News-Record.com

I'd love to be the fly on the wall (or the bug on the phone tap or the potted plant in the corner) at Robert Yates Racing.

The team already knows that it'll lose both of its Cup drivers in 2007, Dale Jarrett (to Michael Waltrip's Toyota team) and Elliott Sadler (probably to the No. 19 Dodge - Mayfield's ride - at Evernham). UPS is going with Jarrett.

So what does Robert Yates do? First he hints that 19-year-old Stephen "Speed of" Leicht will probably drive one of those cars next year. Then on Monday Yates dumped his two Cup crew chiefs that he had just hired in December. (Maybe "dumped" is too strong a word. It sounds like Tommy Baldwin had something worked out already with Bill Davis Racing. But Slugger Labbe was unemployed Monday night, which suggests to me anyway that he got canned.)

And, oh yeah, one-hit Busch wonder David Gilliland might be the second Yates driver in 2007.

What in the holy H-e-double-L is going on over at Yates? I mean, teams ebb and flow. Roush and Hendrick once struggled, DEI used to rule the restrictor plates, and Petty Enterprises and the Wood Bros. used to win more than once a decade. But I can't recall a team of such prominence falling so far so fast.

And what good are the hot-shot Yates engines if the team doesn't have anyone to set up or drive the cars?

More:
Marty Snider at nascar.com: "There was just an overwhelming sense to both Robert and Doug Yates that these were (former GM Eddie) D'Hondt's buddies and part of the old regime."

Jeff Hammond at Fox Sports: "Sometimes, renovation means tearing down rather than replacing."

Jayski (because I missed this one last week): Yates could add a third team with either Ricky Rudd or Ward Burton behind the wheel.

Want to see someone go crazy? Go over to the Diecast Dude's site, find the comments and write "The New York Times."

You'll hear the screams all the way from the West Coast.

Jerry is pretty alert for perceived bias against drivers and racin' in general, and his specific target is more often than not the N.Y. Times, the Yankees (or the Great Satan) of print journalism. Yesterday, for instance, he ripped the Paper of Record for a story about The Sporting News' quote-unquote coverage of "Talladega Nights." (I thought the Ricky Bobby column was clever. But give away the N&R's Sports space for that? Not a chance.)

What chaps me about the Times is even more basic: its weird style quirks. For years it referred to pop star Madonna as "Ms. Ciccone" and U2 lead singer Bono as "Mr. Hewson." Every last name, you see, had to be preceded by an honorific, and "Miss Madonna" wasn't quite accurrate and .. These are the things upon which two-page memos and newspaper subcommittees are built upon.

But the thing that really gets me is when the Times calls it Nascar. It's NASCAR, all capital letters, which stands for the National Association of etc. etc. etc. It's an acronym, like NATO and OPEC or NAMBLA.

I suspect that around the halls of 229 West 43rd St. that there's more money riding on Harvard-Yale football and Head of the Charles than there is on the outcome of the NASCAR chase. But that's no reason to refer to the sport as Nascar. They don't call it the Nfl, do they?

More:
"Hey, Sports Fans! You're Stupid" by the Diecast Dude, 7/31/2006
"Ad or Editorial Content? Readers Must Figure It Out" by Maria Aspan, 7/31/2006 (reg. req.)
"In Search of Diversity, Nascar has a prospect," Viv Bernstein, 7/31/2006 (reg. req.)

Because a commenter in the previous thread is busting my chops about it(he's partly right) and because it's too hot in here to do real work (the AC is down, and, boy, is it hot here), here are the PROJECTED green flag times for the upcoming Nextel Cup races:

Indy: 2:40 p.m.
Watkins Glen: 1:35 p.m.
Michigan: 2:30 p.m.
Bristol: 7:40 p.m.
California: 8:05 p.m.

All of these times are from NASCAR's media site. (NASCAR issues a complete weekend schedule several weeks before each race).

Some caveats:
(1) If there's a threat of rain, NASCAR might start the race earlier.
(2) If there's blinding sunshine, NASCAR might start the race later.
(3) NASCAR might change the starting time for whatever reason seems right at the time and to whatever time seems good to them.

