I found out last week that I’m not getting a NASCAR hard card (NASCAR-issued annual media credential) this year because I apparently didn’t attend enough races last year. I’ve never seen a list of conditions for keeping a media hard card, nor was I warned ahead of time that I was in danger of losing mine. I also wasn’t told this information until I emailed NASCAR to find out if my 2015 hard card application was in the mail. So if I hadn’t emailed them I would have never known any of this.

This was the last straw for me. I’ve been thinking about ending the blog for a while and this was the final confirmation that I needed to just do it. It’s not the easiest decision to make, I was looking forward to going to more races this year. But I feel like I’ve done all that I can do with this site. I’ve thought of every possible angle/idea to make this blog a full-time deal for me — from contacting/pitching race teams, tracks, NASCAR, sponsors, even you — I feel like I’ve exhausted all the options.

When the Kickstarter campaign I created last year failed miserably I was incredibly disappointed and embarrassed. There are so many things that I know now that I wish I had known over 8 years ago when I started this thing. But I can’t go back and do any of it over.

I’m sincerely thankful for all of the wonderful people I’ve met over the years because of The Fast and the Fabulous and because of racing. To everyone that regularly read this site and enjoyed it, to everyone that believed in me and this blog, to everyone that appreciated my point of view on racing and “got” what this site was about, I say “THANK YOU!” from the bottom of my heart. It really did and does mean a lot to me. I’m going to miss writing about this sport. I’m going to miss going to races. I’m going to miss meeting you guys.

The Fast and the Fabulous content will remain — the complete archives are listed below — and maybe one day it’ll come back to life, as this, or as something else. I could never shut the door completely. For now, though, I’m going to explore other ideas and figure out what’s next for me.

With gratitude,
Valli

I finally got to interview Carl Edwards at the media session immediately following the NMPA/Myers Bros. Awards Luncheon in Las Vegas during Champion’s Week last year. He was one of the last drivers to show up in the interview room and I almost gave up but I’m glad I stuck around for this one.

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What is your favorite word? Why

What is your least favorite word? Less

What turns you on? Adventure

What turns you off? I guess whatever the opposite of adventure is. [Me: Boredom?] I was going to say boredom, but I guess boredom, yea.

What sound or noise do you love? I guess the woods, sound of the woods.

What sound or noise do you hate? A cellphone ringing.

What is your favorite curse word? There are seven of them that I really, really like because of George Carlin. No, I guess, ‘Son of a bitch.’

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? I would really like to be, it would very fun to be a police detective. That would be a lot of fun.

What profession would you not like to do? I guess a service profession where you have to be nice to people that may or may not deserve it.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? I would like him to explain to me what this is all about, explain what exactly is going on.

UPDATE: The Twitter Sweepstakes is now OVER.

Race in to stores, because Kroger and Dale Earndhart Jr. are teaming up to give you everything you need to get ready for a day at the track! From great foods like Breyers, and Hellmann’s to personal care products like Suave and Vaseline, Kroger has you and your whole family covered.

Other than having everything you need, they also have an amazing sweepstakes right now. Head over to Fast Track to Savings and play the Fast Track racing game for an opportunity to win select prizes, and an entry for a chance to win the ride along with Dale Earndhart Jr.

For a chance to win a $100 Kroger gift card and a Race Day Prize pack filled with everything you need for a day at the track, follow me on Twitter and Re-Tweet my #RideWithDaleJr. sweepstake tweet! For an additional entry, tweet me a photo of yourself with the Dale Earndhart Jr. cutout found in Kroger and *Kroger owned stores with the hashtags #RideWithDaleJr & #sweeps.

*Find your local Kroger store here!
*Rules for Twitter Sweepstakes

** This post is sponsored by Lunchbox **

Brad Keselowski announced the news in a post on his blog today. Brad and his girlfriend, Paige White, are expecting a baby girl.

From Brad:

The biggest announcement I have to make about the offseason actually has to do with Paige and me. We’ve been together for a little while now, and we’ve been incredibly happy. And things are about to get even better because we’re having a baby girl together.

Before I talk a little more about that, I do have one request of fans and the media regarding my daughter-to-be. Some of you like me. Some of you dislike me. You all share your thoughts with me via social media, or in person at the tracks. I have no problem with any of that, good or bad. I’m a public figure, and that’s what I’ve signed up for. But the baby girl we’re having hasn’t signed up for any of that. So if you can keep the focus on me, that would mean a lot to us.

