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  • Taya Kyle: Chris Kyle’s Widow Receives Stonewall Jackson Award from NASCAR

    Taya Kyle, the widow of Chris Kyle, upon whom the film American Sniper , starring Bradley Cooper, is based, was honored by NASCAR before the Coca-Cola 600 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina on Sunday. She became the first woman ever to receive the Stonewall Jackson Award.

    According to a report from People magazine, the Stonewall Jackson Award is given to “those individuals who demonstrate the highest standards of patriotism.”

    Prior to Sunday’s race, Taya Kyle talked about Chris Kyle’s love of NASCAR and how it came to be.

    Kyle claimed her late husband initially wasn’t a fan, saying he “never got into it.”

    It was after attending a NASCAR military appreciation event that Chris Kyle became hooked.

    “He got to go behind the scenes and he saw the pit crew, and he thought they were such bad-asses because one of the guys broke his finger during the change and didn’t even stop and just kept going,” Taya Kyle said. “Everything was so precise, and then he got to see the strategy behind the race and all that, and he was in love with NASCAR from then on. He was just like a ridiculous fan after that.”

    Chris Kyle got to meet Dale Earnhardt, Jr. once, and that sealed the deal for him.

    “Meeting Dale Jr. was really cool to him because there were some high-ranking officials who were in the tent, and he remembered Dale saying, ‘You know, what? They can wait. I’m talking to these guys; these are guys on the ground,’” Taya Kyle said. “And he spent some time laughing with them and talking with them, and that really endeared him to Chris.”

    How nice that NASCAR awarded Taya Kyle with the Stonewall Jackson Award. In addition to the honor of being the first female recipient of the award, she no doubt feels her husband’s eternal pride.

  • Jimmie Johnson Wins NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600

    Jimmie Johnson Wins NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600

    Jimmie Johnson, 6-time series champion of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, has experienced his fair share of pressure and stress over the years. In his 14 years as a NASCAR competitor, Johnson has competed in 447 races and has won 67 of them, with the most recent coming in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. With Johnson’s 15 percent winning percentage, however, comes much responsibility toward the fans and media to win often, and win early.

    Coming into Sunday’s race, Johnson faced a tragically-long losing streak – at least for his own standards – of 13 races. Johnson’s lack of success midway through the 2014 Sprint Cup season had many media outlets wondering if this year marked the end of the Johnson dynasty.

    In response to all of the media attention he had garnered through not winning, Johnson only had one line for the media following Sunday’s race: “What the hell are y’all going to write about now?”

    While Johnson’s statement may have seemed a bit antagonistic, his performance on Sunday proved exactly why there was nothing to worry about to begin with.

    Charlotte has always been one of Johnson’s most successful tracks, having previously won six races at NASCAR’s longest race of the season.

    Johnson started the race Sunday in a familiar position – on the pole. Out of the seven total races Johnson has won at Charlotte Motor Speedway, three of them have come from the lead position, lending even more credence to Johnson’s dominance at the track.

    On Sunday, Johnson was able to lead a race-high 165 laps, 65 more than his second-place competitor, Kevin Harvick. Johnson secured his victory on Sunday by passing Matt Kenseth with 9 laps left, while holding off Harvick to cross the finish line with over a second margin of victory.

    In discussing his slump with the media, Johnson claimed he was never worried: “I guess we’ve created this environment for ourselves. I honestly wasn’t stressing. The fact that 12 races created that much buzz just means we’ve done a lot of great things over the years, so I’ll turn it into a compliment.”

    Coming into the Coca-Cola 600, however, Johnson’s story sat on the back-burner. The headlining act Sunday was fellow driver Kurt Busch, who was seeking to become only the second man in history to complete all 1,100 miles of both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 in one day.

    While Busch experienced much success in his Indy car debut, finishing 6th, his night at Charlotte Motor Speedway ended on lap 273 after an engine failure: “It’s like the car just swallowed three cylinders all at once. Those things happen in motor sports. It was a good battle, though. I was hoping to do 1,100 miles today. I can’t let what happened here dampen the mood of what happened in Indianapolis,” stated Busch.

    Fortunately for Johnson, the media attention should now wane as his victory almost assures his qualification for NASCAR’s post-season playoffs. And, in more good news, the next Sprint Cup race is in Dover, a track where Johnson has won five of the last ten races.

    Image via Twitter

  • Nik Wallenda Completes Tightrope Walk With Sister At Charlotte Motor Speedway

    It’s a good thing Nik Wallenda and his sister Lijana Wallenda don’t hold any childhood grudges. Otherwise, their dual tightrope walk at Charlotte Motor Speedway could have made for a difficult situation. The Wallendas of the famous Flying Wallendas family performed at the Bank of America 500 during the pre-race show on Saturday.

    The 460-foot tightrope wire was suspended 150 feet over the race track, which doesn’t sound too terrifying considering some of Nik’s previous walks, such as the one at Niagara Falls. Each sibling started out at opposite ends of the rope and had to make it to the other side. The walk didn’t get too difficult until Nik and Lijana had to get past each other at the halfway point. Watch Nik very carefully step over his sister at 150 feet in the air:

    Before the tightrope walk, NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer gave Nik a warning about the cables at Charlotte Motor Speedway, referring to a freak accident that occurred at CMS earlier this year when a TV cable snapped and injured several fans.

    Nik and Lijana Wallenda completed the tightrope walk successfully, of course, and the siblings were happy to do the stunt together. “It was exciting to perform together again,” said Nik Wallenda. “We don’t perform like this very often. We’ve never performed this high and this far apart before and this was the first time in many, many years.”

    Check out some of Wallenda’s other death-defying tightrope walks below:

    Image via Jeff Wilhelm at The Charlotte Observer