One of the issues we deal with as a paper is, when exactly does the race start? I'll explain after the jump.

Courtesy of ESPN's SportsCenter, which will do a segment on this tonight at 6 p.m.:

SPORTSCENTER’S TOP 10 AUTO RACING MELTOWNS
1. Cale Yarborough vs. The Allison Brothers at Daytona (1979)
2. A.J. Foyt slapping Arie Luyendyk at Texas (1997)
3. Kevin Harvick jumps on Greg Biffle's car at Bristol - Busch Series race (2002)
4. Rusty Wallace's team vs. Darrell Waltrip's team at the Winston (1989)
5. Jeff Gordon vs. Tony Stewart in garage at Watkins Glen (2000)
6. Robby Gordon hurls helmet at Michael Waltrip (2005)
7. Nelson Piquet vs. Eliseo Salazar at German GP (1982)
8. Girlfriends fight (Biffle and Kurt Busch) at Texas (2006)
9. Jeff Gordon vs. Dale Jarrett at Martinsville (1999)
10. Danica Patrick at Michigan (2006)

What? No Kenseth-Gordon? Ah well.

The message, of course, is that fightin' (not rubbin') is racin'. That's a little simplistic, but it's timely after the Tracy-Tagliani brawl after Sunday's Champ Car race.

And it's accurage, too, in its crudest form. Let's face it - NASCAR is a lot like WWE, but at 200 mph - oversized personalities battling it out to settle old scores and reign supreme.

Which reminds me - when is the Stewart-Bowyer-Edwards cage match going to be on PPV?

Jeff Owens at the Scenedaily.com blog: "Maybe it's time for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to think about a career change."

Wha ... wha ... WHAT???!!

If you can keep conscious after that opening salvo, Owens continues: "Maybe one that includes him driving for another team. Maybe it’s time to think seriously about that long-rumored move to Richard Childress Racing."

Ah. That's better. But not by much.

More after the jump ...

Here's my thesis: The better a newspaper gets NASCAR, the worse its review of Talladega Nights is. The flip is true, too: The better reviews are coming from papers that don't know NASCAR (or Nascar) from CASCAR, ASCAP or NAMBLA.

Crazy, I know. But I saw a couple of early reviews from papers that have movie critics but not racin' writers, and the reviews were generally pretty good.

I cut and paste some blurbs after the jump. See how well my theory held up.

Ack. Can't believe I forgot to mention this little piece we had in Friday's paper.

NASCAR is starting to float some trial balloons about changing the chase in 2007. Among the balloons:

* A wild card; the driver(s) outside the top 10 with the most wins get in
* More points to race winners
* A bigger spread between 1st and 2nd in standings going into the chase itself

Y'all have anything else? Keep in mind that some of these balloons have more helium in them than others.

Here's what I get for missing all but the last 20 laps of Sunday's race:

* I thought Junior finished sixth because he had a good car all day

* I thought Kasey Kahne picked an odd time to practice his right-hand turns. Watkins Glen isn't until next weekend.

* I thought NASCAR had done away with its green-white-checker rule. Either that, or I don't understand it.

After reading Dustin Long's story in today's paper (notes are here), I'd have to say in hindsight I missed an interesting race.

So what did y'all think? Anything really stand out? And did anyone see the Ricky Bobby movie? I know some of you (lots of you, actually)did.

Charlotte Observer racin' writer/columnist David Poole, playing the role of defensive tackle, gets hit with a crackback block of truth here (third item).

What did you expect, journalism? If that's what you thought you were going to get, then I guess you can argue with a straight face that ESPN's renewed interest in racin' has everything to do what the public wants to hear about and nothing to do with ... oh, never mind.

After last week's discussion of race start times (in comments here; a full post on it here), I wanted to share this e-mail I got from Dustin at 10:25 a.m. Sunday:

"Saturday, they listed the green flag time for the Brickyard race at 2:40 p.m. We just have now been given a revised sked that lists the starting time as 2:50 p.m."

Sigh.

