It’s official – Danica Patrick will be making her NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut in the 2012 season-opening 54th annual Daytona 500.

Patrick’s schedule with Stewart-Haas Racing will begin on Feburary 26 with “The Great American Race.” Other races on her schedule include Darlington, Bristol, Atlanta, Dover, Texas and Phoenix.

“Each year, the Daytona 500 produces unforgettable moments that forever change the lives of fans and drivers,” said Daytona International Speedway President Joie Chitwood III. This year’s race sees Patrick as the third woman to compete in the Daytona 500. She follows Janet Guthrie, who made two Daytona 500 starts in 1977 and 1980, and Shawna Robinson, with one Daytona 500 start in 2002.

It’s been about 20 years or so since you could get a carburetor on a mainstream passenger car, but that hasn’t stopped NASCAR from being the final holdout. For the last 47 years, stock cars have relied on carburetors to supply fuel to their pushrod V-8s.

Now that’s finally set to change. Beginning next year, the Sprint Cup will officially embrace fuel injection, with plans to have EFI motors installed and ready in time for the 2012 season opener at Daytona. In order to make it all happen, NASCAR is partnering with McLaren Electronic Systems (yes, part of the UK based McLaren Group of F1 fame).

McLaren will supply the ECUs for Sprint Cup engines, with a company called Freescale providing the actual processors. The electronic fuel injection system, software and calibrations all have to be approved by NASCAR before use and the organization has invested in special tools for testing the systems to ensure legality at all races during the course of the season.

Given political pressure placed on motorsports organizations to improve efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint, it was only a matter of time before NASCAR made some concessions – replacing carburetors with EFI systems is seen by many as a logical move.

In recent statements, both Ford Motorsports and Toyota Racing Development said they welcomed the change –  Ford’s Jamie Allison saying “we think it’s important that both the cars and technology in NASCAR are more closely related to production cars.”

TRD’s Lee White, echoed similar opinions also stating that from Toyota’s standpoint the benefits of adopting fuel injection “far outweigh the potential costs.”

Eight companies were originally asked to submit bids for NASCAR EFI systems, with McLaren selected as a winner from three finalists, the others were Bosch and Marelli.

Given NASCAR’s huge fan base, especially in the US, it will be interesting to see how the 2012 season pans out, though efficiency benefits or not, chairman Brian France perhaps summed it best when referring to the new move.

“We’re on a steady march to more technology in the cars, which is historically unlike us in some respects, provided that it doesn’t burden the teams with additional costs that don’t translate to our fan base,” he said. However, more importantly  an even bigger reason for adopting technology such as EFI, “is to make sure that it makes racing better.”

[Source: Fox Sports]

Danish racing driver Jan Magnussen, best known for his work as a factory driver for Corvette Racing in the ALMS and 24 Hours of Le Mans, is scheduled to join fellow Scandinavian Mattias Ekstrom at the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway. We’re not sure what’s behind the Viking invasion of NASCAR these days, but we suspect it may have something to do with Hagar The Horrible.

According to Magnussen, “It feels great. I have always wanted to try NASCAR and I am very grateful to Phoenix Racing for giving me the chance.” The Dane will be driving the No. 9 car for Phoenix Racing.

“We are thrilled to have a driver of his caliber to drive for us at Sonoma. Jan has tested NASCAR Sprint Cup cars before and his CV speaks for itself. He is going to give us a chance not only to quality good, but to be in the top fight,” said Phoenix Racing team boss James Finch.

The NASCAR race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California takes place this weekend (June 19/20).

[Source: TouringCarTimes]

Of all the high profile individuals to attend the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series finale this past weekend at Homestead in Miami, none have created a buzz like the appearance of legendary race car driver and head of Volkswagen’s motorsports department Hans-Joachim Stuck.

His attendance at the race and meetings with series officials has obviously led to the speculation that Volkswagen may be entertaining an entry into the high-profile series. Stuck discounted the rumors telling Autosport that, “I’m here number one because I’m a great NASCAR fan and I’m here on holiday. I’m enjoying my visit and I will report what’s going on. But in any way there has been nothing, no serious talks about coming here.” He did continue by saying that, “Of course we investigate everything, ” but then countered with a definitive statement that there is currently “zero” chance of VW joining the series.

That may all change when VW launches its new, made in America, mid-size sedan in 2011. Stuck said that the current NASCAR setup wouldn’t allow for VW to show its engineering expertise and that it would simply have to use the series as a marketing gimmick. That being said, he didn’t think it would fit with VW’s motorsports philosophy.

Then again, with the upcoming Passat replacement, VW has already thrown in the towel on its decades long approach to having American’s see cars the way Germans do and has decided to pander to the demands of the market, with a car that will be bigger, less premium and less expensive. Volkswagen is eager to take on Toyota in the U.S. market and doing so in NASCAR, which Toyota joined just a few years back in an effort to take on the Big Three domestic automakers, would seem a logical decision.

Stuck did, however, confirm that Volkswagen has been in talks with NASCAR over a possible entry into the Grand Am series, likely in the Daytona Prototype Class, using a V10 engine. The car would likely be branded as either an Audi (more likely) or as a Lamborghini.

[Source: AutoSport]