Racing fans are getting geared up for the Daytona 500 this weekend on Sunday, and in celebration, we have a cover story and exclusive special poster in this weekend’s issue featuring three of NASCAR’s top drivers — Michael Waltrip, Juan Pablo Montoya and Jeff Burton — and their kids. As it turns out, Montoya’s son Sebastian is already a racing expert at 4 years old. “He’s so excited to come to the track,” Montoya tells our Dennis McCafferty. “He knows the drivers I race with and all about the car itself. It’s amazing to see how much he has soaked in.” And we also have three different covers for the issue, each featuring one of the NASCAR families. (For a look at the covers as well as a sneak peek at the poster, click here.) In addition, the magazine features a story on comedienne Sarah Silverman, who’s never at a loss for words — to get a glimpse at what she’s up to lately, check out this exclusive clip from Thursday’s episode of The Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central.
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This weekend’s Fabulous February cover story brings together two American institutions — NASCAR and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition — for the first time. For our exclusive cover story, photo shoot and inside-the-magazine poster, we invited three of NASCAR’s biggest name drivers — Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. — and two top swimsuit models — Brooklyn Decker and Julie Henderson — to pose for famed SI photographer Walter Iooss Jr. at the Richard Petty Driving Experience in Concord, N.C. (Find out what newspaper near you carries USA WEEKEND with this list.) Check out a slideshow of photos from the shoot taken by our senior photo editor, David Baratz, and click read more below for some on-set scoop from senior writer Dennis McCafferty. You’ll also find a time-lapse video that shows you how many people it really takes to make a photo shoot successful.
Read more…
Our USA WEEKEND photo shoot with the NASCAR drivers and swimsuit models wrapped up easily this afternoon and everyone had a good time, reports our Dennis McCafferty, pictured at left with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Brooklyn Decker, the Sports Illustrated Swim issue star with whom Dennis is pictured at right
, told him,"The guys were really sweet, though we didn’t get much chance to talk to them because we were working.They also seemed a little bit out of their element. You got the feeling it wasn’t a photo shoot they do all the time."
That may be true for the guys — we’re talking top NASCAR drivers Earnhardt, Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. — but for the ladies, Brooklyn and Julie Henderson, today was the equivalent of getting out of school early. "Most of our photo shoots with Sports Illustrated go for 10 hours," Brooklyn said. Today, by comparison, was a breeze. They shot for about an hour because the drivers had to get back to the track and practice before tomorrow’s big race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Our Dennis McCafferty is in Charlotte, N.C. this week for our annual NASCAR/Daytona 500 photo shoot. And he has good reason to be excited because – well, I’ll let him tell it.
"We’re featuring three of the very top drivers in NASCAR — Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. — with two of the top models in this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Since both the Swim issue and the Daytona 500 are the biggest events for sports fans in February, we figured: Heck, why not combine the two and get a great, star-studded photo shoot out of it?
We’ve actually been trying to line this one up for years, so it’s great that it’s actually going to happen. We’re really thrilled with the SI Swim models who will participate, Brooklyn Decker and Julie Henderson. They’re both stars and very familiar to SI Swim issue fans. Brooklyn is actually from Charlotte too, so this will be a homecoming of sorts for her! You can check their work out here for Decker and here for Henderson. I did, of course, because that’s the kind of total professional that I am.
Oh, and there’s something else about this shoot that has me and WEEKEND really jazzed: SI is being generous enough to provide the great Walter Iooss as the photographer. Anyone who’s read SI knows that Walter is one of the all-time great photographers anywhere, and he’s the magazine’s top Swim issue shooter as well. We can’t wait to see what kind of images he comes up with! (His work can be found at http://www.walteriooss.com/.)
Anyway, we’ll keep our readers posted on how things go. The actual cover/spread will publish in early February, just before Speed Week leading up to the 500, just before the Swim issue hits newsstands.”