We'll continue to put starting times in the paper. I'll just have to remember to put a big fat asterisk by them. And there's no telling what ABC/ESPN will do next year.

If there's anyone local reading this, I'd like to know if you saw an extra emphasis on the start times in the paper. Did it work for you?

Holy mother of ... I agree with Charlotte Observer's David Poole.

The headline of his blog post today: "It’s time for Bill Weber to stop bringing up the Hendrick plane crash when Johnson is about to do something special."

Yeah, yeah, I know I pick on the guy a lot (like, just yesterday, in fact). But, man, Poole nailed this one.

Poole is back to his usual tricks, though, in Tuesday's paper. That Matt Kenseth comment in his column really deserves a follow-up.

Holy cow: 50 drivers entered for Watkins Glen.

You've got some usual ringers (Said, Fellows, Simo), some wannabes/soon-to-bes (Ash, Menard), a past champ who can't use the past champions provisional after all (Elliott) and a few random guys (like David Murry and Johnny Miller).

Sports car star Max Papis will race Cup, or at least try to. And speaking of try to, Cup regulars Scott Wimmer and Michael Waltrip are outside the top 35, which means they'll need to qualify on time.

The big story from yesterday, of course, is who won't be racing Sunday.

Here's the entry list. See what other story lines develop -- other than the obvious one, that is.

P.S. If I'm Greg "I've never finished better than 30th at the Glen" Biffle, I'm really nervous about now.

The new infield setup at the Vegas track has a new name: Neon Garage.

Hard to believe that's not already taken by one of those reality car fixer-upper shows that bore the everlasting crud out of me.

Speaking of Vegas, Kurt Busch turned a few laps there yesterday and said the new track is wicked fast. Twenty-degree banking (it was 12) will do that. Somewhere else (here), Busch predicts that the track qualifying record of 175 mph (Kahne, 2004) will be raised by 5-10 mph. That's flyin'. Call me curious.

The boss is out today, and I'm starting to feel the crush of the weekend papers, so I'll leave you the words of others:

Jeff Hammond: Robby Gordon could win Sunday (link)

Dale Earnhardt Jr: Mark McFarland didn't turn out to be a very good Busch driver. (link)

David Poole: If I put this in the paper, maybe Dick Ebersol will stop bugging me. (second item)

Lewis Franck at SI: Hey, kids! Remember Rodney Dangerfield? Jimmie Johnson probably doesn't. But he deserves respect, too. And I need more current pop culture references. (link)

The Unser Brothers: Yeah, I see that roadblock. I also see that it's blocking the road leading to my house. (link)

And, finally, the Diecast Dude channels the Bard. Yea, it getteth good.

The things you get over the e-mail transom. This came from the folks at Daytona International Speedway:

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 11, 2006) – The IndyCar Series and Daytona International Speedway are in discussions regarding a compatibility test at Daytona International Speedway in September.

The potential visit would allow IndyCar Series officials to determine the possibility of Daytona International Speedway to serve as a preseason testing venue.

...

The potential compatibility test could allow series officials to see transitions onto the banking, tire wear/side loads and braking zones while looking for any challenging surface areas on the track.

etc. etc.

Can they put restrictor plates in one of those tiny Indy cars? Otherwise one of them might break the sound barrier.

... because he'll remind you who's boss.

Just ask Jeremy Mayfield, who today became an ex-Evernham employee.

Sure, it's bad form to talk smack in public about your boss, and Mayfield called him out good a month ago. But Evernham bears some culpability here: By swapping crew chiefs and splitting the crew chief into three separate jobs, he managed to turn the No. 19 crew, which made the Chase (barely, but still) twice in two years, into a team that even Ken Schrader would be embarrassed to drive for.

Maybe it's a case of short-term pain to make his teams better over the long haul. If I'm Ray Evernham, I'm hitching my wagon to Kahne, who has four wins this season, a ton of talent and even more potential.

But as Jeff Burton said the other day: "I believe that at this level, Bobby Labonte hasn't forgotten how to drive. You give him a car that will go around the racetrack fast, and he'll go around the racetrack fast in it. I believe the same thing about myself. I believe the same thing about Mark Martin and the same thing about Kasey Kahne and many others. The reality of it is, a driver can't put it up on his shoulders anymore. He can certainly have an impact. But the equipment is so important. It's so important."

