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Two laps into Sunday's race, I faced a dilemma:

Go back outside and work in the yard (it was a sunny 70-something here in Greensboro) or watch a few more laps and see how everyone else not named Dale Earnhardt Jr. was going to do.

Glad I stuck around. The final 30 laps were classic: Not only did Tony Stewart rattle Jimmie Johnson's cage to get by him, he showed the Master of Martinsville that he rules the restarts. (More on Gordon's second-place finish here.)

The next-best performance of the day, though, was Junior's. Did anyone figure he would get into the top 20 after tearing up his car after just two laps? Me neither. You try driving around Martinsville with no right front bumper. Bet it's not easy.

No doubt about it: Tony Stewart drove Sunday's Cup race like he knew he was going to win. He ran hard all day, led nearly 60 percent of the laps and, at the end, played with Jimmie Johnson like Stewart was the cat and Johnson was the stuffed mouse at the end of the string. Here, kitty kitty kitty indeed.

But that got me thinking: Is Tony Stewart better this year than he was last season?

Not so fast, I mean.

The Roush Mob must be looking forward to Sunday, when the Cup Series heads to Texas. Who can blame them? Greg Biffle won last spring's race, Jamie McMurray (the newest Roush-ette) was second, and the other four Roush drivers finished in the top 20.

The November race was even better for Roush: Carl Edwards, Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth finished 1-2-3; Kurt Busch was 10th, and Biffle was 20th.

But at flat tracks, Roush has come up, well, flat.

Not me. Him.

Jeremy Mayfield is 13 starts shy of 400 for his Cup career. He has five wins in 12 mostly full-time seasons. (He has run more races than not since 1994.)

He made the chase both years. This season, however, his best finish was 16th at Bristol. Next best was 22nd at Fontana. He's 33rd in points and already outside of the chase window. (He's 513 points behind Jimmie Johnson.)

Anyone know what's up in the 19 camp? I don't think anyone would put Mayfield up there with Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon on the list of talented drivers. But Mayfield isn't 33rd-in-points-with-a-rock-awful, either.

So what's going on?

Word on the blog street is that NBC Dateline wants to film a Muslim male (I'm assuming they mean someone who isn't white) at an upcoming NASCAR race, possibly Sunday's cup race at Texas.

Coverage is here with an update here.

Some thoughts here and here.

Is it true? My thoughts after the jump ...

Both Labonte brothers are entered in Sunday's race at Texas Motor Speedway, their home track.

Neither have enough owner points to get into the race if they're slow in Friday's qualifying. (Bobby is 36th; Terry's No. 44 is making its first appearance of the season.)

The problem: Bobby has first dibs on the past champion's provisional. He won his Cup title in 2000. Terry won the second of his two in 1996. The tie goes to the guy with the newer championship trophy on the mantel.

When Terry was driving the No. 96 earlier this season, he needed that hall pass three times in five races. So does this mean Terry Labonte might miss the race at Texas? Yep, maybe so. I wouldn't want to be at Thanksgiving dinner if Terry got bumped by his own brother.

The actual word is "outrageous." Here's the story from the AP's Jenna Fryer:

Today's installment is here if you're curious. Past Spotter coverage is here and here.

So was NBC at Martinsville? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

As high-tech and expensive NASCAR has become in the past decade, its publicity efforts are stuck squarely in 1994 or so. NASCAR teams churn out a lot of press releases -- here is a good place to get every last stinkin' one of them -- and every driver and team has a Web site. (The Petty Racing site is surprisingly good looking. But like a lot of them, it lacks, well, stuff. Like the Martinsville race report, for instance.)

Dale Jr.'s PR guys get it, though. I'll explain why after the jump ...

Go read Bob Pockrass at Scene Daily (who confirms, finally, that "Dateline" was in the house at Martinsville) and Duane Cross at nascar.com.

Can anyone explain to me -- precisely, because I'm a precise kind of guy - why Martinsville security needed to tail these brown-skinned people around?

Yeah, I thought so. NASCAR Nation, you shouldn't pat yourself on the back quite so hard. You might strain something.

