Last night, Jimmie Johnson became the first driver in NASCAR’s 61-year history to win four consecutive Sprint Cup championships. Any way you cut it, that’s pretty impressive–Jimmie and Chad the entire Hendrick organization absolutely deserve to revel in the victory they’ve earned. At the same time, Jimmie (perhaps unfairly) has come to represent to a lot of folks everything that is bloodless and corporate about modern stock car racing. There’s a good chance that his run of wins will turn a lot of people away from the sport, as the abysmal ratings of this year’s Chase for the Cup have already suggested–especially old-school fans who crave the firey personalities and distinguishable cars and cut-throat driving of yesteryear’s NASCAR. People forget that Jimmie grew up in a trailer park, and that just like everyone else he earned his salt in motorsports, rising through the ranks of motocross and off-road and the minor leagues of ASA and NASCAR to get to where he is today. But regrettably, despite his obviously prodigious driving skill and team dedication, he often comes across as simply a corporate racebot who’s just had everything handed to him. How about you–what are your feelings on Jimmie’s fourth championship victory? And how will it affect how you watch NASCAR in the 2010 season?

When we went for our weekly trip down the dark halls of CraigsList and saw the words Road Runner and NASCAR pop up in a listing, we cringed and clicked the mouse button. We were shocked to find a bitchin’ car that we’d proudly drive the wheels off of.

We were convinced that this thing would be a mess. Some hacked up, mullet-worthy creation that had been sitting behind someone’s house for a decade or so. Instead, this is a nicely done car, signed by Richard Petty, that has a nice drivetrain and all the right stuff to turn heads at any cruise night or car show.

Sure, it’s not for the owner who wants to blend in with the crowd, but hey, what hot rodder on Earth wants to meld into the crowd? Not us, that’s for sure! The price tag is steep, but not totally unreasonable as everything on the car is brand new and this baby is a turn key find.

Click here to see the CraigsList ad.

Ah, motorsports–it’s so much more than racing these days. The motorsports contingent is always huge at SEMA, and it’s one of those categories that can literally go from A to Z: there are so many variations on automotive competition that there’s no way you can expect to capture a representative cross-section. That’s okay–it just allows us to focus on what we find cool, with shameless subjectivity. In the interests of inclusiveness, we’ve tried to hit as many of the hottest motorsports series as our five entries will allow. NASCAR is represented by the new Nationwide Series Mustang, running Ford’s all-new Roush Yates FR9. Then there’s the 2010 Camaro’s debut entry in Formula Drift, which will definitely be on our radar in the coming season. Chris Rado’s insane Time Attack Scion carries the torch for that genre. SCCA is represented, albeit in vintage form, by Bob Boileau’s multiple-championship-winning Civic. And the Traxxas short-course race truck rounds out the motorsports fleet for off-road racing. Um, yeah, we totally skipped NHRA. And a bunch of other stuff. Oh well, time to hit the polls!

There really aren’t many things NASCAR driver Robby Gordon hasn’t raced. At SEMA, Chad from BangShift caught up with him in the Magnaflow booth to talk about cubic inches, high horsepower, his daily drivers and his burly Hummer. Hey guys, how about taking it easy on Nads?

I’ve found it a little funky-looking in some of the renderings and photos that have been circulating, but when I saw it in person in the Ford booth at SEMA, the new Nationwide-Series Mustang just looked plain mean. Plus, this is seriously historic: while Mustang has dominated a ton of other motorsports series, it’s been largely absent from national-level stock car racing, so its entry into NASCAR is a pretty big deal. And moreover, the rear sheetmetal, even though it’s a NASCAR-mandated template, looks better than the factory Mustang’s 2010 back end. The Nationwide Mustang will be running the new Roush Yates FR9, an all-new beast and a complete departure from the 351-based motor that Ford’s been running in NASCAR since ‘91. More pics…

I went out with John, Jen and Michelle on Thursday night for our traditional post-SEMA Vegas blowout. We started with a ride on the NASCAR roller coaster at the Sahara, followed by a somewhat barfy meal in the casino. Next stop was a huge cheesy souvenir shop (John was hoping to find another Lucky 777 hat, but failed) and then we headed over to Terrible’s for a night of cheap drinks and quality entertainment. Thanks again to John, Jen and Jim for all the awesome blogs, and to Michelle for the great walk-around videos (and Jim, next time you have to go out with us!). And thanks to all the CarDomain members and readers for making this all possible (and sorry the blog comments don’t seem to be working for many of you–we know about it, and we’re working on it). So tune in again next year for another round of SEMA coverage! Oh, and we’ll start our Best of SEMA voting on Wednesday.

One thing I hate about SEMA? How slow the crowds move. I bicycle around 100 miles a week, so having to be in traffic with heards of fat dudes who drive down to the mailbox makes me want to kill myself. But anyway, on the way to the show this morning, Jen and I came up on a pack of particularly slow-moving folks, and I was reminding myself that it’s not OK to just bodycheck them out of the way, when I noticed Richard Petty was in the middle of the throng signing autographs. If you aren’t familiar with his signiture, it makes John Hancock’s look like it was done by a drunken four year old, and he was graciously autographing everything put in front of him. Long live the king!

