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... while patting yourself on the back too hard. Of course, in Daytona Beach, self-congratulations are routine, sort of like free donuts in the break room and leaving work early on Fridays in the summer.

One of these days, someone will finally kill and bury the 70 (or 75)-million-folks-are-NASCAR-fans lie. Jeff MacGregor tried. David Poole tried, too, but his column from 2006 seems to have vanished into the ether. (I linked to it here, but the link's dead.) Yes, NASCAR has its fans, but 75 million? Depends on how well you can stretch the definition of the word "fan." It's about as elastic as NASCAR's rulebook.

* Good for Martin Truex Jr. He had been starting to run well, and it was good to see him in victory lane. The story line has been that Truex's emergence (he's 13th in the standings) means DEI will remain standing after Junior loses. But how soon before someone dangles some mad free-agent cash at him?

* Bad for Kurt Busch. You and Tony Stewart can bang into each other all day long - I don't care. But trying to run over a guy's crew member - totally not cool. And now you've made me completely regret my pick-to-win-it-all in 2007. I can blame only me for that. Expect NASCAR to blame Busch to the tune of 50 points or so. Tony Stewart's verbal woodshedding, courtesy of the GM PR machine, are after the jump.

* You'll note that Michael Waltrip has cracked into the positive side of the points ledger. (He's has 52 points and is 55th in the standings.) But because Dover was postponed till Monday, he still hasn't raced on a Sunday since the Daytona 500.

The fact that NASCAR's top series runs in Kansas and Chicago and just north of Boston but not the country music capital of the universe has always bothered me. The soundtrack to NASCAR, after all, isn't "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk" or Buddy Guy or The Cars. (What, you thought I was going to say these guys?) It's country music.

This long-ago thread elsewhere reminds us that NASCAR did use to race in Music City. Then NASCAR got mad and left. Busch and Trucks have one date each, but it's not on the Cup schedule and probably won't ever be. Which is too bad - it's a nice little track with an odd distance (1.333 miles) in a perfect NASCAR market.

Part two of this post: Look at the entry list for Saturday night's Busch race at Nashville. I know we're due for another round of Buschwacker-bashing, but who wants to see these guys race? It's a pretty grim field, with very little starpower and nothing to keep me home on a Saturday night. (Yep, ESPN2, you paid for this.)

The flip side of all this is there are some drivers who could, with some breaks and luck, could be racing in the Cup Series in 2-3 years. There are plenty of young prospects in the field and just enough experienced Cup and Busch drivers to make things interesting.

My ideal scenario is that Morgan Shepherd beats James Hylton by a half-a-car-length at the line. That would be mindblowing.

I'm a little surprised that NASCAR hasn't done something to Kurt Busch for nearly running over one of Tony Stewart's crew members Monday at Dover.

The editorial reaction has been pretty predictable: Sit him. There's not much to disagree with here.

Remember that NASCAR parked Kevin Harvick for one Cup race in 2002 for a road-rage incident at a truck race. I figured the two incidents were roughly the same and that NASCAR would tell Busch not to bother coming to Pocono this weekend.

Apparently NASCAR Nation feels one (or even two) races aren't enough. With the online poll just having cracked the 130K mark, 47 percent think Busch should be suspended either for five races or the rest of the season. Considering that (a) Busch didn't take out Junior, and (b) this isn't a poll about Jeff Gordon, that's well into the we-hate-your-guts territory.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's not scientific. And it's possible that Greg Zipadelli coded up a bot or two that keeps hitting the "rest of the season" button. What it suggests to me is that maybe Kurt Busch should go race something that most Americans don't care about.

Or maybe it suggests NASCAR needs a good villain, and he's just the guy to do it? What do you think?

What's the only thing more boring that a Pocono race? One delayed by rain till it's ended by darkness.

I hate to say this, but Sunday's F1 race was a heck of a lot more interesting. That Hamilton kid (he's 20-freakin'-2) can drive the wheels off a race car. And this might be one of the most spectacular racin' wrecks since Kyle Busch went on a thrill ride at Talladega. Gotta love the announcer's understatement: "Oh! That's a big accident!"

The driver, Robert Kubica, is OK and will drive this weekend at Indy.

It looks like we're about to have a winner. Junior has summoned the traveling NASCAR media circus to his race shop at 11 a.m. Wednesday for a Big Announcement. I'm operating under the assumption that Junior will announce his 2008 team.

So the question is: Where? Childress or maybe Ginn would seem to be the favorites. Who's your pick?

