Texas Motor Speedway: Danica Patrick News, Preview and Schedule

NASCAR heads to Texas Motor Speedway, a bad-fast track where the newsmakers of the sport have much on their agendas and bumping and banging is minimal, but a crash is hard and heavy.

The hot story is the battle between two very dissimilar players: smiling Carl Edwards, who remains winless in the Chase, and the sometimes brooding Tony Stewart, who has three Chase wins and momentum.

Edwards has maintained his perch atop the standings for much of the Chase because of his consistent finishes with his No. 99 Aflac Ford out of the Roush Fenway Racing stables.

Edwards has six wins at the remaining three tracks in the Chase, and three of those wins have come at Texas Motor Speedway.

Luck has played a role in some of his finishes, but look for his winless streak in the Chase to come to an end, and it just might be this weekend.

Though the fit title contender, Edwards differs from Stewart, who is a bit of burgers and beer kind of guy, they would have one thing in common should the driver of the No. 99 remain winless and capture the series title.

Since the implementation of the Chase, only one driver has been winless and captured the NASCAR Sprint Cup title, and that was Stewart in 2005.

Stewart has thrown down the gauntlet with promises to run down Edwards for the title, but certainly, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski cannot be far from this shootout, and Matt Kenseth is ready to fight back from his 36-point deficit.

Junior Nation will be remembering the emotional moment in Victory Lane when Dale Earnhardt embraced his son after the young Earnhardt won his first Cup race at Texas back in 2000.

His fans wait patiently for the 126-race winless streak to come to an end.

The NASCAR Nationwide series is back on track, and Danica Patrick is now a full-time driver in NASCAR.

Patrick will drive her No. 7 GoDaddy.com car for JR Motorsports at Texas and the final two races at Phoenix and Homestead-Miami. She will be driving a full Nationwide schedule next year and a partial schedule in NASCAR's elite series for Stewart-Haas Racing.

At Texas Motor Speedway, Patrick's car will pay tribute to the late Dan Wheldon. The "Lionheart" logo will be on the hood and she will wear a special helmet that will be auctioned off to benefit Wheldon's children.

A press conference is scheduled for Friday afternoon with Patrick and Tony Stewart. They will unveil her Cup car with the number she will drive and announce her schedule with the car.

The No. 10 GoDaddy.com Impala was unveiled at Texas Motor Speedway by Patrick and Stewart. She will definitely run eight Cup races, possibly 10, at tracks that will test her the most like Darlington and Dover.

The tough battle for the Nationwide series title will continue between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Elliott Sadler, who remains 15 points behind. Sadler has been closing the gap and has three more shots at it.

Austin Dillon, grandson of Richard Childress, holds an 11-point lead over James Buescher in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, but the battle will likely extend to the Homestead-Miami race.

Two more seasoned drivers, Ron Hornaday and Johnny Sauter, are hot on the tail of the young guns, both 15 markers behind Dillon.

Everything is bigger in Texas, so it is said, and that includes the pride in winning there. Wrecks can be spectacular and, certainly, the pressure is on the title contenders.

The non-Chase drivers could easily be a factor to spoil the fun for the Chase drivers, especially if this race turns into a fuel mileage contest.

 The television schedule is as follows:

The NASCAR Camping World Truck race will be shown on Speed at 8:00 p.m. ET on Friday.

NASCAR Nationwide qualifying is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET Friday on Speed, with the race scheduled for 12:55 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN2.

Practice for the AAA Texas 500 will be Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET on ESPN2, with qualifying at 4:30 p.m. ET Friday on Speed.

The Cup cars have two scheduled practice sessions: Saturday at 9:30 a.m. ET on Speed and 11:00 a.m. on ESPN2.  

The AAA Texas 500 will air at 3:00 p.m. ET Sunday on ESPN.

Enjoy the racing at Texas Motor Speedway.