News-Record.com

Sometimes my bosses let me take time off from the sweatshop newspaper, and this coming week is one of them. I'm turning posting duties over to Spotterbot, who's thinking about making this Superlative Week at the Spotter.

Catch you on July 10.

Here's an either-or question: Is Daytona better during the day (as in during the 500) or at night under the lights?

Maybe I'm getting old, but I have a heckuva time figuring out who's who during the night races.

You?

And what did you think of last night's race?

Nine races left before the chase cutoff. Who do you like for the chase?

Remember, Matth Kenseth (who squeezed in last year) was 19th after Daytona last year, 588 points out of first and 240 out of 10th. Anyone within those parameters still has a shot, right?

Me, I think the top 10 we have now would make a pretty decent chase field. No real duds (*cough* Mayfield *cough*) in the bunch.

So who makes your chase?

Go be patriotic - salute a flag and fire up the grill. That, not racing, is your duty today as an American. No racin' talk here today.

Happy 4th!

This week's Cup race is at Chicagoland. There have been five Cup races there so far. (Sunday's will be six.)

The track's Web site is here. ISC owns it. It's 1.5 miles around and looks like a bunch of other tracks on the Cup schedule. It gets one Cup date per year. And that's the sum total of what I know about the place.

Anyone ever been? What's it like? Nice? Or not?

We always seem to talk about drivers, but never crew chiefs. So here's a question: If you could pick any crew chief for your own racin' team, who would it be?

In other words, who's the best active crew chief? The best of all time?

Another non-driver question: If you could drive for any owner out there - and I'm opening it up to IRL, Champ, F1, whatever - who would it be?

In NASCAR, Roush and Hendrick are obvious choices because they have good people, good stuff and they win a lot of races. But Kurt Busch and Brian Vickers thought they would be better off elsewhere, so maybe Roush and Hendrick aren't so obvious choices.

And, obviously, one person's Best Owner of All Time is another person's I'd Kill Myself Before Working for That Owner.

So who would you want to drive for?

I go away for a week and all heck breaks loose.

And I thought last week was going to be the perfect time to get away. Guess not.

Thanks to those of you who played around in the comments. That's what they're there for - for y'all to argue amongst yourselves.

After I dig out from the e-mails -- I'm down to 325 unread -- I'll tell you my harrowing tale of how Jeff Gordon and I share a story in common.

11:05 a.m. update: Maybe Montoya will be at the Busch race in Martinsville on July 22. Looks like he'll have some free time all of a sudden.

Jeff Gordon and I have something in common.

No, it's not two wins in three Nextel Cup races or 75 career Cup wins or a Belgian model fiancee. (Jeff Gordon, not me, has those things I just listed. Just to clarify.)

What we do have in common is a too-close encounter with a chunk of concrete on a Southern road. The only difference was that Gordon was behind the wheel of the No. 24 and I was piloting a 1999 Honda Odyssey van with my wife, three kids and a week's worth of beach junk.

The full saga after the jump ...

Peyton Sellers, from up the road in Danville, Va., will be making his Busch Series debut this weekend at New Hampshire. (Here's the release.)

Sellers tore it up at South Boston last year, a track that played a big role in NASCAR's early days. A good track history is here. In more recent years, both Burtons, both Sadlers, Geoff Bodine, Stacy Compton and Carl Long won races and/or track titles.

Sellers will have a Childress car underneath him. That's a good thing, especially in the Busch Series.

Here's the official Peyton Sellers web site if you want more.

NASCAR usually works something like this:

Driver X runs into Driver Y.
Driver Y gets mad and rightly so.
Driver X pleads his case with the fans and the media.
And sometime between one Sunday and the next, Driver X calls Driver Y, apologizes and everything's cool.

Not so with Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth, apparently, at least not yet. As of Wednesday, three days after using his bumper to move the No. 17 out of his way, Gordon hasn't yet talked to Kenseth. (AP story is here; Scene Daily version is here. It seems to be more of a matter of timing rather than any lingering anger.

So here's my question: Does it matter if Gordon extends some sort of olive branch to Kenseth? What if Gordon had said, "Matt Kenseth can go take a long drive off a short track"?

Better yet, should he?

I'm leaning toward no because NASCAR really needs a good feud about now. Convince me otherwise in the comments.

I forgot to note this Dustin Long notebook from Wednesday's paper about how this might be the silliest silly season ever because of the moves of J.P. Montoya (definitely) and D. Patrick (not likely) to NASCAR in 2007.

