin Harvick- Harvick won the inaugural event at Chicagoland in 2001, then again in 2002. He needs another strong run here to get back in the top-12.

13. David Ragan- After a couple of bad runs at Infineon and Loudon, he excelled once again in the plate race, finishing 5th. He's earned top-5's in two of the three plate races this year.

14. Robby Gordon- He finished 6th at Daytona in an unsponsored car. He's also earned two top-10's at Chicago, but none since 2003.

15. Ryan Newman- Had a rough day at Daytona, but Chicago is a good place for him to turn it around. He won here in 2003, and finished 8th here last year.

This weekend the Sprint Cup Series heads to the hallowed grounds of the Daytona International Speedway, a track where victory is the most prestigious among the stock car racing world. 43 drivers will try to etch their names into history with a win under the lights, but only one will succeed.


1. Kyle Busch

Busch had an off day at Loudon, racing with a bad setup and never cracking the top-10. A late race scuffle with Juan Pablo Montoya added insult to injury, dropping Busch to 25th for the finish. However Daytona is a good place for Busch to rebound. In the Daytona 500 this year, Busch finished 4th after leading the most laps. He also finished second in this race last year by just .005 seconds. If things go his way this weekend, he may just end up in victory lane this time.

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt also had late race trouble when Jamie McMurray plowed into the rear end of his car while he was trying to enter pit road. From there he would limp his way around to a 24th place finish. Again though, Daytona is a great place for Earnhardt to recover. He is an excellent plate racer, and he's won at Daytona twice, including this race in 2001.

3. Matt Kenseth

Kenseth's car was off at Loudon, but he had started making a comeback before the final round of pitstops. When the rains came, however, Kenseth was back in 18th, and that would be where he would finish. Kenseth has been stout at Daytona lately though, with six top-10's in the past ten races.

4. Carl Edwards

Like his teammate, Edwards' car was off most of the day at Loudon, but had worked his way back into the top-15 before the last round of pit stops. When the rain came, Edwards was mired back in 17th, giving him a worse finish than he deserved. He hasn't been very stout at Daytona, with just one top-10 finish in six starts. However, that was a 4th place finish in this race last year.

5. Jeff Burton

Burton was consistent as usual at Loudon, charging into the top-10 after starting 31st. When he made his final pit stop Burton fell to 12th though, and that was where he finished. Burton hasn't done very well at Daytona lately though, with only one top ten in the past nine races.

6. Greg Biffle

Biffle was never in contention, spending most of the race on the tail end of the lead lap. When it was finally over Biffle settled for a 21st place finish. In his past two races at Daytona, Biffle has been able to crack the top-10.

7. Jeff Gordon

Gordon had a top-5 car all day long at Loudon, but had to settle for an 11th place finish when other drivers stayed out. Gordon is still searching for his first victory of 2008, and Daytona may be the place to earn it. Gordon has earned six career victories at Daytona, including a win in this race in 2004.

8. Jimmie Johnson

Johnson had a top-5 car all day at Loudon as well, and after others stayed out he still ended up with a solid 9th place finish. He's enjoyed sucess at Daytona in his career. His first career pole came there, and he's earned 8 top-10's in 13 career starts, including a win in the Daytona 500 in 2006.

9. Tony Stewart

Stewart had the car to beat at Loudon, but poor strategy late cost him not only the victory, but a top-10 finish, leaving him 13th. Stewart is also looking for his first victory of 2008, and Daytona is the perfect place for him to do it. He has won this race twice in the past three races, and he also finish 3rd in the Daytona 500 this year after leading on the final lap.

10. Brian Vickers

Vickers continues to be consistent as he tries to work his way into the top-12 in points, as he finished a solid 16th at Loudon. Vickers only has two top-10's in eight starts at Daytona, but his only victory came in a plate race at Talladega in 2006.