Speed Channel will show the whole thing live at 11 a.m.

Update 1: Scene Daily says that Gibbs and Ginn teams aren't part of the briefing and that Childress is out of the country. Hendrick, meanwhile, gave a no comment.

Update 2: AP's Jenna Fryer pushes the Hendrick rock a little further up the hill:

Rick Hendrick currently has four drivers under contract, and told the AP last month "there was no room at the inn" for Earnhardt. NASCAR rules permit a car owner to field four Nextel Cup teams. But multiple sources — speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because Earnhardt's plans have not been announced — said Hendrick officials have been working for nearly three weeks to figure out how to bring the star driver into the fold. One scenario could put Earnhardt into the No. 5 car that Kyle Busch currently drives.

I guess I'd fire Kyle Busch, too, if that meant getting Junior. Still, that's a little cold, even for Hendrick.

Update 3: ESPN's David Newton pronounces Ginn out of the running, can't get Gibbs on the phone, notes Childress is in New Zealand till Thursday (hunting grapes?) and can't quite pull the trigger on the Hendrick possibility.

Update 4: Poole and Utter also say the wind is blowing toward Hendrick. ESPN.com's Marty Smith is saying Hendrick - either in the 5 or 25 (Mears staying and maybe switching cars, Busch out). Jayski is rounding up here.

The Junior press conference is going on now, and unless you're watching TV or listening to an online stream (I'm not - I've got work to do), there aren't many details out yet. Is Budweiser coming with him? What car number will he drive? Where is Kyle Busch going and when is he leaving? What in the heck is he thinking?

Here's one thing to mull as all of the above questions get answer: Will this move result in a Junior championship?

Hendrick produces winners, true. Two of Junior's new teammates have five Cup championships between them. But Junior's going to have to run over both of them to get the big trophy he says he wants so badly.

So can Junior use this move like the old Daytona slingshot? Or will it be more like getting out of line and losing 10 spots in a half lap?

I'll spare you some more (bad) racing metaphors if you start filling up the comments.

North Carolina Motor Speedway - you might know it as The Rock - is for sale. (Here's the AP story.)

The reason the track is being sold? It's not profitable - duh. Guess that's what happens when you lose your Cup dates.

In other news, NASCAR cars drive fast and Dale Jr. is popular.

Sorry for the lack of recent bloggage - an impending two-week vacation, last week's layoffs around here and a prolonged assault by Swim Parent has sapped the blogging juices out of me. Plus I missed most of the Michigan race on Sunday. My bad.

Because Gordon and Johnson have been cheating! From NASCAR.com:

SONOMA, Calif. -- Nextel Cup points leader Jeff Gordon and defending series champion Jimmie Johnson, both of the Hendrick Motorsports stable, have failed inspection at Infineon Raceway.

NASCAR.COM will have continuous updates throughout the day.

And I thought the big excitement of the weekend was going to be watching Kyle Petty call the race from the front seat of the 45.

P.S. I don't know what's up with the 24 and 48, and I have no idea if the failed inspections are related at all to their COT success. (It's called snark.) All I do know is that Dustin called a bit ago and said something was about to go down on the two cars, but he didn't know what. He also said that both cars might be parked this weekend. His source was right about the first thing. We'll see about the rest.

Dude starts 32nd (which is about 5 miles back of the finish line at Sonoma), blows through the field, then smokes the brakes, uses every inch of the road and zooms to a win as he's running out of gas.

That was amazing.

Dustin Long, meanwhile, isn't ready to crown Montoya King of the Road Racers just yet. Still, he's impressed:

Watching Montoya throughout the course, it wasn't like he was "Miss Daisy.'' He tried some moves you might not have seen on the TV broadcast. I watched about half the race from spot overlooking turn 2 (the right-hander going up the hill) and he was one of the few guys I noticed who regularly made or tried moves there.

Another thing Dustin noticed that I didn't: Childress cars finished 2-3-4. Check out his full report here. He also has promised to do a podcast from the track. Look for it Monday somewhere on the N&R home page hereabouts.

One more footnote to the weekend: Because Aric Almirola got credit for the Busch win at Milwaukee (remember, it's where you start, not where you finish), that means Latino drivers took two of the three NASCAR events this weekend. That's got to be a first.

Lastly, use the rest of the thread to entertain yourselves for the next couple of weeks. Talk racin'. Talk about me. Talk about yourselves. I don't care. Knock yourselves out. And have fun. See you in a bit.