My favorite line in all of this comes from the Ft. Worth paper's John Sturbin: Maybe team owner Richard Childress will convince Ricky Bobby to leave the popular No. 26 Wonder Bread Chevy to drive the famed No. 3 GM Goodwrench Monte Carlo.

So what do you think? No, not about Ricky Bobby - about who might end up where next year.

And what about Montoya? Does he have a shot at doing anything in '07? Besides running 2-3 laps down every race, that is.

Yep, that David Gilliland, the guy who just kind of showed up at the Busch race in Kentucky a few weeks back and left with the trophy and the oversized check. It was me and him ... and about 10 or so other people at a crowded Hooters on Wednesday.

The occasion was a pre-Martinsville media lunch. Mike Smith, the PR boss at the track, sets these up before the races so reporters have something to write about and the track gets a little publicity. Everyone wins, right?

On Wednesday, though, Dustin Long was headed to Boston for the Cup race in New Hampshire (he'll cover the Busch race at Martinsville next Saturday). Gilliland wasn't exactly news - I'm glad he's racing up the road next week, but unless he had a 2007 Cup ride to announce he wasn't going to say much. And I'd never met Smith, so I figure I should get off my rear end and check it out. ("Assistant sports editor" is code for "guy chained to desk in Sports department.")

My minute-by-minute (or thereabouts) account of the affair after the jump ...

Kyle Busch won Sunday's race. Yawn.

The big news was what happened to everyone else with a shot at making the chase. Short version: It was craziness -- Biffle's in, Stewart's out, Kyle Busch seems like a lock and Junior's status isn't so certain. (And what's up with that limp, anyway?)

Here's what has happened to some of the drivers in the past three weeks:

Junior - third after Daytona, third after Chicagoland, seventh after New Hampshire
Burton - seventh, fourth, third (!)
Stewart - fifth, seventh, 11th
Jeff Gordon - 12th, 10th, tied for ninth
Denny Hamlin - 10th, 12th, 12th

More like ping pong balls, really.

Last year, I used a post or three on the Tour de France. Jim Young, one of the co-owners of the N&R's SportsExtra blog, is going 24-7 (more or less) on the Tour. Go check it out.

If you missed today's stage, American Floyd Landis is back in the lead. Guess we've found the successor to Lance what's-his-name.

And if you're looking for a car racin' fix, check out the entry list to Saturday's Busch race, which is being run right up the road in Martinsville. And, yes, the No. 99 has a new driver this weekend.

3:15 p.m. update: Scene Daily says Ricky Craven will be driving the No. 14 at Martinsville on Saturday. That's good karma - now if someone would just give Ward Burton a ride for Saturday ...

Elliott Sadler to the No. 19. Guess that means Jeremy Mayfield is going to get fired soon.

Poor Robert Yates Racing - they'll go from two cars with 35 combined wins and one Cup title this year to Stephen Leight in 2007.

If RYR was an NFL team, you'd charitably say 2007 will be a rebuilding year.

Goody's is going to sponsor David Gilliland in Saturday's Busch race at Martinsville. (Story here.)

I guess there was more to that lunch last week than sound bites and chicken wings.

I'm going to the race on Saturday and am 90 percent sure I'm going to live-blog my experience. I've been to two races as a fan (both at Richmond), but none as a journalist. (They rarely let me out - my minders always mutter something about fresh air being bad for assistant sports editors.)

Anything in particular you want to read about?

The last time the Busch Series pulled into Martinsville, it was the fall of 1994, or nearly 12 years ago.

Okay, close your eyes and think back to 1994. (Just pretend to close your eyes - otherwise you won't be able to read this.) Remember what racing was like back then? Don't remember? Okay, prepare for your mind to be blown.

After the jump, of course ...

Not so good - 60 percent chance of rain Saturday in Martinsville.

I'm still going and, if the technology allows (meaning if I can get and properly use a laptop), I'm still planning to live blog it. And, yeah, I'll try one of the hot dogs. (Which raises the question: Why don't I live closer to a track known for, say, hamburgers or steak or chocolate chip cookies?)

More on topic: Who's going to win this thing? Yeah, yeah, picking a winner at any Cup or Busch race is a losing proposition, so maybe the better question is, will a Cup regular, a Busch regular or someone else win? Any thoughts? My sentimental favorite is Ricky Craven - glad to see he has a ride this weekend.

I know, I know, it's only bike racin'. But what happened today in the Tour de France was ... epic. The best car racin' parallal would be a driver who came from 3 or 4 laps down to win a race.