I suspect you could put Jeremy Mayfield on this list. A guy just doesn't forget how to drive so quickly.

A lot of fun stuff happened on the track this week. Who knew ...

... that RCR was going to be so good this year? Harvick is third, Burton is fourth, and Childress is proof that you can have a second act in racing. (Race story here.)

... that Robby Gordon was still racing? He hasn't cracked the top 10 in Cup since Talladega, but this weekend at Watkins Glen he was part of two exciting finishes. Make sure to watch the Busch finish - I'm still not sure how Gordon and Kurt Busch survived that last lap. And who knew that the DEI engines were a little weak this year? Oh, wait, we already knew that.

... that Kurt Busch could turn right? He definitely had the car to beat Saturday and Sunday. And who knew he could drive a stock car 400 mph? Not that it will help him make the Chase.

... that Kasey Kahne keeps a snake in his car? That sucker manages to get loose on the last lap and bite him in the you-know. .Here's what happened in case you missed NBC's recap

... that AJ Allmendinger has become the patron saint for Jeremy Mayfield? Man, what a great story that would be.

So what else did you learn this weekend? My head's all swollen.

NASCAR has nothing on the 12-round brawl that will be Thanksgiving dinner at the Lasoski household.

SPEED has the video from the 46th annual Knoxville Nationals; click on "Free Videos," then "Knoxville Nationals."

Wow.

One of my least favorite things about watching football on TV is the instant replay. Sure, I like seeing scoring plays and big hits and things like that. It's the ruling plays that get to me. ("If you look at it from this angle, you'll see both feet are down. From this angle, it's not so clear. Let's look at another angle ... zzzzz.)

Which is why the Kurt Busch thing in Sunday's race was so odd. NASCAR has so few on-the-field calls (compared to football, baseball or any other stick-and-ball sport) that this whole was-he-in-the-pits-in-time-or-not thing is just weird. I hadn't seen that much use of replay since, well, the Super Bowl.

I think NASCAR enforced the rule as written correctly, and Busch, who clearly had the car to beat, just plain unluckly. Charlotte's David Poole puts on his columnist's hat and agrees. (Poole, meanwhile, either got stuck in a crappy hotel or had to wait in line for dinner, or both (third item).) Jeff Hammond wonders if NASCAR needs some sort of big yellow flag or loud whistle.

So what do you think? Do you think the rule is fair? Do you think Busch got screwed? Or do you think Busch got what he deserved because he's Kurt Busch and you spent most of Sunday afternoon laughing at him?

Boy, this took a long time: Elliott Sadler is finally out of his Yates deal and will be driving for Evernham this weekend at Michigan. (Some lucky flak gets a nickel every time you click on the official release.)

The change means that Sadler goes from the No. 38 (Yates) to the No. 19 (Evernham). Coincidently, 38 divided by 2 is 19. Now I'm wondering who owns the rights to the No. 9.5 car.

Speaking of silly, Dustin Long digs into some numbers from 2004 and 2005 and suggests that the two main RCR cars are the favorites not just to make the Chase but to win it. (Story here.) I call that silly because nobody had Harvick, much left Burton, on their list of preseason favorites.

Some of the best moments I had as a reporter was getting ahold of official documents. The gold standard among them were court records, which would lay out in pretty precise detail each party's side of whatever issue they were debating. Trial testimony and depositions were especially good because of the threat of perjury, something I wish I had sometimes in my dealings with school superintendents, education bureaucrats and various and sundry other political creatures.

Racin', like everything else in this hyperlitigious world we live in, isn't out of reach of the long arm of the law, or at least civil court. And for those of you who like racin' dirt, Shane Hmiel and Jeremy Mayfield give it to you by the bucketful. And it's all in the court records.

More after the jump ...

Apparently I'm the only race fan in the world who hasn't seen this video clip. So for anyone else who has missed it, here you go.

The action starts at about the 3:20 mark - look to the right of the clip.

