Ever since Nationwide became a series title sponsor they’ve been working on giving fans more information and access to drivers.

They’ve been posting some great candid photos of drivers and crew members on their Flickr account as a part of their behind the scenes Twitter coverage of races. A couple of my faves are below. Make sure you follow the Nationwide Series on Twitter (@nationwide). (more…)

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Happy Easter! Joey Logano won the Nationwide Series race at Nashville yesterday. I have no commentary because I didn’t see the race. I was too busy enjoying the sunshine and relative warm weather we’ve been having here in the Bay Area.

I do have photos though and they speak for themselves. Enjoy!

Joey Logano and Kenny Wallace dye Easter eggs as part of a driver and media contest on Friday. (Photo Credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Justin Allgaier won top rookie honors for his black and red egg that matches his car’s paint scheme in Friday’s egg dying contest. (Photo Credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Stephen Leicht’s intense work wins him the top driver honor in the egg dying contest. (Photo Credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Joey Logano celebrates in victory lane with the Sam Bass designed guitar trophy. (Photo Credit: John Sommers II/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Racing and all that is all good but here’s what I really want to talk about: Dale Earnhart Jr.’s ex-girlfriend is on the current season of America’s Next Top Model. Her name is Kortnie, she’s 24 and she’s from Houston, Texas.

As a rule (the season pass never leaves my Tivo!) I watch every cycle of ANTM, and I thought it was really interesting that Tyra Banks (the creator/host of the show) called Kortnie out on the fact that she had indeed dated someone “famous” at one point in time. They even showed a photo of Kortnie in victory lane with Dale. What that has to do with whether or not she can actually model I have no idea, but whatever. The thing that I take issue with is that they’re categorizing Kortnie as a plus size model. If she’s plus size then we’re all screwed. She has big boobs and is a bit hippy, but other than that she can’t be bigger than a size 8 at the MOST, and I think that’s even going to far. I’m rooting for Kortnie, because she is a striking girl and because I think it’s absurd to put her in the plus size category.

In other news…

– Congratulations to Kurt Busch for winning the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday. Wasn’t that fun? I thought it was a great race at the end. I can’t believe that I was actually pulling for Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch to win something. I’m usually against them, but these past couple years my outlook has changed. It’s a really weird feeling.

– Nationwide Series driver Burney Lamar and his supermodel wife Niki Taylor welcomed a new addition to their family last week. Their daughter, Ciel Taylor Lamar, was born on Wednesday, March 4th at 11:30am in Nashville, Tennessee weighing in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces. This is the first child for Lamar and the third for Taylor who is the mother to twin 14-year-old boys Jake and Hunter (from her first marriage).

Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge, and his wife Eva participate in pre-race activities on pit road before the start of Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt Tools 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo Credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet shares a laugh with his car owner and driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet, Tony Stewart, prior to Sunday’s start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt Tools 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

My intention for this post was to talk about the Nationwide Series Champions Week, but I realized that I don’t have much to say ’cause I wasn’t there, but I will say that Clint Bowyer is pretty cute when he’s smiling. Isn’t the photo to the left a great shot of him?

Thanks to ESPN we all get to find out what happened at the awards banquet, all of the important things like who was Joey Logano’s date and other items of that nature. Highlights will be shown on ESPN2 at noon (EST). Check your local listings.

Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Nationwide Series O’Reilly Challenge today at Texas Motor Speedway, his tenth win in the Nationwide Series this year. Kyle tied Sam Ard’s record and in victory lane pledged to give $100,000 Sam and his family. How cool was that? I was genuinely proud of Kyle in that moment.

Sam Ard is a former Nationwide Series Champion who once won 10 races in 1983. In only three seasons, Ard accumulated 22 wins, 24 poles, 67 top five and 80 top-10 finishes. Instead of battling for wins these days he’s faced with Alzheimer’s disease along with financial woes and his wife Jo has a degenerative eye disease that is slowly taking her vision.