Here's the wire story. Jim Young blogs the day over at Sports Extra. If you want to see all of the human emotions on display -- courage, fear, strength, agony, panic, despair, joy - you owe it to yourself to watch a repeat of the race coverage tonight on OLN.

You'll never guess which past champ was turning laps Thursday at Martinsville in a Busch car:

Rusty Wallace.

Dustin Long e-mailed to say that Rusty's son Stephen is driving this weekend, and Rusty was there for Thursday's testing. It was Rusty's first time in a stock car since Homestead 2005, the last race of a long (and good) racin' career. Rusty said he's had people talk to him about coming back to race, but he won't - his ESPN/ABC contract forbids it, and Rusty said he's cool with that.

But you've got to wonder what will be going through Rusty's mind when he sees Darrell Waltrip wheeling the 99 through the turns at Martinsville on Saturday. It'll probably something along the lines of, I could take that guy.

In honor of yesterday's Busch testing at Martinsville, I figured I'd test out this laptop before I hauled it up to the track Saturday.

Seems to work OK.

While I'm working out the bugs ("This thing's a little loose in the middle - how 'bout tight'ning it up?"), go read Dustin's report on yesterday's test session. Also make sure to check out the updated entry list for Saturday's race.

Welcome to live blogging of the Goody's 250 from Martinsville Speedway. I'll be writing as we go, so refresh the page often.

12:20 p.m.: Qualifying is underway. Kevin Harvick led off.
Although some of the Cup regulars were expected to miss qualifying -- they're in Pocono, after all -- Harvick figured getting up early was better than putting his Busch points lead in jeopardy.

12:25 p.m.: 12 cars have qualified - Hamlin has the pole, Harvick is 2nd. DW, who struggled in turns 3 and 4 ("He's getting old!" Ed Hardin said), is 11th out of 12. Good thing his brother has all of those owner points.

More after the jump ...

2 p.m.: I'm back. Let me digest these hot dogs ...

2:15 p.m.: Lunch came with a show. While I was eating, the crews moved the cars into position and set up their pits. Pole-sitter Clint Bowyer took the last pit, which is all the way up in Turn 2. (Hamlin, one of the Sauters, Danny O'Quinn, Biffle and Matt McCall are right in front of me.) It's starting to look like a race - fans are starting to show up, but I wouldn't say the crowd count is at 10K yet.

2:20 p.m.: I had a nice long chat with Tim Tuttle about racin'. He writes for si.com - here is his latest about Ford and Roush.

2:23 p.m.: Pace truck is making laps. I think it beat the old track record, too.

2:25 p.m.: I think I've recovered enough from the shock of a Martinsville hot dog to write about it. It's as red as everyone has said, a red not found in nature. (Imagine mixing Bud No. 8 red with pink, and you're close.) The thing they don't tell you - this sucker is heavy. I loaded mine with chili and cole slaw (my stomach couldn't handle mustard and onions, too.) One's a meal. I had two. Not bad at all.

More after the jump ...

Actually, make that a lot of yellow - four in about 40 laps, thanks mostly to Steve Wallace, who brought out 2 of the 3. Carl Long was the first guy out of the race - he just gave up. A few guys you've never heard of are in the garage.

The thing about live racing that's frustrating is that you miss most of the action - i.e. the wrecks - because you don't see them four or five times each thanks to instant replay. The fun part is that you're able to follow a car for an entire lap or three.. So far I've been watching Paul Menard hold off Carl Edwards, David Gilliland try to get past Boris Said and DW just miss getting lapped.

And did I mention that it's LOUD? Good lord I forgot how loud a race is.

4:20 p.m.: This should be interesting - all of the leaders came in on lap 80, and I'm guessing they'll try to run 170 laps on the tires they just put on. Paul Menard stays out to get his five points. Why not?

4:29 p.m.: I'm really glad there are TVs up here - all I saw of the Busch-Yeley wreck just now was the two cars parked in the middle of turn 4. Even better, the sound's down, and they 're pumping in the radio feed.

4:31 p.m.: The yellow of leader's Paul Menard car is way brighter than it appears on TV. If it were red, it would be a Martinsville hot dog.

4:33 p.m.: Biffle's really struggling after hitting the wall. His car has tape all over the back. On his most recent pit stop, he punched it coming out of his pit box and nearly hit another car.

More after the jump ...