Friday update: Here is today's story from the Roanoke Times. And Jaynelle uses the whole episode to riff on stereotypes of NASCAR fans.

Ken Schrader, too. Both of them were at the New 311 Speedway Saturday night up on the Rock/Stokes county border.

My writeup in today's paper is here. The track owner quoted in the story is this Bobby Johns, who won Grand National races at Atlanta and Bristol way back in the day and was the first NASCAR driver to race at Indy.

So Tony Stewart won his second straight race last night. It wasn't a Cup event - it was IROC.

I don't have the Speed Channel at home, so I didn't see the race. Did any of you?

I mean, is this racing any good? Does anyone care enough to watch?

I'm intrigued by the concept of pitting drivers from one series against another. But I thought the event is always biased toward the Cup guys - it's their tracks and their cars, more or less. The few times I've watched it, it's hard to tell which pastel-colored car belongs to which driver. I'm the guy who sees the blue No. 2 on Sunday and still thinks "Rusty Wallace."

So what am I missing on the IROC front? Anything?

You almost could hear the voices in Denny Hamlin's head last week after Mark Martin ran him up the track at Martinsville:

@#$%^&!, I'm mad. I won't take that kind of crap from an old man!

Dude, that's Mark Freakin' Martin. He's like, a four-time almost champ. You can't say jack about what he did to you.

Yeah, but I gotta say something or the rest of the pack will run me over next time.

Do I have to spell it out? You're a rookie, and he has more wins than you have birthdays. Now shut it!

Dustin Long has the story today on the rookies and why they won't keep their big disrespectin' mouths shut. Summary: Rookies have good rides and high expectations, and they can't afford to ease their way into the Cup Series. Just ask Brent Sherman.

My favorite line in the story came from ... Mark Martin: Martin said he told the rookie how he raced Hamlin was how he would have raced any veteran.

From Nate Ryan's notes in today's USA Today:

Emotions boiled over after the crash as Biffle's girlfriend climbed atop the No. 2 pit box to confront Busch's fiancée.

Thank goodness for this week's Easter break.

More after the jump ...

Someone at the paper wondered today if this picture at nascar.com shows not the true and actual Kasey Kahne but a plastic replica of the winner of Sunday's Cup race.

I'm betting that this is the real Kasey Kahne.

So what do you think?

For comparison purposes, here's a picture of the waxy head of Jeff Gordon in Madame Tussaud's Vegas museum.

No, I don't want to talk about fightin' fiancees today. Yes, it looks like Kurt Busch called out not just Greg Biffle but his girlfriend, too.

Dude, that is so not cool.

NASCAR fans know next weekend (no, not this weekend -- the weekend after that) as Phoenix weekend. It's also Rolex/Grand Am weekend at VIR, the road course not too far up the road from here.

Some of the names in the Rolex Series will be familiar to Cup fans: drivers Scott Pruett, Adrian Fernandez and Christian Fittipaldi and owner Chip Ganassi, to name a few. They're racing Sunday, April 23.

The Grand Am race, which is Saturday 4/22, has 99 entrants.

Greensboro's Randy Ruhlman, second last year in the Trans-Am Series, will be driving the Derhaag Motorsports entry in the Daytona Prototype class. (Those are the faster of the two classes; the little Porsches run in the GT class.)

If you've seen these guys race on Speed - and I know you have - you might want to check 'em out live when they're here.

Linkage:
VIR
Grand American

Pretty much the whole Cup Series is testing today in Richmond. There's not much news, and the Richmond paper has testing in all of its photographic glory: 16 pictures, most of them showing drivers and fans sitting around. (I lost track after 8.)

Wake me when they're done. Tuesday's best laps after the jump ...

I finally got around to watching the video of the Biffle-Kurt Busch wreck in Sunday's Cup race at Texas.

I hate to say this, but Kurt Busch isn't totally at fault this time like he usually is. He's not even mostly at front. I'll explain why after the jump ...

My vote would be for the mid-May race in Richmond.

But Stafford Motor Speedway in Connecticut already has claimed (and if they're smart, trademarked) the title.

You've probably seen Mark mention the race in the comments. So now you know.

