James Carlyle Long is a NASCAR race car driver and mechanic who is currently under suspension after a violation from the car before the Sprint All-Star Race weekend. Prior to his suspension, he was a crew member on the #34 Front Row Motorsports Cup team. He has driven for numerous independent teams in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series, and Camping World Truck Series, as well as the Auto Racing Club of America. In the past, he served as a mechanic for Black Cat Racing, Spears Motorsports and Travis Carter Motorsports. He has a total of 49 career wins in racing.

Career leading to Sprint Cup

Long began racing in 1983 at Orange County and South Boston Speedway. He won the track championship at South Boston in 1987 and the Street Stock championship at Orange County in 1990. In 1992, he raced in NASCAR-sanctioned competition for the first time, earning Rookie of the Year honors at Orange County in the Winston Racing Series, and was awarded the Best Sportsmanship award the following season. After competing at various Winston Racing tracks in the 90's, he moved up to the Slim Jim All Pro Series in 1997, grabbing a win at Bristol Motor Speedway in the #15 Austin Foods Chevy.In 1998, he began running ARCA and Craftsman Truck races for Mansion Motorsports. Most recently, he won the championship race at Orange County Speedway on November 12, 2006.

NASCAR career

1999-2002

Long made his NASCAR debut in 1998 in the Craftsman Truck Series. at Bristol, starting 21st but finishing 31st after the engine in his #91 Mansion Motorsports Ford F-150 expired.

He began running the Cup races in 1999 with the #85 Mansion Motorsports team, but DNQ'd for every attempt throughout that year. He ran Bristol again the following year, in the Truck Series posting a career-best 9th place qualifying effort, as well as at Louisville Speedway, where he wrecked very early in the race. After more struggles in 2000, he finally qualified to make his Nextel Cup debut in one of its most prestigious races, the Coca-Cola 600. However, Darrell Waltrip, one of the top drivers in series history, who was retiring at the end of the 2000 season, failed to qualify. Long gave up his ride to Waltrip for the race. He made another truck race in 2000 at Texas, where he started 33rd but finished 17th in a truck fielded by Team 23 Racing. Long would eventually make his Cup debut at Dover, qualifying 42nd but finishing 41st after a crash on lap 12. He made one more start that year, at Rockingham Speedway, finishing 32nd. He ran three races in 2001, his best finish being a 29th at the UAW-GM Quality 500. He also made his Busch Series debut in 2001 in the Aaron's 312 at Atlanta. Driving the #49 for Jay Robinson Racing, Carl started 41st but came across handling problems during the race, relegating him to 42nd.

In 2002, Long ran for Rookie of the Year, but failed to earn the award mainly due to an incomplete season. Long attempted a group of the races, but failed to qualify for all except two. He started the season with Mansion Motorsports again, but when that team ran out of money, Long departed the team, originally to Glenn Racing, then to Ware Racing Enterprises, and then finally the #59 Foster Price team, with whom he finished 39th at Atlanta Motor Speedway. In addition, he had a sixteenth-place start at Dover for Mansion in the Truck Series (during which Long ran in the Top 10 before an engine failure), and a 30th place finish at Richmond for Rick Ware in the Revival Soy truck.

2003-Present

He made two Busch races in 2003 for Robert Creech, his best finish a 28th at Rockingham. He had another 28th at Rockingham the following year, as well as running the #07 for Moy Racing at Loudon, where his engine expired early in the race. He also ran another race for Ware at New Hampshire, but finished last. He made his first race as a team owner that season, when Matt Carter drove his #96 truck to a seventeenth place finish at Martinsville Speedway. After failing to make a Cup race in 2003, Long returned to the Glenn Racing Dodge in 2004. In their first race together, Long's car flipped several times in a violent accident at the final race ever held at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, North Carolina, where such crashes are very uncommon. Long was uninjured, and the incident gained publicity for the virtually-unknown Long, whose popularity among the fans peaked to unprecedented levels, and also got him a ride in the following Cup event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, driving for fellow independent Hermie Sadler. Long then drove at Pocono Raceway for the fledging McGlynn Racing operation, finishing 41st. After a final race for Glenn he ran two races with Hover Motorsports.

Long announced he would merge his #46 team with the McGlynn Racing team to run in 2005. Although he drove only the #00 from McGlynn, Long ran 9 races that year, and had a career-best qualifying effort of 20th at Atlanta. Unfortunately, sponsors wanted 1990 Daytona 500 winner Derrike Cope to drive the car, which forced McGlynn to release Long. Long closed out the year running at Homestead-Miami Speedway in a personally owned chassis originally purchased from Petty Enterprises. The car was prepared in Stan Hover's shop with mostly volunteers, and a leased motor from Bill Davis Racing was dropped into the car. Unfortunately, a crash in qualifying ended his weekend prematurely. That season Long was also announced as a driver for a new team, Victory Motorsports, owned by Terance Mathis, but the team never ran.

In 2006, Long ran the #80 for Hover Motorsports at the Daytona 500, but missed the race. He attempted three races for R&J Racing but also failed to qualify for those events. He returned to the Busch Series, driving the #23 for Keith Coleman Racing in six races before being replaced, and also ran a Truck Series race for Jim Rosenblum Racing. He attempted a race at Bristol with Long Brothers Racing, but did not qualify. Long joined a new Nextel Cup team, Cupp Motorsports, in the #46 Millstar Tools Dodge. Long attempted three races for Cupp, but failed to qualify for each of them. He returned with help from McGlynn to attempt the Ford 400 at the end of 2006, but did not make the race.

In 2007, Long ran a limited schedule for Long Brothers Racing in the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series, posting a best finish of second. He ran two races for Carter 2 Motorsports in the Busch Series, before the team closed down. He attempted the 2008 Daytona 500 for E&M Motorsports with sponsorship from Millstar and Rhino's Energy Drink, but did not qualify. He began fielding his own car with Red Line Oil sponsoring in the Nationwide Series, making his first start of the season at Darlington Raceway. Long will attempt the 2009 Daytona 500 with sponsorship from Romeo Guest Construction, one of Long's first sponsors in the mid 1990s when he was competing in Late Models. Truck Series veteran Dennis Setzer will attempt Martinsville in March.

Suspension

During the 2009 Sprint All-Star Race weekend, he was suspended from NASCAR for 12 races with a $200,000 dollar fine and lost 200 championship driver and owner points because of a engine was discovered to be .17 cubic inches over the maximum size of 358 cubic inches, which NASCAR considers a serious violation of the NASCAR rule book. Since he has not yet made a race and failed to do so, Long finished last in the points with (-200) points. Long is the first driver since Michael Waltrip in the Speedweeks controversy in 2007 to have negative points at one point in the season and the first to end with neagtive points. Prior to the 2009 Pocono 500 weekend, the National Stock Car Racing Commission heard Long's appeal of the penalty and denied it. Long has a number of supporters helping him pay his fine, including David Reutimann. Although Long is suspended from racing, he is still allowed to keep his job as a crew member for the #34 Front Row Motorsports team. Long was not able to attempt to race since, in largely of no information on his appeal.

External links

• Carl-Long.com
• Carl's stats on racing-reference.info