This is post-race bloggin', not live. Live-ish. Here goes:

5:10 p.m.: N&R summer intern Tom Keller and I catch a ride to the infield tunnel. A guy from Raceway Ministries gave us a lift in a golf cart. I wasn't buying what he was selling today, but he was a blessing. Plus, it was hot.

5:15 p.m.: Between the press box and the infield (the access tunnel is in turn 4), we've gotten two more cautions. This is getting silly. (Even if you can't see a crash, you can heare it because the noise goes from RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROAAAAR to just ROOOOOOOar.) We check out what's left of David Gilliland's No. 84, which is parked between the haulers and the garage. It's a mess.

5:22 p.m.: Now that the field is thinning out, we stake out a spot along pit road to catch the end of the race. The two teams between Boris Said and Regan Smith are gone, so there's a nice wide spot to stand. About 20 other people are there, including (I think) Danielle Frey of MRN.

5:23 p.m.: David Green's No. 27 comes by with the hood covering the windshield. Not sure I've ever seen that.

More after the jump ...

6 p.m.: Denny Hamlin's in the media center. No one has many questions - the guy finished third, after all, not first. All of Hamlin's answers are pumped up to the press box upstairs. Those folks can ask questions, too. Hamlin answers a couple and leaves.

6:02 p.m.: Bowyer shows up with a couple of press people. (Hamlin didn't have an entourage.) He's pretty ticked - this week, he had to chase his teammate around the track. Last week, he had a winning car but got caught on an ill-timed caution. (In other words, two weeks, two great cars, no wins.) During a lull in the questioning, Bowyer stands up like he's about to go. Not so fast, mister, and reporters get a couple of more questions in. He ends his session this way: "About all you can say is frustrating. ... I'm glad to be going back (to Pocono tonight). I'm tired of losing."

6:10 p.m.: Harvick comes in smelling of beer. ("That's the smell of victory," Tom Keller says later.) Where Bowyer was ticked, Harvick was conciliatory. They worked together as teammates, he said (meaning that Bowyer didn't try to wreck him). Harvick said showing up for qualifying today was important ("If we didn't qualify, I don't think we win the race") and that leaving early today from Pocono was the key ("I've been to Pocono several times and seen the fog roll in.").

So after today (Harvick won his fourth race of the year and leads Carl Edwards by a stout 348 points), a reporter wanted to know, can Harvick lose the points title? "Absolutely," Harvick said. "We made up 600 points on Matt Kenseth in 2003. ... You can lose 'em faster than you gain 'em, that's for sure."

6:30 p.m.: And that was about it. I wandered around the infield for a bit, then headed back up to the press box. It's a long walk, and this is a short track. At tracks like Talladega, I think Dustin drives between the two.

7:25 p.m.: I wrap up this post and notice that most of the haulers are gone - Harvick, Bowyer and a couple of others are gone, but the teams waste no time getting out of here. Yep - another track record. I'll wrap this up tomorrow. Time for me to haul myself home.

7:30 p.m.: A day at Martinsville wouldn't be complete without a train sighting - and here's one, the second train of the day to come through. This is just a bunch of engines, but still - it's a train. And, yeah, I'm still feeling that hotdog. I think I'm going to skip dinner.

Monday update: In case you missed Sunday's paper, here's the main race story from Jared Turner, a Roanoke Times news reporter who turned in a stout effort Saturday. Dustin Long's notebook from the track focused on Bowyer's runner-up effort.

A couple of days ago, after the Martinsville Busch race, someone asked Kevin Harvick if he could lose the Busch championship.

His reply: Absolutely. "You can lose 'em faster than you gain 'em, that's for sure," he said.

Just ask the driver of the No. 8 car. Two weeks ago after Chicagoland, Junior was third in points and looking like a lock for the chase. (I don't know how he felt. I felt good.) And then disaster - two straight finishes of dead-last 43rd, and he fell from third to 11th with a one-week stop at 7th.

The question isn't, Is it time to panic? It's, What took me so long?

P.S. Junior told NASCAR.com he's going to enjoy his week off at the beach. I really hope he spends some of that time digging for horse shoes or 4-leaf clovers or building a lucky sand castle.

The facts aren't in dispute: Tony Stewart turned left a little harder coming out of Turn 3 on Sunday and hit Clint Bowyer, who spun and took Carl Edwards with him.

What everyone's going to spend this week's off week arguing is why Stewart did it, who owes who, what NASCAR should do (if anything) about it and WWDHD (What would Dale had done?)