Other Notables:

11. Ryan Newman- Newman won the Daytona 500 earlier this year, he should be a driver to watch on Saturday night.

12. Kevin Harvick- Harvick had a good run at Loudon, but had to settle for a 14th place finish. He won the Daytona 500 in 2007.

13. Kurt Busch- Busch earned a much needed win at Loudon, and might make it back-to-back wins at Daytona, where he finished 2nd in the Dayton 500 this year.

14. Martin Truex Jr.- Truex earned a good top-5 finish at Loudon, finishing 4th. Though he hasn't had good finishes at Daytona he has run well in plate races in the past, having learned from former teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr.

15. Michael Waltrip- Waltrip earned his best finish in over three years at Loudon, finishing 2nd to Kurt Busch. Walrtip may carry that over to Daytona as well, where he's earned three of his four career victories.

Heading into the Lenox Industrial Tools 301, Kurt Busch, the 2004 Sprint Cup Series Champion, had struggled all season, with just two top-10's. Busch spent most of the race outside the top-10, but came to the pits on lap 217 for fuel, with plans to stay out the rest of the way.

After a wreck by Dale Earnhardt Jr. on lap 271, Busch gained the lead as the rest of the leaders came into the pits for fuel. Busch's concerns were making it to the end of the race with the remaining fuel in his tank, and holding off the pack in the final 25 laps.

However, just a couple of laps after the restart, Sam Hornish Jr. made contact with Clint Bowyer, sending the two spinning in turns three and four. The caution came out for the seventh time, and then the race was red-flagged for rain. Less than ten minutes after the red flag was thrown, Nascar called the race, giving Kurt Busch his first victory since August of last year.

"These guys made an awesome call," Busch said. "Sometimes you just don't win 'em the right way, I think we can honestly say that, but we had a lot of work and a lot of effort put in today and we'll take it."

The win vaulted Busch from 22nd to 18th in points. Busch is still 215 points behind Bowyer, who sits 12th in points, but this win was the first step towards a possible rebound for the team that has finished 32nd or worse five times in 17 races.

Behind Busch was Michael Waltrip, who earned his best finish since April of 2005, and J.J Yeley, who's third place finish tied the team's all-time best.

Meanwhile Tony Stewart dominated the race, leading 132 of 284 laps, but fell to 13th when Busch and others stayed out on the track or took fuel only on the last stop, and when the race ended just a couple laps later he was left with another disappointing finish.

"It's just been the oddest year I've ever seen for this race team," Stewart said. "It's just frustrating. There isn't anybody that's going to tell you any different than that. There's nothing you can do. If there was something we could do about it we'd change it."

Stewart's teammate Kyle Busch was involved in a late-race conflict with Juan Pablo Montoya. The two had bumped and banged in the laps before the final caution. Several moments after the field had slowed to caution speed, the two exchanged bumps on the front straightaway before Montoya turned into Busch, who's spinning car came back and made contact with Montoya and sent him spinning as well.

Montoya would be penalized two laps for reckless driving, and finished 32nd, while the points leader Busch finished 25th.

With just nine races left before the Chase begins, the battle to be in the top-12 is heating up, with 9th to 14th place seperated by just 97 points. 12th place Clint Bowyer is just 8 points ahead of Matt Kenseth who sits 13th.

I despise math in all its forms, but I am curious if anyone has ever complied statistics comparing the average number of years in NASCAR and wins.  I would like to see how drivers’ finishes with the CORN versus the COY.  Outside of that obvious correlation (younger drivers do better), I think that the number of years in Cup with the old car is going to have a bigger impact on current performance due to an inability to adapt.  If my hypothesis is correct, then drivers with less seat time in the COY are going to have better finishes than those who do. (Which means that the open wheel guys might really take off once they find their feet.)  Conversely, well maybe additionally, I would also like to know if NASCAR’s second agenda, equalizing the field, is really happening. Since everyone is starting at square one, it should follow that more teams should have similar finishing averages.   

