Five NASCAR story lines for 2012

Saturday night’s non-points Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway marks the unofficial start of the 2012 NASCAR season.

It was only three months ago Tony Stewart won his third Sprint Cup Series championship in dramatic fashion and NASCAR crowned new champions in its Nationwide (Ricky Stenshouse Jr.) and Trucks series (Austin Dillon).

While many of the faces competing for race wins and championship this year will be the same, there are still several intriguing new storylines which will unfold as the season kicks off this weekend.

Here’s a look at five things to keep an eye on as another NASCAR season unfolds:

1. New title contenders same as the old

With a lack of any influx of new talent, at least in the Cup series, most – if not all – of the drivers who end up competing for this season’s Cup championship will look much like those who did in 2011.

You should expect to see the likes of Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick in the mix once again. Brad Keselowski, who finished fifth in points last season, appears ready make another run, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. could well make consecutive trips to the Chase for the first time since 2003-2004.

There should still be a surprise or two along the way, particularly with the new wild card spots in place. Keep an eye on A.J. Allmendinger and Kasey Kahne to perhaps win their way in.

2. It’s all Danica, all the time

It may have seemed like Danica Patrick was around NASCAR all the time with the attention she receives, but this actually will be her first full season competing in NASCAR.

Patrick will run the full Nationwide series schedule with JR Motorsports and will do 10 Cup races – including the Daytona 500 – with a team fielded jointly by Stewart-Haas Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing.

There’s no question Patrick focusing on just one form of motorsports should help ease her transition from the IndyCar Series. Will that alone be enough to help her reach Victory Lane in either series? That remains in doubt.

3. The cars are more relevant

Upon first glance, it will be difficult for race fans to tell this year’s Cup cars are far more relevant to what manufacturers actually sell, but it’s true. It will be far more visible next season when 2013 models debut.

However, NASCAR’s transition to electronic fuel injection is a big (first) step to helping the car manufacturers in the sport use their NASCAR participation to fuel passenger car sales.

If the change to EFI goes well, fans may not notice much change in competition, which is the goal after all. But teams will.

Teams can retrieve telemetry post-race to make performance decisions, and will be able to retrieve data after practice and qualifying to help make pre-race adjustments to their EFI system.

4. Look for more social media action

Many drivers and other personalities in NASCAR – including some of the sport’s executives – already interact with fans in various social media outlets, including Twitter and Facebook. Look for that to increase this season.

In fact, outside of events tailored directly to drivers’ fan clubs or personal appearances, social media will be one of the main ways fans can win race tickets and participate in various other giveaways throughout the season.

5. It shouldn’t be a secret anymore

NASCAR announced last month it was doing away with its policy of assessing secret – or unpublicized – fines to drivers who it believes make comments disparaging the sport. It was also clear, however, that NASCAR officials still believe there is a need to punish such behavior.

It will be interesting to see the reaction this season, should NASCAR feel the need to penalize a driver for such comments, and how it will deal with the immediate publicity since it won’t take weeks for the information to leak out.

The topics which have drawn some of the recent fines – debris cautions, restrictor-plate racing and EFI – won’t be going away anytime soon.