NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge Set For May 14th

The NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge presented by Craftsmen will take place on May 14 at the Time Warner Cable Arena at 7:00pm and will be aired at 9:00pm that evening on SPEED.

The event is celebrating its fifth year and was just recognized as the Best Public Event under 20,000 by the International Special Events Society. The competition is the only indoor event sanctioned by NASCAR and leads into the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race Saturday, May 16 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. The finishing order of the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge presented by Craftsman will determine the order of pit selection for the race that each competing team is eligible for (The Sprint Showdown or The NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race).

The current eligible teams are as follows:

• #96 Ask.com - Bobby Labonte
• #99 Aflac - Carl Edwards
• #07 Jack Daniels - Casey Mears
• #33 General Mills - Clint Bowyer
• #88 Amp/National Guard - Dale Earnhardt Jr
• #12 Penske Racing - David Stremme
• #11 FedEx - Denny Hamlin
• #16 3M - Greg Biffle
• #31 Caterpillar - Jeff Burton
• #24 DuPont - Jeff Gordon
• #48 Lowe’s - Jimmie Johnson
• #20 Home Depot - Joey Logano
• #9 Budweiser - Kasey Kahne
• #29 Shell/Pennzoil - Kevin Harvick
• #2 Miller Lite - Kurt Busch
• #18 Mars - Kyle Busch
• #5 Kellogg’s/Carquest - Mark Martin
• #17 DeWalt - Matt Kenseth
• #39 Army - Ryan Newman
• #14 Office Depot/Old Spice/Burger King - Tony Stewart

Tickets for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge presented by Craftsman, featuring over the wall, head to head competition between the top 24 pit crews in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series are on sale now.

Tickets start at $15 and can be purchased online at www.pitcrewchallenge.com or by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 495-2295.

New Format For Sprint All Star Challenge

The NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race will have a different format in 2009. Lowe’s Motor Speedway President Marcus Smith confirmed Friday, but he declined to elaborate. Following a news conference to promote the second annual burnout contest and announce that retired wrestler Ric Flair would be the honorary all-star race director, Smith talked in vague terms about how this year’s format will be different.

During the news conference, it was just referred to as a 100-lap event. Last year, the event was split into four 25-lap segments. “We are working on some changes that will be forthcoming – some neat things that we’re going to be changing up,” Smith said. “They’ll be exciting for the fans.” A NASCAR spokesman also declined to comment on potential changes to the non-points event.

“We’re talking about some different things that we’ll be able to announce in a few weeks,” Smith said. “The all-star race has a tradition of making changes. … We’ve had great conversations and experience with the folks at Sprint, and [television partner] Speed and NASCAR. We’ll be able to talk about that in a couple of weeks.” This year’s event will be the 25th running of the all-star event, and it will include a Montgomery Gentry concert