Btw, the 35th annual Tech-Net Spring Sizzler is April 28 for anyone who lives up that way and doesn't have tickets to that weekend's Cup race in Not Connecticut.

Here's a history of the race; the track is updating the recaps daily. Hardcores will recognize some of the names - Richie Evans, Steve Park, Jimmy Spencer, Greg Sacks, Jeff Fuller (my nemesis in NASCAR Thunder 2003 on the PS2), etc.

Mark, here's your cue to educate us in the comments.

At the risk of turning this into Old School Thursday, I'll relate a call I got late yesterday from Mike Tesh.

When I wrote last week about Carl Edwards' stop at the New 311 Speedway the Saturday before the Martinsville race, it turns out I goofed something in the story. Edwards borrowed the No. 300 late model car from Bill Tesh, not Neil Morgan.

More on Bill Tesh after the jump ...

About the only perk of the Sports gig is the books. We get a ton of them.

Some of them ended up on someone's desk to be used at some later date. Some get kicked to our book editors. Others end up in the auction pile. (We do in-house silent auctions to raise money for charity.)

I get the racing books, mostly because Dustin Long isn't here to intercept them. The problem: I'm still looking for a good book about racing.

I've slogged through this one, skimmed this one and am picking my way through this one, which might be the worst title in all of sports journalism. All three have their moments, but none has really grabbed me.

The latest arrival has. "Thunder and Glory" lists the 25 most memorable races in Cup history. The pictures -- probably the best part about any racin' book -- are terrific. Better, they distract from the text, which is awful.

I've listed the book's top 10 picks after the jump. Any you want to argue with? I think there are plenty. Fire away in comments.

A couple of big changes in the Roush garage.

Jimmy Fennig, who started the season as Jamie McMurray's crew chief, has been bumped down to Roush's Busch Series program.

McMurray's new crew chief is Bob Osborne from the No. 99 team. Wally Brown, Roush's head engineer, will become Carl Edwards's crew chief.

Official Roush release is here.

I can understand wanting to help McMurray - he's been the weak link so far this season. But moving Osborne out of the No. 99 pits? I'm not sure I'd do that to such an inexperienced driver.

One thing's for sure: No, it's not too early in the season to panic.

Kyle Busch got pulled over last night in Richmond and ticketed for reckless driving.

The AP story says neither speed nor alcohol was a factor. The Richmond paper reports that he was pulled over in the parking lot of a KFC. (Google Maps says the track and the restaurant are about seven miles apart.)

Yes, I'm a Richmond native, and, no, I don't know why he was in that part of town unless his motel was near there (but he'd have a mobile home, right?). Maybe he had a huge craving for chicken. There's very little - no restaurants, no clubs - that would attract an out-of-town crowd to that part of Richmond. I mean, it's right by the freakin' airport.

And here's the kicker, courtesy of the AP: Tuesday, Busch again appeared at the Richmond raceway for the Virginia kickoff of "Focus on Driving," Sprint Nextel’s attentive driving education program.

What in the heck is wrong with this family?

You know you might want to dust off your resume when ...

... you have to split your Busch Series ride with Jason Leffler.

The guy now riding in the car pool lane is AJ Foyt IV, who sits 34th in the Busch standings after seven races. In fact, he's the worst-placed driver among those who have run in every Busch race of 2006.

Remind me again why running a Foyt in a stock car is such a good idea?

April 18 update: Looks like AJ4 is out altogether. According to SceneDaily, Foyt is under contract with Evernham, which runs Dodgets. His new Busch ride was a Chevy. Can't have that.

OK, not really. Today's race at Nashville is actually a Busch race. I figured that because this is an off Cup weekend, the Nashville race would be packed with Cup regulars.

Actually, no. The usual Cup crew is there - Harvick, Hamlin, Bowyer and Yeley, the young (and young-ish) guys who are running every race in both series this year. KyBusch, Edwards and Waltrip are racing today, too.

But ...

The Cup guys are in Phoenix on Saturday night.

Kevin Harvick extended his Busch points lead.

