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And may it be filled with many victories and a championship for (fill in the name of your favorite driver here).

How's that for not playing favorites? And to anyone who used this as a New Year's Eve/Day toast ... you're welcome.

Speaking of 2006, Dustin Long and I (mostly Dustin) are thinking about what should be in the 2006 Cup preview section. Any thoughts? Other than the newness angle (lots of driver changes) and Dustin's famous preseason driver picks, that is.

Sorry, Boris Said, but Bill Elliott wants your car for the Daytona 500.

Guess that retirement thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Friday morning update: The semi-retired Terry Labonte will be at Daytona, too, but you knew that already. Today's news is that T-Lab will drive 17 races in 2006, then hang it up. He ran 14 this season.

In the race for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Charlotte, Daytona Beach and Atlanta stay in, and Richmond and Kansas City drop out.

(Story here.)

Which makese sense, geographically speaking. NASCAR started in Daytona. Nearly all of the drivers live and work in Charlotte. And Atlanta is kinda sorta halfway between.

Richmond? I never thought my hometown had a serious shot, mostly because it's not Charlotte.

And Kansas City? It was always a long shot despite the conspiracy theories.

At the risk of sounding like a shill for the speedway up the street, so to speak, Jeff Gordon will be the featured driver in the Fan Zone before the April 2 race at Martinsville Speedway.

Getting to talk to the four-time champ will set you back 99 bucks, or about the amount of money Gordon makes in the time it takes him to put on his helmet before a race. More details here.

If anyone here goes, maybe you should ask him what he's going to do with himself if he misses the chase for a second straight year. Seriously -- it could happen.

Remember the guy who was eBaying a potato chip with an 8 burned into it?

He sold it. To this guy, whose name you'll recognize if you've ever listened to a NASCAR race on radio.

The damage? $71.

If I were Steve Richards, I would have kicked in the extra $28 to be in the same room with Jeff Gordon.

Robby Gordon's Hummer, his ride in the Dakar Rally, got taken out by a clump of grass. (Team release is here.)

Good for Robby for tackling the race. Too bad he didn't do better.

Only two more weeks until the next race that will include some regular Cup drivers.

In NASCAR Hall of Fame news, a Kansas City Star columnist realizes that racin' is still a southern sport. And Charlotte's David Poole wonders why Daytona Beach is still on NASCAR's list (with Atlanta and Charlotte) of potential HOF sites.

Hmm, why would Daytona still be on the list. Can't think of a reason. Nope, not one. I got nothing.

NASCAR groupies include LeAnn Rimes, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz, that guy from Creed and some of the folks who will be performing here later this month. NASCAR has enough juice to get the strangly popular Jay Leno to drive the pace car at Daytona. (Try not to drool when you check out the car.)

These aren't A-list folks, but it's not Hollywood Squares territory either.

The IRL? It can claim the much cooler David Letterman ... and Gene Simmon, who the racing series has built a marketing campaign around.

The ESPN story notes wryly: The IRL is trying to increase its fan base.

A confession: Kiss was The Band when I was in middle school. A lot of my friends loved them, but I never got them. And time has not been good to their songs.

Dustin Long stuck around Daytona today (he was done there for this week's round up Cup testing) to check out the latest version of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow.

It has wings.

It's not quite the rear spoiler of the old Dodge Charger/Plymouth Superbird that dominated the sport in the last 60s/early 70s. (This very cool site has more on these cars; make sure to check out the "Pictures/Video" link.)

It's more like something you'd see on an IRL machine. I'll let Dustin describe it:

Car of tomorrow test at Daytona. Only car is NASCAR car with Brett Bodine driving it.

They have put a rear wing on the car -- a smaller version of an Indy car wing on the back -- and the car has been on the track with it. The wing goes the length of the trunk. It's about a foot wide and attaches to the rear of the trunk.

Lots of interest in the garage. Officials from GM, Ford, Dodge and even Toyota are here. Key officials from Ford and Toyota are among the crowd. Couple of NASCAR folks in charge of the car are coming in for an interivew a bit later.

Too bad you're not here to see the car with the wing. Engineers and officials from the manufacturers are looking at it with wonder -- kind of like man first discovering fire. They're walking up to it and staring at it, walking around it awkwardly, bending, leaning and taking all sorts of different looks at the wing.

Whoa. More as it develops.

Here's what it looks like. Like Dustin said earlier, it's more IRL than Superbird:

What folks are saying is below the fold.

NASCAR says its Car of Tomorrow will show up at short track and road courses in 2007 (as in next season), long tracks (2 miles plus, including Daytona and Dega) in 2008 and the rest in 2009.

Thatsracin.com has the details. It even quotes John Darby, who's as close to official as you can get and not be named France or Helton.