See if you can figure out who sponsored this little stunt. Hint: The company's name is mentioned so often that even a primary NASCAR sponsor would blush.

I'm the proverbial loose on entry, tight in the middle and loose on exit - in other words, a piece of junk.

Y'all talk about Michigan, Mayfield, the Chase, me, whatever. Just talk. What should I be watching for this weekend? Any Chase predictions?

Make sure to check the paper (or Web site) Sunday. Dustin has something super cool coming out.

Sunday update: To be a little more clear, I spent Friday getting ready for high school football (the season started Friday, and the games don't cover themselves), edit Dustin's Sunday story (see the next post) and help figure out what was going to be in the weekend papers. So, no, I didn't have time to blog.

I guess I could have predicted that David Gilliland was going to wreck himself in practice, but that would have been showin' off. No way would I have guessed that Michigan fans would boo the heck out of Junior after the Busch race. Who knew that Carl Edwards was so popular?

A couple of things you should check out from today's paper:

The first is Dustin Long's piece on the family of Matt DiBenedetto, a 15-year-old who moved to Hickory from California in hopes of getting a shot at racin's big time. (The story is here.) The money graf:

The appliance repairman left behind three grown children when he moved his wife and youngest son from Northern California to Hickory two years ago to help Matt's racing career. Tony's wife, Sandy, estimates they have spent more than $100,000 on Matt's quest.

Now it's up to Matt.

The 100-pound teenager with braces must show NASCAR Nextel Cup teams he's worth a driver development contract that could take him to the Cup series. If not, someone else will get that contract.

It's one of those stories that reminds you that for every Jeff Gordon, there's 100 (or more) Buckshot Joneses or Casey Atwoods.

Next, Ed Hardin has some fun with the Mayfield-Evernham feud. ("As the Steering Wheel Turns" is here.) Ed compares it to backfence gossip, but with lots of money and careers at stake.

And, oh, yeah, JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNIOR!

Monday update: Dustin follows up on Matt D. at Hickory: "Matt DiBenedetto got taken out last night while running third when two lapped played Dale Jr and Carl Edwards and took each other out in an act of revenge and the accident collected Matt. He finished 10th and lost the points lead." Here's the track Web site in case you're interested.

The boss is going to be gone this week, and Bristol is Saturday, and there's another week of this life-force-sucking high school football coming up again on Friday.

So, yeah, I guess I need you to help me do my job. (See the comments - a real live troll who I think wandered over from the Chalkboard.) I'm busy. So sue me.

Some random thoughts for you to chew on:
* It sucks to be Carl Edwards right about now - booted on Saturday, 22nd on Sunday, 244 points out of 10th.
* David "Now with 12 lifetime Cup and Busch starts" Gilliland has no business driving a Cup car right now, especially at a place as fast as Michigan.
* If the chase ended today, the list of drivers who have made all four Chases would be cut to four: J. Johnson, M. Kenseth, M. Martin and T. Stewart
* I've got the complete case file from the Mayfield-Evernham to-do. I'm going to try to put together a timeline of what happened.
* Did I mention that the Bristol night race is just five days away? Come on teevee repair guy ...
* Go read some of the bloggers on the right rail. Most of 'em are pretty entertaining.

Normally I don't appreciate comment spam, but there's a first time for everything. I wasn't expecting much from something dubbed "NASCAR Comix." It's actually pretty funny stuff. I'm not sure if David (no, I don't know his last name) can keep up his early pace, but, hey, the Chase is about to start, so who knows?

If you're looking for other racin' comics, Mike Smith's Stockcar Toon from the Las Vegas Sun is still my favorite. There's also War Wagon - eh. Not my speed.

Speaking of funny, check out David Poole's latest. Psst, David: Fans defend their drivers. That's what fans do.

One of the many (ok, several) things I do at the paper each day is help put together the Sports Log. That's the thing on page C2 that lists what's on TV and radio, what local sports teams are playing, staff and department contact info, stuff like that.

And there, under "radio," was a listing for a Wednesday night Truck Series race. Thinking that our usually capable administrative assistant had gone, well, insane, I looked it up myself. (I've learned in my 14 years of journalisming that it's best not to try to ask questions of the truly touched.)

