News-Record.com

There's a Cup race in two days, but for whatever reason I'm not all that up for it.

Maybe because it's a Sunday night race that's more than 48 hours away. Maybe because it's at the California track, which gave us a Greg Biffle win in February and a caution-fest last Labor Day weekend. And, yeah, what's going on in New Orleans is weighing on me, too. (Help out if you can; the Scotsman has more, and so does Full Throttle.)

I don't have much to add to the millions of words that will be written about Sunday's Cup race, so I'll direct you to some that already have made their way from brain to a Web page:

Dustin Long went 'round and 'round in his own head on this story that ran Saturday, the piece about how the same drivers are hogging all of the wins this year. Going into Sunday's race at California, only 11 drivers had won races this year.

Compare that to last year, when 13 drivers split wins in 36 races; and 2001, when a modern-era record 19 drivers found victory lane.

Dustin was hoping to write this story a couple of weeks ago when the unique winner total stood at 9, but time off and a short week at Bristol last week conspired against him. Journalism loves a hook, something on which to hang a story, but he (and I -- I'm his boss, remember?) decided to press on with the story for Saturday although Jeremy Mayfield and Matt Kenseth became first-time season winners over the past two weeks.

Which brings us to Kyle Busch, who dominated last night's race and became the 12th Cup winner this season.

He's a rookie, this other Busch brother, and by some accounts anyway a better driver than his brother, who won last year's title and has 13 career Cup wins.

Kurt, last year's Busch Series rookie of the year, became the youngest race winner in Cup history last night. He just turned 20 in May (he was born about a month before I graduated from high school) and, barring injury or boredom, figures to have a long Cup career ahead of him.

Let's do the math. Say he races for another 20 seasons. That would make him 41 at the end of the 2026 season. Let's say he averages three wins per season -- not unreasonable for a talented driver in better-than-average equipment.

That would put him at 61 career wins (1 this year, three each x 20 season) at age 41 -- and in the company of immortals.

So go ahead and bookmark this post and check back in 20 years to see if I'm right. I'm not going to sit here and say that Kyle Busch is going to rack up more wins than soon-to-be-retirees Rusty Wallace (55) or even Mark Martin (34), but the kid has a real shot.

And his victory lane donation of his winnings to the Red Cross? Pure class. I might have to like this Busch.

NASCAR is taking over its Canadian counterpart, CASCAR, reports TSN.ca.

The significance: Canadian drivers not named Ron Fellows can drive in NASCAR-sanctioned events.

Just once I'd like to see the Cup drivers take on a snow-covered road course like these guys do.

P.S. Yes, I know that Canada is not always snow-covered. Mostly, it's ice-covered. How do you think all of those hockey players got started?

A woman called me yesterday in hopes that I could recall some sort of book written about N.C. race tracks.

I came up emptier than Robby Gordon at the recent Michigan race. Jayski has a list of NASCAR-related here. (Yes, someone's even written about Robert Pressley.) A company called Sports Publishing LLC lists a bunch of racin' books here.

Any help?

Also, I finally plowed through Sunday Money. I'll review it soon.

Look for Jimmie Johnson to take out him or him or him (or maybe all three) Saturday night at Richmond.

That's what teammates do, right? Want proof? Johnson is already denying it.

I'm convinced. And Dale Jarrett didn't mean to hit Ryan Newman either.

Tonight's Busch race, as good as it is on its own merits, is just a warm-up act for Saturday's main event.

Dustin set up the Chase in today's paper. He'll have more, of course, in Saturday's N&R. And here is the handy chart that ran with today's story:

IN THE CHASE
Drivers competing for the final spots for the championship chase this weekend at Richmond International Raceway:
Rank, Driver Points From 10th Did you know?
7. Jeremy Mayfield 3,073 +144 Clinches a spot by finishing 39th or better Saturday.
8. Carl Edwards 3,014 +85 Clinches with 19th or better; average short track finish is 27.3.
9. Matt Kenseth 2,939 +10 One top-10 in the first 12 races; nine top-10s in the last 13.
10. Jamie McMurray 2,929 -- Has led one lap all year, which has cost him bonus points.
11. Ryan Newman 2,928 -1 Has one top-15 finish in last five races.
12. Jeff Gordon 2,899 -30 Six DNFs are most races he's failed to finish since 1999.
13. Elliott Sadler 2,877 -52 Has outscored every driver on short tracks this year.
14. Dale Jarrett 2,812 -117 Winless in last 95 starts.

And now for the question that's on all of your minds is ... who do I think is going to make it?