A couple of the Drive for Diversity kids raced late models Saturday at Caraway. Brianne Cronrath (female) was 14th. Paul Harraka (Yankee? Not sure why he's part of this group) was ninth out of 16.

Rolex and Grand Am will be at VIR this weekend.

And ... the boss is away this week, which means (as my wife tells my daughter) I'm putting out the whole paper. That's not true, but some days it feels like it.

So what's on your mind? The comments are yours.

The only other newspaper-affiliated non-beat-writer racin' blogger in the world other than me (I think) just happens to work in Arizona.

Jaynelle Ramon of the Arizona Daily Star (that's the Tucson paper) will be there and she'll be blogging the daylights out of it.

She kind of likes Kurt Busch and she doesn't much like Matt Martin, Mark's son. And she's a Jeff Gordon fan.

Someone with that twisted a view of the world has got to be entertaining. She usually doesn't disappoint.

The things you find in other newspapers:

Time for a new game heading into Phoenix:

They say: No panic after Roush crew chief shuffle
I say: Hmmm, maybe he's right. Panic would be dumping crew chiefs after the third race of the season, not the seventh.

Larry Mac says: It's Tony Stewart's championship to lose.
I say: That's bold. But read McReynolds' team recap - it's a strong overview of what's gone on this season.

Courtesy of the Phoenix newspaper, as written for third graders who have never left the comfort and safety of their own homes without their parents. (Bring a jacket and a raincoat. And wear some comfortable shoes. You'll get blisters!)

But based on the pathetic fan support of their local pro football team (that's them at the bottom, below the team that was flooded out of its home dome), maybe the natives do need some guidance.

That was my plan anyway until I saw this at thatsracin.com:

This time, he headed across the track and climbed the fence to celebrate the run.

That's right: After Baby Brother Busch won the pole for Saturday's Cup race, he did a Tony Stewart.

Yeah, yeah, we get it. You were fastest. On an empty track. For one lap. But it's qualifying. Save the celebrations for Saturday night.

Man, we've got to stop this. All this criticism just fuels those guys. Weird.

One of the great mysteries of NASCAR is whatever happened to the Kevin Harvick who fell into the late Dale Earnhardt's ride in 2001 and finished ninth despite missing a race.

Mysterious, too, is what happened to Childress Racing, which was about one season away (this one) for moving into Petty and Wood Bros. territory - that is, a once-great team that will have to file any future race wins under "H" for "Huge Upset."

So are they back? It sure looks like it. Harvick's on a tear - he's won the last three races he has entered, including two Busch races and Saturday's Cup race at Phoenix. And all three of the Childress drivers are in the top 13 and, for now, in the chase for the chase.

Unless Jeff Burton gets smokin' hot and cracks the top 5, Harvick already has my vote for "Most Improved."

More on Harvick:
Career stats here.
Harvick's home page here.
Harvick speaks after the race here.
Diecast Dude compares Harvick to Mark Martin (favorably!) here.
If you missed Jaynelle's reporting from Phoenix, catch up here.

A golf ball apparently isn't the only thing Tiger Woods can drive.

He looks pretty good in the fire suit. Hmmm. I wonder if this guy can move product.

Dustin Long told me yesterday that Junior would be running a tribute-to-his-dad car at Talladega on Sunday. Yesterday, I was Yeah, yeah, it's going to be black and have an 8 on it.

This thing is the second coming of Senior himself. See for yourself.

I'm not sure what to think.

I was stumbling around the Web, looking for something to post, and found this on the Richmond International Raceway site: a poster of sorts that shows the eight Virginians who race in the Busch Series. Three of those guys -- Elliott Sadler (Emporia), Jeff Burton (South Boston) and Denny Hamlin (Chesterfield/Midlothian/Richmond) -- are also Cup regulars.

Then I started thinking about regulars from North Carolina. Sure, most of the drivers live in N.C. But natives? Not so many, relatively speaking.

The latest rumors out there are:

Ricky Rudd, from retirement to Toyota
Casey Mears, from Ganassi to Childress or someone else
Robby Gordon, from Chevy to Toyota
Kevin Harvick and Dale Jarrett are staying put

Marty Smith at nascar.com puts the stories he's spreading into context.

