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.”