Jeff Gordon will have someone new whispering in his ear during the 2006 season.

Here's a quick note.

I wonder who has a large enough ego and enough confidence to be crew chief for the No. 24? The money definitely won't be bad.

P.S. Been meaning to mention this -- Mark Martin says for sure he'll be back in 2006 in the No. 6 because Jamie McMurray can't get out of his Ganassi ride. But y'all knew that already.

All week, there's been a ton of hype about Erin Crocker, NASCAR's answer (maybe) to Danica Patrick.

She's ready to race, according to this story. Evernham and General Mills announced today she's got a full-time Busch gig in 2006.

But then ... she's not in the starting lineup, and it doesn't look like she even tried to qualify. Stranger, there's a video at NASCAR.com that says "Crocker finds the wall." I'm at work, where I don't have TrackPass access.

Anyone know what happened? Did she wreck in practice? Is she hurt? Any ideas?

Let the chase begin!

Dustin Long has his race report here. (Btw, if you stayed up late last night, that was Dustin standing behind Jeff Gordon during the post-race interview. Dustin was the one who didn't look like his season had just officially gone in the toilet. But that's what you get if your season has come down to battling Johnny Sauter for 25th.)

Ed Hardin riffs here on a chase without NASCAR's two biggest stars. And if you saw last night's race, expect Jeff and Junior to be mentioned only when they're about to be lapped. I never thought I'd see a Cup race where Junior wasn't covered obsessively, but that's exactly what happened to a guy who came into the race 18th in points.

The Chasers, if you didn't click the links above, are (in order) Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle, Rusty Wallace, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Mark Martin, Jeremy Mayfield, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Ryan Newman.

That's four past champs (Wallace, Stewart, Kenseth and Busch the elder -- five if you include Martin, who should have won at least one in his career.) There are five Roush drivers (you know who they are - they win every darned week) and seven drivers who are making their second straight run for the chase (Biffle, Edwards and Wallace are the chase noobs).

In other words, it's a pretty good group, even without the No. 8 and No. 24 drivers. You've got several compelling story lines: Can Stewart win his second? (Don't bet against a guy who has 12 straight top 10 finishes.) Can Busch repeat? Can Rusty win in his last season? Can Martin finally get a championship? Can anyone beat Roush? In other words, Dustin will have plenty to write about, and race fans will have lots to debate.

And for all of you chase-haters out there, consider this: If not for the Chase, NASCAR already would have handed Tony Stewart the 2005 trophy. Is that what you really want?

I've been hanging around Internet bulletin boards for the past four or five years or so, and the only offsite encounter I've had with any of the people I met is an ongoing e-mail exchange with a fellow journalist out in Oklahoma.

Until last week, that is, when I got to hang at a local Starbucks with scottishracer9, proprietor of the The Unofficial Everybody's NASCAR Nextel Cup Blog over at AOL. All meetings with people you know from the Internet should go so well.

Four observations:
1. Yes, he's Scottish. By birth -- he has lived in the 'Boro longer than I have, though, and I've been here 10 years.
2. No, he wasn't wearing a kilt.
3. Yes, he's probably beat me down for even suggesting it.
4. And, yeah, he knows him some NASCAR. Me, I just watch a lot of races and talk 3-4 times a day with the N&R's NASCAR writer. (It's my job, after all.) The Scotsman, he actually knows real-life NASCAR people and has more than a passing familiarity with how cars and engines actually work.

I'd like to say we came up with a plan to slay the five-headed monster of the NASCAR blogging world. Sadly, though, we just sucked down our Mega Mochas and talked shop, which was a fine way to spend a Thursday morning.

If you're not reading the Scotsman, you ought. He's got pictures, too.

Best I can tell, based on this particularly unclever headline here, it's Tony Stewart and four other guys who will get run over by the five Roush drivers in the chase.

And that's the meme in play today:
Ed Hinton: "You can have all the sentimental favorites you want, but the reality is this: Stewart vs. all five drivers of Roush Racing." (reg. req.)

David Poole: "Roush said that trying to juggle the ins and outs of having half the Chase field is a problem he welcomes."

Darrell Waltrip: "It's a pretty shaky top 10, and Jack Roush probably has reserved his seat at the head table in New York. He's certainly sitting in the catbird seat right now."

Dustin Long will have his pick in Thursday's paper. I'll leave it as a surprise for now, but let's just say it's not a Roush-not, whatever that is.

P.S. Can we now finally put to rest the phrase Roush-Hendrick dominance and all of its variations? I dare you to find the term "Hendrick" in any of those stories.