The hand-wringing isn't surprising. Stewart seems out of control, and Bowyer and Edwards are being simultaneously cast as both innocent victims and noobs who need some remedial driving courses (Bowyer) or anger management classes (Edwards). Sure, the episode gives everyone something to talk about, but let's face it: How much do you have to say about Denny Hamlin's complete domination of Pocono this season other than Wow! IHamlin has led 6,000 miles of racing at Pocono this year. He's scary good there - no arguing that.

So would you rather talk about the wunderkind or racin's enfant terrible? Yep, thought so. More on Stewart after the jump.

Subhead: Why I like me some of the in-car radio chatter. From Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s post-race report:

Dale Jr. likes to know what's happening with other cars and drivers around the track. Here was an exchange during a yellow flag period that began on lap 67.

Steve Hmiel: (spotter): "Junior, the 99 (Edwards) is being penalized. They're gonna hold him a lap. He was in that deal earlier with the 20 (T. Stewart), so he spun him out on pit lane."

Dale Jr: "WOW!"

Hmiel: "Yeah, you miss a lot being behind the wheel."

Dale Jr: "Hah. Thanks for tellin' me. That's pretty cool. ... Ya heard that the 99 went up to the 20 after the race a few races back. Said he was gonna kick his @ss."

Hmiel: "If physical conditioning means anything, I'd have to go with Carl."

Dale Jr: "Hah. Yeah if it gets to the seventh or eighth round. But it'd be interesting for the first few rounds."

Make of it what you want.

Here's Tony Stewart's Monday afternoon statement about what happened Sunday:

COLUMBUS, Ind., (July 24, 2006) - The following is a statement from NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series driver Tony Stewart regarding the lap 32 incident in Sunday's Pennsylvania 500 that involved Stewart, Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards.

"I'm taking 100 percent responsibility for the final incident that occurred on lap 32 between myself, the 07 (Bowyer) and the 99 (Edwards). It was totally my fault.

"At the same time, there were circumstances that led up to that wreck, and after talking with Clint this morning, we both have a better understanding as to what happened. He was trying to get out of my way and didn't realize that I had gone to the outside. He thought I was to his inside, and when he tried to give me some room, he slid into us and it put us into the outside wall. I reacted, causing the wreck that I take responsibility for and regret."

David Poole of the Charlotte paper has more: "Stewart is absolutely right to say Bowyer was being too aggressive for it to be so early in the race. ... (But) four cars ended up with a bad day because Stewart wasn't willing to consider the possibility that Bowyer might have simply overdriven the corner and made a mistake."

Any other angles that haven't yet been covered? And how long will people be talking about this? I give it until Thursday before we everyone gets truly tired of it.

This story about how Kurt Busch met fiancee-and-soon-to-be-wife Eva Bryan almost makes me like the driver of the No. 2. The key ingredients to this tale: cat pictures, a rental car running over a briefcase and a spotter playing matchmaker.

Hmmm, a spotter. Maybe that's why I like this story. Still, the story is capital-C cute. Best wishes to them both.

More elsewhere:
Blind Date Leads to Wedding Vows for Kurt Busch and Eva Bryan from the propagandists at Penske
Kurt Busch talks about the upcoming event on last week's pre-Pocono teleconference.

Today's news: Benny Parsons has lung cancer. However, he won't be missing any time away from the booth.

Parsons drives me nuts sometimes ("Jamie MAC-murray"), but I've really enjoyed the Parsons chapters in Peter Golenbock's NASCAR Confidential. (The book is an oral history and not any sort of scandal rag, by the way.)

In any case, Parsons doesn't deserve lung cancer. No one does. Live strong for BP, NASCAR Nation.

Full release about Parsons and his condition after the jump.

That was a portion of the headline we ran in today's paper over Ed Hardin's column over the whole Tony Stewart episode.

Here's how Ed, who covered NASCAR back in the day, starts out:

Tony Stewart might be the best driver on the Nextel Cup tour, as some people say, and he might be the biggest star in the stock-car series, as some people insist, but he's also the most dangerous, as some people find out the hard way.

He's in the news again, not for winning a race or a championship and not for climbing a fence and jumping into the stands. He's in the news again because he's the biggest jerk in racing.

And that's from his fellow competitors.

Strong stuff that gets stronger. Go read the rest.

July is a chronically slow time in the sports world. Which is why I shouldn't have been surprised to see Danica Patrick's face peering back at me from the Sports fronts of both the Charlotte and Winston-Salem papers.