Me? I think Mears needs to cash in on his hot start because I'll be stunned if he's in the top 10 come chase time. As for Rudd, I'm not sure he's a great choice because he hasn't won a race since 2002, and that was at Sonoma. (His last oval win: Richmond in fall 2001). Then again, most of the best drivers are hooked up with rides for 2007, so Toyota doesn't have a whole lot to choose from. Rudd could do.

The recent rumor about one of the Big 3 manufacturers pulling out of NASCAR? Not true, says the AP. Maybe Mike Harris is getting played, but that's what he's writing. Unfortunately the AP's weekly NASCAR notebook is embargoed until Saturday - I'll post the whole thing then.

I think I might head down to Alabama and see if I can get in Saturday's Busch race.

I'm wondering if they'd let me Flintstone my '96 Civic around the track for a lap or two. I'm not sure I could get it up much past 90, even if I caught a good bit of the draft.

We're back to day racing this weekend. Saturday's Busch race and Sunday's Cup races at Talladega will be run in the daylight. I can't say "sunshine" because the weather forecast calls for clouds on Saturday and thundershowers on Sunday.

And if everyone survives - no, I have no idea (and neither does this writer) if taking some of the metal out of the bumpers will make much difference - we'll go on to four straight night races.

This is a great stretch of racin', probably the best until the fall. Enjoy it.

Speaking of nights and Talladega, yep, there's a Web site. If you don't have QuickTime, catch the trailer here.

OK, it's just the trailer, but I've got to say: It looks like the filmakers have caught the look of racin'. Whether they got the feel of it depends on (I think) if you can laugh at NASCAR (I can) and if you can laugh at Will Farrell (I can, most times).

I'm bracing for open season on racing and race fans in August. Expect a lot of laughter in August. Problem is, a lot of people won't be laughing with race fans.

The last -- and maybe most interesting - of the four local short tracks starts its season Saturday night.

The Winston paper has a nice feature today (reg. req.) on Tim Brown, last year's modified division champ. The track site is here.

By "interesting," I don't necessarily mean better. Bowman Gray is the only one of the four main local tracks that features modifieds on pavement in town.

Ace Speedway runs modifieds, but the late model division is the feature race. 311 Speedway runs on dirt. Those two, plus Caraway, are way outside the Big City.

One of these days I'll get to one of these tracks. (I've been to one long ago - I think it was Caraway, but I don't remember.) Which one should I check out first?

Hoo, baby. A public hearing Thursday night on the proposed race track in New York City didn't go so well:

The pandemonium that broke out at last night's city hearing on NASCAR means the proposal for a track on Staten Island now faces an even bigger hurdle.

Pandemonium, as defined by the story in the Staten Island Advance, includes police shutting down the meeting and one of the Staten Island councilmembers getting put in a headlock. (The headlock recipient is against the track.) The whole thing sounded very Springer-esque.

The Staten Island paper also has pictures Scene Daily has more.

I can't tell from the story which way this thing might go, but here are a couple of things to consider after the jump.

When I mentioned esterday that there was a spot still open for Saturday's Busch race, I figured someone would try and grab it.

Someone did: Guy named Randy McDonald, who turned a best lap of 173.519 mph in the No. 28 Chevrolet.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. might not need much drafting help Sunday at Talladega because his team has gotten a lot better since last year.

That's the gist of Dustin Long's story in Saturday's paper.

I'm glad Dustin revisted Earnhardt's preseason prediction that he (Junior, not Dustin) would win 6 or 7 races this season. Junior was talking crazy-talk then - remember 2005? [shudders] - but he doesn't seem that crazy now.

Junior hasn't dominated any races, and he hasn't led a lap since Fontana (check out the far right column). But until last week at Phoenix, when he rear-ended Kyle Petty, Junior hadn't done anything really stupid, either. I'm thinking that Sunday will be Junior's coming out party. Call it a hunch.

Mark Ashenfelter strings together Junior quotes at ESPN.com. And Antonette remembers Dale Earnhardt (today's his day in Mooresville) at her place.