N&R racing writer Dustin Long will answer your NASCAR questions in a live online chat on Thursday. It's 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST.

Where to send your questions beforehand: nascar@pilotonline.com
(Our sister paper in Norfolk is handling the chat.)

Where to see the responses: http://home.hamptonroads.com/guestbook/guestbook.cfm?id=471

In the meantime, check out Diecast Dude's handicapping of the Chase field. (He's going with Kenseth.) And the Scotsman is loaded with Q&As: He's got one with Kenseth's crew chief Robby Reiser and another with Greg Biffle's pit leader Doug Richert.

It's this guy now that the rumors are true and this guy is coming back.

Larry McReynolds doubts me: "I'm sure Eury doesn't have a magic wand in his back pocket that he can wave over that red car and its driver and win five races like they did last year."

I'm going to freeze those comments so they'll be fresh when Larry Mac has to eat them next November.

Dustin Long's online chat will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday.

Your questions go here: nascar@pilotonline.com

Check out his responses here: http://home.hamptonroads.com/guestbook/guestbook.cfm?id=471

Be sure to ask Dustin why he picked the driver he did to win the chase. I'm not going to tell you who it is -- you'll have to pick up Thursday's paper to find out -- but I'll give you a hint: His car number is in the low double digits.

And, no, Kurt Busch fans, "97" is not considered to be in the low double digits.

If Dustin Long is to be believed, it'll be Greg Biffle. Before Matt points it out in comments, this is the same guy who said Kurt Busch wasn't going to make the chase.

Ed Hardin tells me he thinks Busch is the best driver with the best team and the best stuff. But he's not so sure Busch and Jack Roush won't kill each other before the season's over.

Diecast Dude is sticking with Kenseth. Jon at The Finish Line is going with Tony Stewart. Me, I'll pull for Stewart, give Mark Martin a nod as the sentimental favorite and think that Carl Edwards will win this thing. (Why the heck not? And no one else is picking him, so I guess I'll have to.)

Jaynelle at Track Talk, meanwhile, is still devastated that Jeff Gordon missed the chase. The Scotsman talks to Bob Osborne, Carl Edwards's crew chief. (Is there anyone in NASCAR he can't get to talk to him?) And the commenters over at Bob Henry's place are too ticked at David Poole's defense of the chase to pick a winner.

Whew. I'm beat. Go click on the links above, and don't forget to check Dustin's detailed chase rundown after the jump.

... of Dustin's online chat. Only seven questions so far. Either Dustin is typing slow (which I doubt) or you're being slow to feed him questions.

All the action is going on here.

Mark and I have been chatting back and forth in one of the earlier threads, and the conversation has now turned to what's going on at NHIS, site of this week's Cup race.

In the first practice, there are a lot of non-chasers in there, most notably the two guys who say they're using the race as glorified test sessions, Jeff Gordon (first) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (eighth).

Also note the guy who's 12th in speed. Mark will be doing cartwheels if modified star Ted Christopher makes the race this weekend.

The word to describe today's race at New Hampshire:
Nuts.
As in crazy, not cashews. How crazy was it? Drivers were wrecking during the caution laps. At one point, Kahne tried to block Kyle Busch during one yellow-flag period after Busch hit Kahne. And didn't Nemecheck blow a tire during a caution period?

Like I said, nuts.

Here's a few other observations:

One of the beauties of MT software (all blogging software, probably -- this is the only one I've ever used) is the future publishing function that lets me write now and post later.

If you're reading this post fresh, say, sometime Monday morning, you might say, "That Spotter, hard at work this morning, he is." (If you talk like Yoda, that is.) The reality is the future publish button let me write this Monday night so you'd have something to read Tuesday.

Fact is, by the time you're reading this, my wisdom teeth will be a distant memory, sort of like Jason Whatshisname who use to drive the No. 11. (Jason Leftfoot? Leadfoot? Bigfoot? Whatever.) And all that's a long-winded way of telling you to go read these people:

More after the jump ...

Off the top of my head ...

Tony Stewart rebounds from a poor performance (for him, that is)
Kurt Busch bounces back from his wreck
Ryan Newman stays hot
The feudin' continues

That's got the makings of a pretty good race.

What else is out there?

Yeah, I know, Charlotte. I missed the whining yesterday. Marc and the Scotsman have their takes.

Okay, I'll admit it: I didn't see the Waltrip-Gordon incident Sunday when it happened.

Sure, I did see tape of it from every conceivable angle: the track cam, the in-car cam, the helmet cam, the brake rotor cam, etc.