But I was. And these were life-sized pictures, just about. Both papers put Danica in the centerpiece spot. (The centerpiece of a newspaper page is sort of what it sounds like - whatever story has the biggest photo or graphic, that's the centerpiece.) It's a newspaper's way of saying, "Hey! Look! This is important!"

Me? We had Danica as the second item in the NASCAR Notes package on page 6. Here's my thinking:

1. We had already reported that Danica was pretty sure she was staying in IRL and - guess what - she's staying.
2. We (meaning the News & Record) care almost nothing about the IRL - relative to NASCAR, anyway.
3. Her move to Andretti Green had been rumored anyway.
4. In a year and a half, Patrick hasn't been close to winning anything.
5. Any driver ranked ninth in an open-wheel racing series doesn't deserve Sports front treatment.
6. We had five other staff-written local (more or less) stories, and the Hardin column was more interesting and unique to the N&R than a Danica Patrick story that broke at 2 p.m. yesterday.

So what am I missing?

Who knew racin' could be so funny?

First: Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Aug. 10. (Here's the release.) I suspect Junior will get off a little easier than Brian Vickers.

Second: Ricky Bobby has written a column for The Sporting News. It's after the jump, and it's a tad on the PG side.

I still haven't decided if I meant "funny" in its literal or sarcastic sense. Heck, I'm not sure if either item is funny ha-ha or funny strange. See what happens when there's an off week in Cup?

Our friends at www.racing-reference.com have moved to www.racing-reference.info. I have no idea why you'd drop a .com for a .info - maybe it's like running half a groove higher at Michigan or something. But make a note of it - that's one great site.

In any case, I was wandering around over there looking for some stats on our Sunday Interview candidate, Jeff Burton. Can you believe it's been five years since he won a Cup race? The last time he was in victory lane was Oct. 2001 at Phoenix. As Dustin Long points out, only Greg Biffle has more points than Burton over the past 10 races. no driver has scored more points than Burton over the past 10 races. (Burton scored 1,464, thanks to 8 top-10 finishes; Biffle had 1,434 points. Jimmie Johnson got 1,418 points).

12:45 p.m. update: I corrected the last-10-race point totals above. Dustin gave me those numbers before Pocono and I forgot to update them.

Charlotte's David Poole erases the incomplete from his report card by issuing his midterm report card on the Cup drivers. Surprise, surprise - points leader Jimmie Johnson and No. 2 Matt Kenseth get As. And it goes on from there. Anything to fill space on an off week, I guess.

SI takes a similar approach: Lars Anderson picks JJ as his driver of the year (so far).

Back to the present day, here's the entry list for Saturday's Busch race. Steve Park and Erin Crocker are the oh-here-they-are names on the list.

More randomness later. That's what you get when I'm trying to do 12 things at once.

Sorry, Yankees who read this blog, but ABC and ESPN don't like Pocono either.

Today's word: The 2007 Brickyard will be on July 29, a week earlier than usual, because ESPN wants to start its portion of the broadcast season in Indiana instead of Pennsylvania.

Best I can tell, July 2007 will look something like this:
July 1: New Hampshire
July 7: Daytona
July 15: Chicagoland
July 22: Off week (so the new Busch race in Montreal will attract some Cupsters)
July 29: Indy (ESPN will show this race)
Aug. 5: Pocono

Most of the above (except the Indy date, it appears) is just a big fat guess because NASCAR hasn't released its 2007 schedule. But I don't think anyone's expecting a major overhaul, least of all the networks that just shelled out all that money in rights fees.

The Lynchburg (Va.) paper is running a five-part series on some of the short tracks in that area. The paper started this past Sunday with South Boston. Your best bet is to start here and scroll down to July 23. If you like what you read, go back there on Sunday and catch part 2.

(Yeah, I know this is another random post appropos of nothing. I told you it was that kind of day.)

I'm jealous, I guess. Not only did this guy get mentioned ahead of this guy (me) in this story, the source of the ranking mentioned above got 80 bazillion comments on her take on the Gordon-Kenseth get-together at Chicagoland.

So maybe I'll cash in on the same Gordon-Kenseth mojo by mentioning this little episode over the weekend. Playing the role of "Jeff Gordon" in this brawl is Alex Tagliani (because he's wearing a helmet); playing "Matt Kenseth" (the guy with no helmet) is Paul Tracy. The video is here; click on "Road (course) rage."

Beyond that, I couldn't tell you anything about the 2006 CART Champ Car season other than the fact that Paul Tracy has been rumored to be heading to NASCAR for a while now. That, and the fact that Tracy's little driving move was pretty sloppy.