I encourage you to check out the online auction for the Sam Ard Fund that is going on now through November 17th, 2008. Visit www.nascar.com/foundation

Last week at Atlanta Motor Speedway Kevin Harvick donated the van that was used in the Shell commercials to Sam Ard:

“Sam Ard has been a huge part of NASCAR and an inspiration in my career,” said Harvick. “A lot of people don’t understand how hard those guys raced and how different it was back then. Those guys spent everything they won on racing and I am just happy that we are able to help Sam because none of us would be able to do what we love to do if it weren’t for guys like Sam Ard.”

Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil Chevrolet, presents a minivan to Robert Ard, the son of former Nationwide Series Champion Sam Ard, while DeLana Harvick and Jim Hunter, Vice President of Corporate Communications for NASCAR join them outside the Media Center, prior to practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday. (Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

On Saturday on my drive into the track from my sister’s house in Encino, I stopped by a Jamba Juice in Upland and bought a sixteen ounce Razzmatazz. I also decided to put the top down my on my car. It was 90-something degrees outside but I was wearing a hat and if you can’t put your top down when it’s hot what’s the point?

The day was about getting photos of anything and everything. During the Nationwide Series qualifying session I stood in the garage and watched as the top qualifiers came in and were interviewed by the crew from the SPEED channel.

After that I wandered the garage and spied Dancing with the Stars professional dancer Cheryl Burke with her new partner, Olympic sprinter and gold medalist Maurice Greene shooting some sort of video thing next to the pace car. Cheryl got to wave the green flag for the Camping World RV Service 300 presented by Coleman later that evening.

I made sure to keep close to the conference room in the middle of the garage where they hold all of the driver’s meetings and major press conferences. The Nationwide Series drivers meeting was set to start and I wanted to be in a good position to try and get good photos, but for some reason I got nothing of people going in, and then when they came out everybody was grouped together and they rushed out, so I didn’t get much.

One cool thing that happened was just a little bit later when the Cup Series guys got ready to go out for their final practice session of the day. Cars started to pull out from the far side of the Cup garage and made a long line out to pit road. They were all stopped and a second line formed right in front of me starting with Jeff Burton. He was so close that I could have easily walked up and touched the car and then poked my head in beside the window flap. Of course I didn’t, but there were photographers that did. They pushed their lenses right on inside the car to get close up shots of the drivers. I wondered what that must be like to have people basically shoving their cameras in your face to get a shot, right when you’re about to go out on the track.

But moving on, while I’m standing there Carl Edwards drives his car up behind Burton and rolls to a stop, and then starts to roll again and bumps into the back of Burton. I took a photo before Carl backed up. I’m assuming he meant to do that. They must like each other right?

So I’m standing there taking a couple photos and I’m like, I dunno, five feet away from his car and Carl waves at me. So I waved back, smiled, laughed and said “Hiii!” It was too funny.

After the Cup practice was the Nationwide Series race and oh how I love a Nationwide Series race. I love the fact that there’s way less security and structure to the driver intros, at least behind the stage, you get way better photos and experiences because of it. I got some great photos of drivers looking right at me as I took their photo, like the one below of David Ragan.

Okay, so I have to put in one more “Awww, Carl” story. There were these two teenage girls who kept calling to Carl to come over and sign their stuff. He eventually came over, talked to them and signed whatever it was they had. To hear their reaction was so cute, they were all “We got Carl! We got Carl! Omigosh!” I love that.

Nothing too noteworthy happened after all of that. I think some dude named Kyle Busch went on to win the race, but I’m not sure.

Dancing with the Stars professional dancer Cheryl Burke and her new partner gold medalist Maurice Greene hang out before the start of the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, August 30, 2008 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

David Gilliland chats with his crew after qualifying for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, August 30, 2008 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

Look closely and you can see his eyes peeking out through the window net!

Carl Edwards sits in his car, waiting to start practice on Saturday, August 30, 2008 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

Stanton Barrett signs an autograph for a fan before driver introductions on Saturday, August 30, 2008 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)

David Ragan (center) chats with Carl Edwards (right) and Joey Logano (left) before driver introductions for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, August 30, 2008 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. (photo credit: The Fast and the Fabulous)