That said, I think that a part of Busch the Pariah success in the Cup series is he doesn’t care what car he’s driving.  Yeah, I know, no kidding, but think about how many drivers you hear comparing the two cars. Busch grouches about the handling of the car, but I don’t hear him comparing the two like many drivers. Which is why the lack of success from Hendrick Nation and Gibbs (Busch excluded) stymies me. Those drivers are all talented multi –track, -vehicle, -series winners. I don’t think for a minute that Kyle Busch is THAT much better driver than (it pains me to say this) either Gordon, Johnson, or Stewart. But I am beginning to think that Busch IS that much better at taking the necessary (and un-necessary) risks to see what the car will and will not do and dealing with the car on its own terms and adapting to it, rather than trying to force the car to be something it isn’t (the old car). 

That still doesn’t make him any less annoying, but I think until more drivers adapt to the car instead making futile attempts at making the new car act like the old one, we are going to hear about Kyle for a loooong time.

As if we all needed another reason to dislike Kyle Busch.

(h/t to Bob, aka 4ever3)

"He’s got an issue because he gave me the finger, and you know what?" Gordon said. "That’s not necessary for a guy he just didn’t like racing him the way I did."

Gordon and Busch were teammates at Hendrick before Busch left for JGR this season.

"Kyle and I never had any issues," Gordon said. "But I raced him hard tonight just like I did everybody. And when track position is as important as it is here, you’ve got to race every single car for every single position.

"And I wasn’t going to give anybody an inch, and I was racing for position."

The brief article doesn't state what portion of the race Gordon hacked Kyle off by racing hard, but it wouldn't surprise me if it occurred while Jeff was trying to get his lap back during the middle part of the race.

At any rate, this incident marked the second time over the weekend that a member of JGR took exception with another driver racing them hard. Which makes me wonder when these JGR guys got such a sense of entitlement?

Hey Restrictor-Plate This,

Today is the big day. We've switched your community over to the new SB Nation sports blog platform. My name is Trei, and I'm here to help you get adjusted to the new home we've built for you. If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction.

Before we begin, I want to let you know we still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

Please take a few minutes to read about what's new below. But if you just can't wait to jump in, here are some quick things to check out:

1. Sign up for your SB Nation network account and claim your old blog accounts
2. Once you're logged in, press your  Z  key in any thread with new comments
3. Explore your dashboard and setup your profile
4. Read the guide to the new FanPost editor
5. Install the FanShot bookmarklet and post videos to Restrictor-Plate This from YouTube or images from Flickr
6. Click the "Rec" button on posts and comments to help other people find the good stuff.
7. Customize display options on your Edit Settings page

What Has Changed

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

Readers across all of our blogs told us they wanted one account to use on every SB Nation blog. To make this work, we're requiring that everyone create a new SB Nation network account. In most cases you should be able to keep your old username, but a few of you may have to choose something new, since every other community in SB Nation will be going through this same transition. We tried to be as fair as possible in deciding who gets to keep which name, using a formula that takes into account length of membership and frequency of activity.

We want to make it as easy as possible for you to participate on all of our blogs, but we don't want to encourage everyone to start visiting rival team blogs and initiating flame wars. To maintain friendly communities we ask that you explicitly join each blog in order to participate. It's a two-click process, but it does means accepting each blog's community guidelines. Just as you join each blog individually, you can be banned on each blog individually.

You can claim old accounts from multiple SB Nation blogs, and your new username will be retroactively attached to all your old comments and diaries. So now you'll be able to access all your writings from your single profile page... like magic.

To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

We changed their name. Why? Because we took this major upgrade as an opportunity to leave behind some vocabulary that never made much sense for a sports blog. SB Nation is the network of, by and for fans, and these are the blog posts we make. So we call them FanPosts. When you're at a bar telling someone to check out your online sports opinions, you don't have to suggest they read your diary.