Sure enough, the Truck Series is running a Wednesday night race at Bristol. Good news for the dozen or so fans at the track tomorrow night: It'll be a double-header with a USAR Pro Cup race.

A Wednesday night race? That's dumber than Tuesday night college football.

Carl Edwards played a little post-race hit and run after Saturday's Busch race, and NASCAR today relieved his wallet of $20K and put him on probation until Dec. 31. Edwards didn't lose any Busch points, and Jack Roush didn't lose owner points.

I mean, really. What did you expect NASCAR to do? Edwards drives Busch because he wants to, not because he has to, and Busch points don't make a whole lot of difference to the Cup guys. (Edwards is third, 486 points behind leader Kevin Harvick. He ain't catching the 21.)

Besides, if Junior had been a little less patient and Edwards a little less ticked off, we'd all be talking about football this week. This whole incident is NASCAR's dream. Why spoil it by grounding Edwards?

... because more people in the Triad watched Saturday night's Lifetime movie about Fantasia than Sunday's Cup race at Michigan.

The score, according to this piece on the front of today's paper: 68K homes for High Point native Fantasia, 47K homes for NASCAR.

Look: I know a lot of folks think racin' is boring. ("All they do is turn left, right?") But NASCAR has plenty of drama. You don't know until the end who is actually going to win it, and there have been plenty of races where someone has wrecked, passed or blown a tire on the last lap. Who knows? Maybe one driver will ram someone another guy after it's all over. The Mayfield-Evernham feud is soap-opera worthy.

I'm pretty sure that everyone who watched the Fantasia movie know how her story turned out. (OHMIGOD! OHMIGOD! She WON! She WON AMERICAN IDOL!!!) Where's the fun in that?

Matt DiBenedetto, the kid Dustin wrote about for Sunday's paper, races at Hickory. So, too, will Jeremy Mayfield on Sunday. (Marc has more.)

The track in Hickory, hometown of Ned and Dale Jarrett, bills itself as "the birthplace of NASCAR stars." How about a new one: "See the stars here on their way up -- and down."

P.S. Here's a list of some of the cats Mayfield might race against. Other than Musgrave Jr., none of the names look familiar. Anyone know anything about this series?

... or maybe the better word is "patientest" (Is that a word? Anyhoo.) Ponder this stat and try to keep your head from exploding:

In the last six Cup races at Bristol - that's six races times 500 laps = 3,000 laps - Dale Earnhardt Jr. has completed all 3,000 of those laps. Go back four more races (that's another 2,000 laps), Junior has completed 4,998 of his last 5,000 laps at Bristol.

That's a stunning all-but-two laps out of 5,000 on a track that's too fast to be a short track but too small to be a speedway. Don't trust my math? Go here.

I did the same math drill with Kurt Busch, who has owned this track in recent years (5 wins in 11 career starts). In his past 10 races here, Busch has completed 4,849 of 5,000 laps.

Some others (in order):
Tony Stewart - 4,973 (of 5,000 possible laps)
Jeff Gordon - 4,919
Matt Kenseth - 4,890 (mostly because of a wreck in the fall 2001 race)
Dale Jarrett - 4,860
Kevin Harvick - 4,845
Mark Martin - 4,534 (that's just 70 percent - ouch)
Jimmie Johnson - 4,358 (of 4,500, or 96.8 percent; he has just nine starts there)

Probably the next best guy behind Junior at Bristol: Greg Biffle. In seven races there, he has completed all but one lap.

Anyway, that's my fun with numbers today.

Is it overrated? Discuss.

I'm serious. Everyone builds it up. People start camping out there in mid-July. (You see the crowd at last night's Truck race? Those were bored campers who were tired of sitting in their RVs.) But last year, Matt Kenseth led 415 of 500 laps, a number so huge that nascar.com was forced to declare it to be "whopping".

So is the whole evening overrated? Here's where I am on it:

It has been circled on my calendar since February.
During one of these races about 4-5 years ago, I fell asleep on the couch.