I know some people think the COT is a lousy idea, NASCAR's worst ever. (I might be exaggerating, but probably not.) So the cars will have the same exact bodies - big deal. Right?

I mean:
* The cars look alike already (except for the grills and the taped-on headlights)
* Teams can still play with the engines, brakes, suspensions, setups and fuel milage, right?
* Taking aero (some of it anyway) out of the equation puts more of a premium on the driver.

So what am I missing? Fill me in, readers. I'm obviously missing something that hits others square in the gut.

The Cup drivers who didn't test last week are at Daytona today for three days of driving their cars around that track.

Today's fastest: Sterling Marlin in a Chevy. (He's not in a Dodge anymore, remember?)

His time: 187.110 in the Monday afternoon session.

Bill Elliott had 187.219 in the afternoon session a week ago.

Marlin and those other second sessioners better giddyup if they're going to keep up with the first-session crew.

So which Cup drivers will have a good 2006?

Dale Jarrett says he will. Jeff Burton is planning on a good season. Same goes for Sterling Marlin (reg. req., maybe), Jeremy Mayfield and the entire Ganassi team.

You can just about smell the preseason optimism from here.

So the story came out about a month ago that Indiana was interested in stealing away a N.C.-based NASCAR team.

DW said in not so many words that Evernham was interested: I was in Indy this past week on some business. There's a rumor going around that some big NASCAR team was thinking about moving to Indianapolis, and I was talking to some folks who may have given me an inside track on who it might be. It's a guy that's got three cars and no crew chiefs, if that helps you any.

Not true, says Ray Evernham, according to A.J. Foyt's girlfriend: "Nah, that's just a rumor Waltrip started," Evernham said.

The more troubling question is: Why is Evernham hanging with AJ Fore? Other than the fact that AJ is driving Kasey Kahne's old Busch car, I mean.

Doesn't Evernham remember Uncle Larry?

One of the story lines of the 2005 Cup season was the Ryan Newman-Rusty Wallace feud. The Roush and Hendrick teams made a fetish out of sharing information. Newman and Wallace, however, wouldn't share the time of day with each other. (The much passed-along story that Newman wouldn't take part in the standing-O that Rusty got at the driver's meeting at Homestead appears not to be fiction; go here and scroll down to the Nov. 21 entries.)

I always chalked it to stubbornness: Wallace didn't want to be upstaged by the young star, and Newman didn't want the old guy to tell him what to do. The generation gap theory seemed to make sense in the lack of anything specific.

The real reason might be something more simple: Rusty Wallace had a big mouth, and Ryan Newman didn't appreciate it.

So says the New York Times, which uses the most tortured anonymous source description ever.

Oh, and NASCAR might be switching to unleaded fuel in 2008. (link)

The way this day is going, I wouldn't be too surprised to hear Brian France announce that in 2010 NASCAR drivers will have to race backward on square tracks.

Monday update: Dustin Long's story from Saturday is here. Bill Davis Racing, who's running Toyotas in the Truck Series, will do the same in Cup. Michael Waltrip Racing also will run Toyota in Cup. More details will come out from NASCAR today and Toyota on Tuesday.

This comes from Dustin Long, who set out to cover NASCAR's Media Day today. I'm paraphrasing a bit, mostly for effect:

When NASCAR's Gary Nelson laid out the "car of tomorrow" schedule, he said it would appear at 16 races - or, as he called it, about a third of the races.

At that point Dustin jumped up, ran to the phones and called me: "Stop the @#$$%^&&!! presses! NASCAR just expanded its season to 48 races!"

Like I said, I exaggerated just a little. Sixteen races of 36 is closer to half than a third. That's a lot.

NASCAR's full release is after the jump. I'll tease you by mentioning the COT will have a splitter, maybe a wing on the trunk and a straight (as opposed to a curved) spoiler.

Any of you gearheads want to lay out what these changes will do to the racing? I was all set to take NASCAR's word for it ("better") until I remembered its promise that smaller gas tanks at Daytona and 'Dega would somehow improve restrictor plate racing. The only thing that spreads out the field at those tracks is a couple of Big Ones.

Speaking of math, Jack Roush is worried that Toyota's entry into Cup racing will bankrupt everyone.

David Poole on Toyota: Bring it.

Pretty pictures are here.

Your 2006 champion (foreground), maybe.

Jimmie Johnson hasn't even taken out a single car this season, and already Greg Biffle is ripping him.

Asked Monday if he thought JJ should give other drivers more room this season, Biffle said: "He better or somebody is going to break his neck. He caused three restrictor-plate wrecks last year." (link)

Only 26 more days till Daytona ...

My preseason testing consists not of putting this blog on the dynameter or running test laps at Daytona but my checking the links to the right.