Getting back to Paige and our new family, I know that we’re not doing this in the traditional order of things. I will simply say this: I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, and Paige is a very large part of that. She’s an amazing person. She’s soft-spoken, well-educated and smart. She’s beautiful, which never hurts. Most importantly, she understands who I am and where I’ve come from in ways that most people wouldn’t know or understand. Her family, which is extremely supportive and feels like an extension of my own, came from very humble beginnings, just like mine did. She’s seen the world from a lot of different perspectives that most people never get to see.

We’re thrilled to be doing this together. The 2015 season is shaping up to be a great one, both on the track and off it.

—
(Photo credit: BradRacing.com)

I’m very late writing about my trip to Texas in October/November of last year, for which I apologize. Since it’s been such a long time I’m going to keep it to one post so I can hit the most important items.

— It turned out that I was flying to Texas on the same flight as Melody, a longtime reader of The Fast and the Fabulous. She was attending the race too and we got to chat on the ride over which was super fun. So glad I finally got to meet Melody in person. I also got to meet Heather, who lives in Dallas, at the track. Another awesome woman. As usual, I love meeting the people that read this site, you’re obviously amazing, smart and cool racing fans!

— My rental car in Texas was an SUV, a treat for myself since I normally drive a coupe and because everything is bigger in Texas, might as well have a car to match! My next car will be an SUV. My rental had bluetooth connectivity, which allowed me to connect my iPhone to the stereo. I know this isn’t a new development, it’s been around for a long time, but my car doesn’t have that ability and I’ve decided that I really need it.

– I stayed at the NYLO (NYLO Irving/Las Colinas) in Irving, Texas. They have “chic loft-style accommodations” and it was wonderful. I’d totally stay there again and I’d recommend it to anyone. I had a basic room that had exposed brick walls, a super comfy bed and a shower with a mirror on the wall. It’s kinda weird to watch yourself taking a shower but it grew on me. The hotel was only 30 minutes away from Texas Motor Speedway and traffic was never insanely bad, so it all worked out.

— Every night I was there I got dinner from Koi Xpress Hibachi and Roll. Why? It’s Japanese food and they had a drive-thru. After a long day at the track I never feel like having to make the effort of getting out of my car get food. Anyway, everything I got from there was great, I loved the miso soup and California rolls. I wish we had a Japanese restaurant with a drive-thru here. I sound like the laziest person in the world.

— I arrived on Thursday and went to the track on Friday afternoon. I got a SUPER late start because I had to attend to some medical issues, nothing serious. It sucked because by the time I got to the track I’d missed most of the driver media sessions. I still managed to catch Jeff Gordon’s at his hauler. There was a lot of talk about “pressure.”

— I met Johnny Herbert a reporter with Sky Sports, a TV network out of the UK who were in Texas to cover the Formula 1 race in Austin that same weekend. They had time so they came to TMS to talk to some drivers. They couldn’t get over how accommodating and open the drivers were. It’s a totally different culture in F1 racing, it’s really hard to get any good comments or answers out of them. I’ve heard this before from other writers who’ve covered F1 and then come to NASCAR and their minds are blown.

Also, fun fact about Johnny Herbert, he used to race in F1 and won three races in his career. He won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1991, too. He’s also a very nice man. I wish I could have had the opportunity to ask him more questions.

— I forgot to bring my camera. I know, that’s really weird and sad considering that taking photos is like basically my entire job when I’m at the track but I did. So I had to use my cell phone to take photos and I did a pretty good job, BUT I had to keep charging my phone throughout the day so I looked like noob standing around in the media center waiting for my phone to charge. I have since purchased a portable charger so I never have to do that again.

— The best food highlights in the media center were the frozen custard (so yummy!) and the nacho bar. The nacho bar was insane. It had chicken, beef, beans, cheese (melted and shredded, two kinds!), guacamole, salsa, everything. So freaking good. I still think about those nachos.

— After the Nationwide Series race ended I was leaving the media center which sits in between the Cup garage and the Nationwide garage and that’s when I got to see a few crew guys changing out of their firesuits into their street clothes. What a sight to see, a bunch of dudes in really good shape in their boxer briefs.

