Charlotte Dateline: Media Tour Finale Includes the New Walmart Cup Car

The final day of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway ended with a surprise entry in the Coke Zero 400 and the all-time most popular driver will be behind the wheel of a Hendrick Motorsports powered car.

First thing in the morning, Walmart announced they are celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2012 and that Bill Elliott will be the driver of the No. 50 Impala.

Elliott did not know this deal was happening until Monday of this week. He ranks this announcement right up there with the being the 16-time NASCAR Most Popular Driver.

Walmart will expand their partnership with NASCAR by selling more NASCAR merchandise, and featuring racing simulators and driver appearances at their stores.

It has been expected that Walmart would sponsor a car in NASCAR for sometime and now the process has begun with the one race deal at Daytona.

Elliott said, "I never realized in my wildest dreams that I would be here." He was ecstatic that he was the driver that Walmart chose for their first race.

We learned during our time with Penske Racing that Miller Coors has extended their sponsorship of the Blue Deuce driven by Brad Keselowski with a multi-year contract. They have been with Penske since 1981.

Miller Coors and NASCAR have also extended their relationship with Coors Light as the official beer of NASCAR and the Coors Light Pole Award.

Keselowski took the microphone and said, "We might not have any baby news or girls in heels up here, but we have a lot of racing news."

He is confident he will maintain a high-level of performance in 2012 and is enjoying getting to know A.J. Allmendinger.

Allmendinger knows he has quite a challenge ahead as the replacement for Kurt Busch in the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge. He said, "Kurt is one of the best guys (drivers) out there."

Sam Hornish will run the Nationwide Series full-time in 2012, but his goal is to return to Cup racing in the future.

Rookie Parker Kligerman will be driving the Penske Dollar General/Snap On car and stated, "I'm grateful. This is a massive opportunity."

The final event of the tour was a visit to the beautiful NASCAR Hall of Fame where we heard NASCAR officials give their annual state of the sport address.

Brian France, Chairman and CEO of NASCAR, is pleased with the way the new points system played out and the pick-a-series policy for the drivers.

He believes they have made sufficient changes with the cars to deter much of the tandem racing on the superspeedways, though it will not be eliminated.

NASCAR is pleased with EFI and all the work that has been done with the car manufacturers to produce the new 2013 Cup car that will be very similar to the cars in the showrooms.

Driver-to-driver communication will be eliminated, but drivers will still be communicating with team members just as they did in the past.

The 2012 roster of drivers in the Drive for Diversity program with NASCAR and Rev Racing was also revealed.

France said, "The sport is in a very good place right now, no question about that, and we're working hard, and even harder to achieve the very best things for the sport of  NASCAR well into the future."

He is looking for another highly-competitive year with the new faces in the sport and the biggest stars of NASCAR.