But I didn't see Michael Waltrip do anything to warrant a 25-point inappropriate gesture penalty.

And apparently DEI didn't either. They're appealing. Quoth the press release: "In looking at the tape, we don’t see anywhere during the entire incident where Michael did what he is accused of doing," said Richie Gilmore, Vice President of Motorsports for DEI.

Granted, Waltrip might have cut loose with a single-finger salute and I missed it. That's entirely possible. Like I said, I missed it as it happened, and an alert video editor might have cut out the "You're No. 1" sign out of later footage.

At the risk of picking at this scab of a topic, what did you see? Comment away.

P.S. As Diecast Dude mentioned a couple of days ago, can't we all act like grownups? The bird thing stopped being funny in about, oh, 10th grade.

Of all things: Bobby Hamilton Jr. qualified eighth for Sunday's race at Dover.

Dover's a pretty tricky track and all, which is why I mention this: Starting in the 10th spot, right behind Hamilton, is ... 2004 champ Kurt Busch.

The over-under on Kurt crashing out again this week is 3 laps. I'm taking the under.

Your pole sitter, btw, is that Newman fellow who won last week. Here's your lineup.

No, it's not Jimmie Johnson's win that put him atop the Chase standings.

No, it's not that two Penske teammates, Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman, are second and third in the chase.

No, it's not even Kurt Busch's late-race miscue that now has him in the Mayfield spot in the chase.

It's this guy. Eighth place, baby! A couple more of these, and we're groovin.'

The official Petty race report is here.

Look here.

Or don't look there. It's too painful.

Every blogger has a blog roll. Even The Spotter, Bloggerville's version of the house-with-the-rusty-truck-in-the-yard, has a blog roll. (It's that box on the right that starts with "The Editor's Log.")

If you're a right-wing blogger who wants to group all of the left-wing blogs under "Jeff Gordon Dark Side Blogs," fine by me. The driver of the No. 24 has been called worse.

But the "Bobby Labonte Top Twenty Blogs"? The "Sterling Marlin Silver Bullet Blogs"? The "Ryan Newman Up N' Comers"?

Newsflash: B-Lab and Top 20 haven't appeared in the same sentences much this season. The only silver bullet was the one Chip Ganassi Racing fired into Marlin's career. And no driver with 12 wins and 18 million poles can be described as a "up and comer."

Please. Leave the NASCAR-in to the experts.

Speaking of experts, go check out the folks in that blog roll thing on the right. Or go read about Junior's Bad Day at Dover. Funny stuff.

Sorry for the recent lack of bloggage, but I'm being crushed here not just by this crazy golf tournament but by a Dustin Long story I'll describe with one word:

Epic.

So what's it about? you ask.

Here's a hint: 18, 1, 3, 76.

And that's all you're getting until Sunday. Dustin's story will be accompanied by an online-only tale of greed, deception and opportunism.

Good stuff, all of it.

In the meantime, what's on your mind? Who do you like this weekend at Talladega? Is Jimmie Johnson's points lead going to hold up? Is Kurt Busch cooked? Do wily veterans Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin have a real shot? And what the heck is a whoppy-jawed racecar?

Kevin Harvick thinks Tony Stewart will win the chase.

The other two to beat: Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth.

And Greg Biffle, the guy Dustin Long thinks will win it all?

"I think (Greg) will do something stupid in the middle of the Chase, here and wreck somewhere. He'll take himself out of it at some point in the Chase. I think they're fast, week in and week out, but I think he'll screw it up somewhere along the line."

Oooooh, snap.

Biffle fans, of course, will note that Harvick has a good insight into the chase contenders because he's been driving behind them all season.

Check out the damage here.

Anyone having chase regret? Other than me, that is. I told you Carl Edwards was going to be a long shot.

No one bit on yesterday's quiz.

I'm assuming you were stumped and not bored? (please say stumped, please say stumped ...)

Go here for the answer. It's an online project put together by our friends at the Virginian-Pilot. (Don't be fooled by the fact that it's on our site. Credit goes where credit's due.)

Underneath the picture is a link that says "Read the story." That'll take you to the Web site of our sister paper in Norfolk, which published Dustin's epic today. You might have to register. If you do and don't want to fool with it, you can wait till Sunday, when the N&R will have Dustin's story both online and on the front of the Sports section.

Yeah, yeah, I edited this monster. It's my day job, after all. But it's a great story, well done, and worth the five minutes or so it'll take you to read it.

There's also video of the actual event. It's ... nah, you'll have to find it yourself. The video has its own bitter history that I'll share later.