— Early Sunday morning I went to the track to take a pace car ride with Brett Bodine but Brett was late in getting there so they had Justin Allgaier fill in and take members of the media on full-speed laps around TMS. It was so much fun getting to go with Justin, a full-time Sprint Cup Series driver, and get his thoughts on the track. I think I asked him about how drivers liked TMS because you could drive on the top and the bottom and he agreed and said some other stuff that I can’t quite remember. He was super nice and drove the heck out of that car for us, even though he couldn’t take us down the front stretch because they were setting up for pre-race festivities already.

— On pit road just before the invocation and National Anthem, I watched as Tony Stewart recorded a voicemail greeting for a woman. Pit road was a mad house.

— So the BEST part of my trip to Texas was getting to sit on the pit box of the No. 7 team, Michael Annett was their driver (he has since joined HScott Motorsports for the 2015 season). This was all thanks to Hudson, Michael’s awesome PR guy I met at Sonoma in June of last year. From the pit box I was able to watch the end of the race and it was the perfect place to be because the No. 7 team was next to Jeff Gordon’s box. Those guys were going through ALL of the emotions in those last restarts. There was a moment when I caught Alan Gustafson’s eye while I was staring at him trying to watch his reaction to the on-track incidents with Brad Keselowski and I felt like the biggest butthead trying to see if this guy was going to freak out, so I quickly looked away.

— When the race was over I started walking to Victory Lane and noticed a couple of the guys from the 24 team running past me. I was like, “Why would they be running, they didn’t win and I know they don’t need to congratulate Jimmie Johnson,” and then I heard the crowd’s roar and I looked up at the giant screen and saw “the fight.” That’s when I started running towards it and I ended up almost running right into Jeff Gordon himself. His face was kinda bloody and I knew the fight was over. I missed it! But at least I got to see Jeff. Ha! Jeff was on his way into Victory Lane to see Jimmie and he had ESPN following right behind him to interview him. Then I tried to rush into Victory Lane, too to get photos of Jimmie getting out of his car.

— After that, I headed to the media center. On my way, I walked past Jimmie’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, and his girlfriend, Brooke Werner, heading to Victory Lane, which I thought was kinda weird. I don’t know, they were late.

— At the media center, I watched Brad Keselowski’s press conference where he said a lot of things that amounted to “sorry, not sorry” in regards to him spinning out Jeff Gordon. After his session was over I was behind him when some old guy grabbed him around the neck and told Brad he was just like Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Brad replied, “No, I’m Brad.”

— I went out to pit road again when the race was long over and there was a post-race concert. All of the cars from the night’s race were lined up at the opposite end, I’d never seen that before so I asked one of the crew guys what was going on. They were waiting to be loaded on trucks to go home while the cars for the next weekend’s race at Phoenix were being swapped out. It was neat to see them all there, super dirty and calm after all the mayhem that went on earlier in the day.

Click on an image to open the gallery.

I’m such a slacker, you guys. I have a bunch of stuff to share with you, like my weekend at Texas and the one day I spent at Champion’s Week in Las Vegas. But first I’ll go over all of the marriage and baby news that’s happened since I last updated this site.

weddings

— Joey Logano married Brittany Baca in Asheville, N.C. on December 13, 2014

— Ty Dillon married Haley Carey at Childress Vineyards in North Carolina on December 20th, 2014.

engagements

— IndyCar driver Graham Rahal is now engaged to NHRA driver Courtney Force after proposing in Venice, Italy in November. These two are so adorable, I can’t wait to read about their wedding!

babies

— Kyle Larson and his girlfriend, Katelyn Sweet, welcomed their first child into the world last month. Owen Miyata Larson arrived at 11:09pm on December 22, 2014.

Kyle Busch is gonna be a dad, you guys! (Yes, I’m slightly late and yes, you already know) Kyle announced via social media on Saturday, that he and his wife, Samantha, are expecting their first child. The baby is due in May 2015.

Congratulations, Kyle & Samantha!

Now announcing our plans for the 2015 race season! pic.twitter.com/SIbdWjQ0Ih

— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) October 18, 2014

We are in for the ride of our lives!!!! pic.twitter.com/CDHGKgY2CX

— Samantha Busch (@SamanthaBusch) October 18, 2014

I don’t know about you guys, but I am LOVING this new Chase format. It’s so intriguing and crazy. The fact that I’m saying this while my favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is currently sitting in an eliminate-able position after Kansas speaks volumes. Even if he’s cut after the next two races I’m still all in on this Chase. I can completely understand why the drivers involved in this deal would hate it but it’s fun that all of the points are reset after each round and drivers are removed from the running. There is always something at stake now, ALWAYS, and you can never get comfortable and I LOVE THAT.

