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Written by Robert Trammell   
Thursday, 05 February 2009 12:19
MEDIA POLL PREDICTS NEW CHAMPION FOR '09

NASCAR's annual pre-season media poll has Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards finishing in the top two spots of the Sprint Cup Series standings again, but with the order reversed from 2008.  The poll has Edwards ending Johnson's three-year reign.  Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. complete the top five.

WIMMER TO DRIVE FOR KEY MOTORSPORTS

Key Motorsports has tapped Scott Wimmer to drive its Chevrolet for the first three races of the 2009 NASCAR Nationwide Series ... in Daytona, California and Las Vegas.  There'll also be a car number change, from 31 to 40.  The team is planning to compete full-time this season, but Wimmer's status is uncertain beyond Vegas.  He formerly drove for Richard Childress Racing's Nationwide Series team and had one win last year, at Nashville Superspeedway in March. 

McDOWELL LANDS NATIONWIDE SERIES RIDE

JTG Daugherty Racing in the Nationwide Series has announced that Michael McDowell will replace Kelly Bires in the team's Number-47 entry, starting in the February 14th season opener and extending at least through the first half of the schedule.  Veteran crew chief Gene Nead will direct the team.  Bires, who finished thirteenth in last year's driver standings, still is under contract and the team is actively pursuing sponsorship on his behalf.

BELL JOINS BENSON AT RED HORSE RACING

T.J. Bell has filled the seat vacated by David Starr at Red Horse Racing and will team up with 2008 champion Johnny Benson in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series that opens February 13th at Daytona.
IT HAPPENED ON THIS DATE

February 5th, 1950

Harold Kite, a former Army tank driver who began racing on short tracks after World War two, won the forty-eight-lap, two-hundred-mile NASCAR Grand National Series race on the Daytona beach and road course.  Kite, in a 1949 Lincoln, passed Red Byron for the lead with 24 laps to go and beat Byron to the finish line by 53 seconds.  An estimated crowd of 9,500 watched Kite score his first victory in his very first career start in the Grand National Series, precursor of today's Sprint Cup Series.