Any blogs you want to see added to the list? Any dead links that I missed? I'm always on the lookout for good reads, and what goes there are the racin' blogs that I (and you, too) should read often. If you're a blogger, let me know so I and The Spotter's tens of readers can get to know you, too.

List your favorites in the comments or e-mail me.

Dustin today:

A team with Formula One ties is among those that will race Toyotas in NASCAR Nextel Cup beginning in 2007. (Full story is here.)

You'll have to read that sentence back to yourself -- slowly this time -- to get the full effect.

It's one thing for Penske and Ganassi to go from Indy cars to NASCAR and for Jeff Gordon to play around over in Europe. But when F1 (and Toyota) dips its collective toes into NASCAR? That's huge. Consider my mind blown.

Here's the Red Bull Racing page, btw. And never underestimate those country boys.

The recently retired Rusty Wallace has a new TV gig.

That's good news. Rusty's not nearly as excitable as DW, but he's good on the air, and I thought he did a fine job last season on the Busch telecasts considering he didn't have a ton of on-air experience beyond his "I'd like to thank Miller Lite" sponsor recitals in Victory Lane. (Well, yeah, except for that one film role.)

Five bucks says it's Kevin Harvick.

A hot & fresh AP story (it's after the jump) notes that Harvick's contract with Childress is up after this season. Let's review:

* Harvick has the star power and the talent that Toyota wants
* Toyota has a lot of money, and Harvick has a Busch and Truck operation that need cash
* Childress isn't the team it was five years ago
* Harvick will be by far the top free agent after all of the driver movement between the 2005 and 2006 seasons

Makes sense to me.

If you're Kevin Harvick, what would you do?

One of the oddest pairings in all of sports, Rusty Wallace and Danica Patrick, will be teammates at this weekend's Rolex 24.

The race starts at noon Saturday and will end at noon Sunday.

Here's the official link. Here's the driver and team roster.

There are a few NASCAR regulars in ths one, as always. Think of this as IROC, but with better looking cars and the Cup drivers at a real disadvantage. Full list below the fold.

Courtesy of Tom Higgins, the longtime and former racin' writer at the Charlotte Observer. This tale is about how Junior Johnson figured out how to run with the Pontiacs at the 1959 Daytona 500.

You'll have to go read the story to see what Johnson invented to keep his Chevy up front.

Btw, long-time readers of this blog know that while I link to thatsracin.com all the time -- it's a good site and there's no registration required to read stuff, so why wouldn't it? -- but I rarely link to the blogs. I'll make an exception for Higgins, who teaches me something new just about every time I read him.

The other blogs? Posts like this one will make your eyes bleed if you stare at it too long.

If you missed this weekend's Rolex 24, Casey Mears was your winner. Okay, he had some help - 2005 IRL champ Dan Wheldon and 2003 IRL champ Scott Dixon also shared the driving duties on the Ganassi/Target Lexus in the Daytona Prototype (i.e. fast) category.

If you ever think that NASCAR's competitive balance is out of whack, consider this: The 10th place car finished 46 laps back. If they made the cars drive as many laps as the winner, that entry would still be on the track.

Highlights and full results after the jump.

We're actually down to about 480 before the start of the Daytona 500. It was 500 when Dustin's Sunday story was published.

My favorite stat from Dustin's story: 69: Consecutive races Jimmie Johnson has been ranked in the top 10 in points.

That's pretty hard to do, considering the Chase (Johnson has made it twice) and Daytona (a finish outside the top 10 in the 500 will put you outside the top 10 in points). Props to Johnson, who can't be the only one wondering why he hasn't won a Cup title yet.

One more thing: The NASCAR.com countdown clock measures the time until the TV start of the Daytona 500. TV goes on at 1:30 p.m. The green flag isn't until 2:30 or so.

So the Las Vegas track is getting a facelift - a new garage, a new media center, pit road will be closer to the front stretch stands, blah blah blah. Unless you're Dustin Long, you don't really care about the media center. And I don't plan on a trip west anytime soon.

So what about the racing? The big news, the one buried under Bruton Smith's hoo-ha about the enhanced fan experience and whatnot, is the increased banking: to 20 degrees in the corners from 12.

The Vegas people say it'll make for more side-by-side racing. Let's hope so. The racing there has always been average, a strung-out, follow-the-leader affair. It can only get better, right?

Work starts as soon as the last hauler pulls out after the Cup race in March. Everything should be done by the time the Cup series returns in 2007.

He's in a lot of trouble, according to this story we posted online this afternoon.

Williams is a former NASCAR PR director who has his own shop. He's obviously well known around the NASCAR garage. I've never met him, but Dustin Long and Ed Hardin both know him from their years on the beat.

Sounds like now Williams will have to draw deeply on his self-proclaimed "ability to handle difficult situations at difficult times."