This is how the points stand right now as a result of their finishes at Kansas:

1. Joey Logano, 3,048 points
2. Kyle Busch, -6 points: 3rd
3. Carl Edwards, -9 points: 5th
4. Ryan Newman, -9 points: 6th
5. Denny Hamlin, -11 points: 7th
6. Kevin Harvick, -15 points: 12th
7. Matt Kenseth, -17 points: 13th
8. Jeff Gordon, -17 points: 14th
9. Kasey Kahne, -25 points: 22nd
10. Brad Keselowski, -39 points: 36th
11. Dale Earnhardt Jr., -42 points: 39th
12. Jimmie Johnson, -44 points: 40th

After Talladega only the top-8 drivers will move on to the Eliminator round, hopefully the gods and goddesses will shine upon Dale Jr. and he’ll save his own ass and continue on in the hopes of becoming America’s Next Top Sprint Cup Series Champion.

—
(header photo credit: Brian Lawdermilk/NASCAR via Getty Images)

Clint Bowyer was asked about the birth of his son, Cash Aaron Bowyer, this morning at his press conference in Kansas. His quotes are everything you’d expect from Clint. It feels like I’ve been posting a lot about him lately but it’s just really funny, good stuff.

What has it been like to become a father?
“First of all, just so happy and proud. What a wild experience — all your friends and family, peers and everybody is trying to warn you and tell you that it’s going to change your life. You’re like, ‘There’s no way.’ Then all of the sudden that little gremlin comes out of there and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is real.’ I was probably not the norm as far as spectator in an event like that. In the room there I was high-fiving people and I was kind of pushing the doctor out of the way at one point because I was trying to get a better view of him coming into the world. Of course the nurses are trying to hold me back and they’re like, ‘You can’t get that close.’ I’m like, ‘Get the hell out of my way, here he comes.’ It was a lot of fun. We were all laughing. An amazing experience. He’s running really good during the day — you think this is way too easy, this is no problem at all. Then his engine drastically takes a turn for the worst about the time you’re trying to go to sleep on that really comfortable couch over in the corner that’s about this wide and basically like sleeping right here on this tabletop, he starts really screaming very loud. The nurses tend to come in to do paperwork at 3:00 AM, which is really handy. They want to ask you about your education and things like that and you’re like, ‘Lady, can we wait until daylight maybe — that would be a good goal,’ — 3:00 AM is not a good time in the morning to be talking to me with him screaming, her pissed and now I am. It’s been a wild deal and Cash (Bowyer’s son) is awesome.”

Why did you choose the name Cash for your son?
“Probably for all the cash that he’s going to cost me over the years when he gets to racing cars or something. I’m going to try to put a guitar in his hand because I always laugh at Blake (Shelton), I’m like, ‘Just because you breathe a little bit better than I do and you can hold a guitar you get paid to go all across the country and you don’t really do much, you just breathe a little bit better.’ Then these golfers, I don’t even think they carry their clubs, they just walk around and swing a club every now and then and make a hell of a good living. I’m thinking we’re going to try one of them two first and if that doesn’t work then he’ll probably be over here battling out all my peers. It will be fun to watch how this all unravels because a lot of us racers right now have kids pretty well within a five year radius of all this. We’re going to be back battling each other probably for the rest of our lives. Really the great competition comes down, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a t-ball game or a soccer game with the parents, that’s when it gets out of control. I can just see us yelling and screaming at each other and still fighting when we’re 60 or 70 years old and our kids are racing, just like our dads did.”

—
(photo credit: Matt Sullivan/NASCAR via Getty Images)

Clint Bowyer is a dad, you guys! Clint and his wife, Lorra, welcomed Cash Aaron Bowyer into the world today. Clint took to Twitter to share the news with everyone.

Congratulations Lorra and Clint!

Woohooooooo!!! Finally!!!! Baby boy and momma doing great.

Well she wouldn't go for Cletus Bocephus, so we met in the middle. Meet Cash Aaron!!! pic.twitter.com/kxeWkqzaXj

— Clint Bowyer (@ClintBowyer) October 1, 2014

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