Racing over to some NASCAR websites

Dear PropellerHeads: I watched The Great American Race and I've caught the racing bug. Point me to some NASCAR sites, please.

A: I have to confess that all I know about NASCAR is that Danica Patrick is ... smoking on the track. Mmm, I feel a wee bit Musburgerish with that revelation.

Most PropellerHeads are interested in high-powered computers, but a few are interested in high-octane race cars as well, so I hit them up for some insight.

Even before talking with my grease monkey colleagues, I thought of the obvious: www.nascar.com. The problem with this site is that it is frequently so high-speed that my browser wouldn't render it correctly! But assuming it works for you, what you'll find is the high-polished, super-charged manifestation that one would expect.

Actually, what immediately impressed me about the NASCAR site is how responsive it is in the mobile-friendly sort of way. Like they know their audience will be glued to their site whilst smelling burning rubber. Slicker than a can of oil.

After checking out the drivers section of the site and my continued Danica stalking, I found out she was born in my rival state of Illinois. She just lost some points. Matt Kenseth is closer to my hometown sensibilities. And that Lowe's guy, Jimmie Johnson, seems to be darn good.

Naturally, there are sections devoted to the races, tracks and standings, and the latest news. Overall, I found the site extremely visual but low on hard-hitting content.

For that hard-hitting content, you probably want to cruise over to www.jayski.com. This site, while partnered with ESPN, is the absolute opposite of the NASCAR site. I could find nary an image present. It is all text. Lots and lots of text on that garish bright yellow background. Poor Frank, our graphic designer, had uncontrollable spasms after looking at the site and still hasn't recovered.

But I'll tell you this: Appearance aside and knowing nothing at all about NASCAR, I couldn't stop reading. Take for instance the Daytona 500 commercial breakdown. There were a total of 209 minutes during the broadcast, 66 of which were commercials by 76 different advertisers. Furthermore, there were eight minutes of side-by-side commercials during the race. If you ask me, this is in-depth coverage! The only problem with Jayski is that there is so much information it can be difficult to find what you are looking for.

While looking over the sources for a lot of the information found on Jayski, I discovered that quite a bit is cited from the Sporting News (aol.sportingnews.com/nascar). This site adds in some of the flash of the NASCAR site without overdoing it. You may want to consider glancing at the latest news here before it shows up on Jayski.

The final recommendation I have is Speed (nascar.speedtv.com), which is Fox Sports' NASCAR tent-pole, very similar to the Sporting News in format and flashiness. I do appreciate the addition of the Power Rankings (which gives rise to endless water cooler discussions and Tweet Wars). I just can't agree with Danica showing up No. 2 in that list after finishing eighth at Daytona. Though she is at the top of some other rankings I know...

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to [email protected] or contact us at Data Directions, Inc. 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.