Five days to the Daytona 500! Easiest way to identify the best talent in NASCAR? Find someone who has covered many races and ask them for their thoughts. (Although, now that the SI Swimsuit issue is out, one really doesn’t need an eyewitness account to verify the hotness of Jeff Gordon’s stunning wife, Ingrid Vandebosch, who totally blows Jeff Garcia’s playmate wife out of the water - probably because the latter donned one of the most hideous swimsuits in SI history.)

So reader Nick Bromberg, a journalism student at Missouri who has covered NASCAR for the KC Star, volunteered his services to break things down. After scrupulous research, his findings are as follows (in no particular order):

Ingrid Vandebosch: It’s only fitting that NASCAR’s richest driver has the hottest wife, right? After divorcing former Miss Winston Brooke Sealey, Gordon rebounded nicely, marrying Ingrid Vandebosch in November of 2006. Jeff and Ingrid quickly got down to business, and daughter Ella was born in June.

Athena Barber: If the reports that Clint Bowyer and Athena have broken up are true, it’s a sad loss for NASCAR’s top series. Clint and Athena had been dating since Clint’s days at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas, when Clint was beating up Athena’s dad on the track.

Ashley Judd: The newest NASCAR wife is the most obvious - and not just because of her pit attire. Ashley scores bonus points for calling out Milka Duno last year, and for saying this about what she thought of racing before she met Dario. “I didn’t know anything about it, except it looked really dumb on TV.”

Tara Gentry: When was the last time anyone made fishing look this hot? The on-again, off-again girlfriend of the ever-expanding Tony Stewart (they had supposedly broken up, but I swear I saw her next to his car Saturday night) reportedly works for Tony’s sponsor, Home Depot. When Tony and Tara started dating, Stewart lost a bunch of weight in an attempt to shape up, but started to get bigger once they broke it off. Now that they appear to be on again, maybe it’s time for Stewart to cut off his mullet and lose the gut again, and the irony of Tony Stewart in Subway commercials congratulating Jared on his 10-year non-fat anniversary will cease.

Crystal Hornish: Former IRL champion Sam Hornish moves over to the Sprint Cup series full time this year, and thus the blonde Crystal (below) joins the stacked stable of hot NASCAR wives. Even though Sam is locked into the field for the first five races, he may have trouble later on in the year making the show. Here’s hoping that Sam does, so we can see more of Crystal.
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