This week at Talladega, the competing automakers are each officially debuting their Nationwide Series version of the Car of Tomorrow–and at least two out of the four are opting for  ponycar-based racers. Dodge’s Nationwide Challenger is the hottest ride to take to the NASCAR circuit since the 70’s, and the NASCAR-ed out Mustang, while awkward, is nonetheless going to be a huge shot in the arm for both Ford and the troubled Nationwide Series. The odd man out? (Well, Toyota is sticking with the Camry, because of course they don’t have anything less boring to base a stock car on). But Chevrolet, probably the biggest underwriter of NASCAR in the world, inexplicably opted not to build a Nationwide car based on the new Camaro. What? Yeah, they’re going to stick with the now-played-out Impala, the same nameplate they use in Sprint Cup. Chevy officials made vague PR-sounding excuses about not wanting to compromise the new Camaro’s iconic lines, citing the partially templatized body they’d have to conform to (okay, for one thing, what iconic lines? The Camaro looks like a cartoon, but in a good way–perfectly suited to the Lightning McQueen era of NASCAR). That warmed-over Impala looks nice and everything, but seriously, wtf? They think running a Camaro in NASCAR would be bad for the brand? Unbelievable.

In any case, the new cars are in final testing at Talladega Superspeedway today, and will be run in four races during the 2010 Nationwide Series, beginning at Daytona in July. NASCAR hopes to have the hot new Nationwide rides fully integrated into the series by the 2011 season. Check out a whole gallery of new Nationwide rides below the jump, and read the press release at egmcartech.

Joey Logano already has a Sprint Cup win under his belt, but his real baptism by fire came last weekend on the “Monster Mile” in Dover, Delware, when he was involved in a nasty wreck that sent his car flipping a full seven revolutions.

Ironically, Tony Stewart, the guy who used to drive the car that Logano took over, was one of the primary players in the action that led up to the big wreck. Essentially, Stewart rear ended Logano at full speed when Logano was forced to brake hard to avoid smashing into another car. Stewart was very apologetic about the wreck to reporters.

With all of the aerodynamic work done on these cars over the last ten years, cases of flying Stock Cars have been fairly limited. Still, not every situation can be accounted for and no one, not even a highly paid team of engineers, can beat physics.

One thing that is amazingly clear though is that the Car of Tomorrow, while reviled by many NASCAR followers, is one safe automobile. The fact that Logano could escape under his own power with only a potentially soiled fire suit is an amazing thing. This would have been a surely fatal wreck not so long ago.

You’ve got to give the kid some credit. He’s hanging in there with the big boys, now he’s had his “big one. He gives a good account of what was going through his head to FoxSports.

Here’s video of the action:

Welcome to another installment of the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the definition of what a muscle car is, and to discover hidden treasures while doing so. Many do not even know that the Buick division of General Motors produced the Grand National on a platform other than on the Regal, but there was a very unique Grand National built in late 1985: the 1986 LeSabre Grand National. This was the debut of GM’s new full-size FWD platforms, and the two door Buick LeSabre (along with its corporate cousin, the Oldsmobile Delta 88) proved to be quite slippery in wind tunnel tests. We have had this question in this series before, but can a front wheel drive two-door really be considered a muscle car?

Continue reading after the jump!

The main reason for building the 1986 LeSabre Grand National was to get the new body with modified rear quarter windows sanctioned for Winston Cup racing that year. The modified windows gave the car a streamline advantage over cars with the large rear quarter windows. All LeSabre Grand Nationals were produced in December, 1985 in one run, from one run sheet – some of the first FWD LeSabre Coupes produced at the then brand new Buick City plant. Around that time Buick Motor Division changed its marketing strategy from a performance to luxury car image and cancelled future LeSabre Grand National builds. Only the one production run of LeSabre Grand Nationals was completed and Buick decided to build no more. As such, the 1986 LeSabre Grand National is the rarest of Buicks wearing the Grand National emblem and one of the rarest of all “modern” era Buicks.

Some prototype LeSabre Grand Nationals were rumored to have been turbocharged but kept destroying the FWD THM440-T4 transmissions so production vehicles were released to the dealers in normally aspirated versions. Buick planned to spend it’s research and development money on other projects and the LeSabre Grand National was toast.
The LeSabre Grand National (LGN for short) is among the rarest of all Buicks ever made, with production numbers varying between 112 and 117 units. It was only available in black with gray interior, though one red one managed to get built. The WE2 Grand National Option Package listed for $1,237. These cars were primarily sold in the Atlanta and Jacksonville regions.

Production of the LGN as the LeSabre’s “sport” version was ended by the inception of the LeSabre T-Type, which was offered from 1987-89. Well, even I know this car isn’t a Muscle Car, but here is why I decided to do a posting on it. We all know that the Buick Regal Grand National is a true musclecar, and an unconventional one at that, because of it’s Turbocharged V-6. The LeSabre Grand National was an attempt by Buick to get back into NASCAR, since they didn’t offer “Aero” versions of the Regal, a tactic that both Chevrolet and Pontiac did with their “G” platforms. With a limited run of 112 (or 117 as has been reported) the program wasn’t a success, and soon Buick was on the path of offering “Premium American Cars” rather than performance cars in the coming years. Tell me what you think.

This is a Buick Corporate Image of the later Buick LeSabre T-Type

This is an image of the LeSabre Grand National Badge. Note, the “6″ is all red rather than the traditional red and orange colors of the Regal Grand National.