FanPosts are displayed differently on the homepage - we include your avatar to give more credit for the time you spend writing great posts. The new post editor has a WYSIWYG view that provides easy formatting. It also auto-saves drafts so you don't have to worry about losing your work when you compose a post within the web browser. And you can now associate teams, players and games with your posts: these tools promote your FanPosts on our new team, player and game pages - across the entire network.

The new system does not work like the old diary editor. For example, in HTML mode the new editor doesn't auto-create a new paragraph from two line breaks. But it does offer a whole array of new features. Look for the blinking help button on the right side of the FanPost editor for quick tips, and take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform.

IMPORTANT - if you write your posts in Microsoft Word or some other off-line editor, you will get the most reliable behavior if you cut & paste your post into the HTML view of the FanPost editor. And if you do that, remember to wrap <p></p> tags around each paragraph so your text doesn't run together.

Visual Redesign

This one is probably the most obvious change of all. Like other major websites working to improve readability for their audience, we've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Restrictor-Plate This and SB Nation network users. Use the switcher below the user menu if you prefer the wider layout designed for 1280 monitors. We've introduced a top navigation bar with quick links into old and new sections of the site. We also polished a few edges, made some things larger, others smaller and moved a few boxes here and there. More changes and adjustments to come.

Search

We've completely replaced the old search engine with a new one. We're excited to make it easier to find old posts and comments, but we've only taken our first pass on the tools we're offering. We're focused on making search even better than what you had before, so please know that we're aware search is missing key features and we're working on it.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Restrictor-Plate This now has all the basic information about the sports and hundreds of other teams. During games you'll see a regularly updated line score, and as the season progresses we'll track team stat totals and leaders. This is just our first step, so look for us to publish more detailed and archival stats in the future. The best part about all this sports data is that we've integrated it directly into the blog so. We now have special pages that aggregate all blog posts written about games, players and teams.

Recommending FanPosts

Some writing deserves more attention and more conversation. If you want to bump a FanPost up to the top and keep it there for awhile, just click the 'Rec' link under the body of the post. When a FanPost receives enough recommendations it will make the recommended list.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. If you're logged in, new comments will automatically appear on the page every few seconds. When you post a comment, the page will not refresh either. If you want to quickly cycle through all the new comments, you can press the C key on your keyboard. Unmark a new comment after you've read it with the X key. And use the Z key if you want to umark comments as you're cycling through them.

As you use these shortcuts to cycle through comments, press the R key to reply to the current comment. All these helpful keyboard shortcuts are listed at the top of each comments section for reference.

Recommending Comments

Now you can reward those folks who take the time to look up stats and make smart arguments in the comments. Next to each comment there is an 'actions' link that you can click to find the recommend and flag options.

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

Many members of the community just want to post that one link, video, photo or quote, but don't need a full FanPost. We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

For those of you who are experienced internet hunter-gatherers of sports material, install the bookmarklet onto the links bar of your browser and share FanShots with the community from wherever on the web you find that killer quote or photo.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout. When you're logged in, you'll see your avatar and screen name which links to your profile. The icon to the right leads to your Dashboard area where you can edit your settings, profile, account details and any FanPosts or FanShots you've published. As we add more blogs to the new SB Nation network, the My Blogs menu will be a handy way to navigate between the blogs you've joined.

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There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

And in case you missed it, you'll want to start by claiming your old blog accounts and creating a new SB Nation network account.

Hello,this is my first post to say hi and kinda get used to the place.I`ve been reading from here since the end of last season,when I was thinking about joining a site that covers NASCAR!I went to my first race in 1989. It was the Spring race at Bristol.I was hooked right away with the smell of fuel,tires and awesome racing.Since Bristol isn`t the best place to go and have someone explain things to you,because you can`t yell at the person next to you and have them understand what you are saying.I had to wait and bombard my buddies with questions on the way home(5 hour trip allows alot of questions)Well, within a few weeks...I was the one being asked the questions,because I had soaked up so much info on my new passion in a short time.