Speaking of Bristol, Dustin Long wrote about some of the track's greatest hits in today's paper.

... won't be a rolling billboard! Behold a shot from Monday's COT test at Michigan:

More after the jump ...

A round of golf claps for whoever can figure out this racin' acronym.

Sorry, folks. Google won't help you.

Hint: California Speedway
Another hint: This weekend

Anyone?

The storylines:

Matt Kenseth won a yawner. Maybe the night race is overrated.

The chase lineup is pretty much set. Sucks to be you, Kasey Kahne, who's the leading candidate for the 2006 McMurray Award.

They sure love that Rocky Top song in Tennessee. Me, it's enough to make me pull for Florida or Auburn. I think Ed Hardin's ears are still bleeding.

I like the Dude's take on Bristol: Indifference. Could be.

You've seen it a million times:
Driver wrecks in a race. Driver climbs out of car and checks out fine at the infield doctor's office. Driver, confronted by the TV cameras, praises the sponsors on the smoking wreck that sits there oozing oil and other fluids behind him.

Rusty Wallace has given the I'd-like-to-thank-my-sponsors-speech so many times it's automatic. So when he and his wife got creamed on the way home Monday night, the first thing he did (after checking on the other driver, of course) was praise his ride.

Note to the PR person who wrote this: The use of the word "miraculously" twice doesn't exactly inspire confidence in your product. Rusty and Patti Wallace were unhurt because of stout engineering and safe design, not divine intervention. Right?

Full release after the jump.

If you can't get your NASCAR fix here in the Triad and feel like you need to go to Durham to see a Dale Jarrett show car, you can get hooked up at Duke's football game on Saturday. Uber-Duke fan Dale Jarrett lent the school a show car. Scott Riggs kicked in a couple Valvoline caps. Make of that what you will.

By the way, my money's on Richmond in that game. Yes, it's my hometown. No, I'm not still bitter that Richmond beat the snot out of my school for the first time in a decade. (Okay, I am.) But Richmond starts the season ranked in I-AA, and Richmond's new favorite son is (a) in the chase and (b) definitely not driving like a rookie.

And speaking of Jarrett, when he leaves Yates at the end of the year, he's taking his sponsor with him. What about the car number? Anyone heard anything about that?

Johnson and Kenseth are in the Chase, and pretty much everyone else in the top 10 will reserve their spot after Sunday's race at California. Kasey Kahne, in 11th, has a shot. Biffle and Edwards are technically still alive, but that's about it. Everyone else? See you in '07!

Maybe it's me, but weren't the previous two pre-Chases a lot more, I don't know, interesting?

Here are the official NASCAR chase scenarios so you can follow along at home (and here are the standings through 24 races):

* Only 48 points separate positions four through 10 in the current NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series standings. Only 138 points separate positions four through 11. A driver can gain a maximum of 156 points over another competitor in each event.

* The 11th-place driver, Kasey Kahne, can move as high as fourth in the standings following Sunday’s Sony HD 500 at California Speedway.

* Any driver in positions four through 10 can fall from the top 10 following Sunday’s event.

... more after the jump ...

Hey, I'm just quoting Lee Spencer, who uses that word to describe NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow:

A better name for NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow would be the Bastardmobile.

With its funky splitter on the front end and the carbon fiber wing off the rear, the COT is butt-ugly. NASCAR spent five years developing the car and apparently spent no time on its appearance.

The car is so ugly NASCAR ...

... and it goes on from there. (The full column is after the jump.)

The word I've used before is "sporty," and I still think that fits, mostly because of the rear spoiler and the lack of a front valance. (Go here and look at the second picture.)

But the COT still looks more or less like the stock car we've all come to know and love, and to call it ugly implies that NASCAR rides are good looking. Face facts: The NASCAR stock car has been bumpdrafted down the back stretch of racing by the Uglymobile.

If you want to see pretty race cars, go here. Other pretty cars are here, here and here. these cars here are just plain cool, and not just because they fly through the air.

What ever happened to the good old days when writers kvetched about how cars didn't look like the ones on the showroom floor?