News-Record.com

In case you were mulling these two questions -- will they ever race again at the Rock? whatever happened to Andy Hillenburg? -- Dustin Long has you covered.

The short answers:
(1) Yes
(2) See (1).

No link yet. Dustin's early lead is after the jump. We'll have more in Wednesday's paper, including top Rockingham moments.

Wednesday's update: Here's Dustin's story on Andy Hillenburg's purchase. It's a good little read, well worth your time.

Heck yes it was boring. Other than the mini-big one and Jeff Gordon's mind-blowing last-lap pass, Sunday's race was more boring that the Carolina-New Orleans game.

It was a good Sunday to take a nap. Dustin has a thread going at his blog about the race. Speaking of Dustin, who had to stay away for all 188,000 laps, he had it right in his analysis in today's paper: Seems like an NBA game, where only the final two minutes matter.

So Dale Jarrett is finally going to give up racing. About time.

I know the guy is going to go down as one of the better drivers in Cup history - 32 wins (19th all-time), three Daytona 500 wins, one Cup championship, nearly $59 million in winnings and nearly 237,000 miles of racing. Pretty impressive stats.

Probably the most impressive thing about Jarrett is his perseverence. He got into racing because that's what his daddy did. And after nine full-time seasons, he had just four wins (including the 1993 500). Most athletes are done at that point. Not Dale - he was just getting started. He won seven races the year after turned 40, a Cup championship at age 42 and his third 500 at age 43.

The problem, of course, is that he kept racing. Over the past four seasons, he has 11 top 5s in 128 races - that's 8.5 percent. Not bad if you're David Stremme. It's awful if your career mark for top 5 finishes is nearly 25 percent. And 41st in points? That's a guy pedaling backward.

I know UPS sunk a ton of money into him, and his commercial spots are probably the funniest on the air among the current crop of NASCAR ads. But now they're just pitiful because they make fun of an old man who's just doing laps at the back of the field - when he makes the race. He couldn't do any worse if he showed up at Martinsville next week in a big brown truck.

Stepping away from something you love to do - and have done well - is one of the toughest things to do not just as an athlete but as a person. I'm glad I don't have to make that decision. Jarrett finally did - and it's the right one for him.

It's over.

One of the Wonder Twins will win. Here are the standings if you don't believe me. Believe me, it' hard to get excited about a battle between Jeff Gordon and Jeff Gordon Jr. (No, I don't think Clint Bowyer has any shot, thank you very much.)

Can we just call off the rest of the season and go on to 2008?

Bruton Smith is a lot of things - showman, quote machine, rich. One thing he's not, and that's stupid.

The Winston paper is the latest to buy into the idiotic fantasy that Smith might tear down Lowe's Motor Speedway and build it somewhere else.

Not that I would be opposed - the only thing longer than 600 Memorial Day miles at Charlotte is qualifying at Pocono. There's little side-by-side racing, and the All-Star races just don't do it for me any more. Another Richmond clone? Bring it on.

But here's why Bruton won't tear down and rebuild:
* LMS is the only track on the circuit (other than France family crown jewel Daytona) with three Cup dates - two regular season races and the All-Star event.

* The main reason LMS keeps the All-Star race is because it's a home date for the drivers and crews. Once the Hall of Fame gets build, NASCAR will never, ever move that race from Charlotte.

* No one wants a race track in their front yard, back yard, side yard or the yard two counties over. Even Staten Island, N.Y,, which for years tolerated (if that's the right word) the nation's largest landfill, didn't want a race track. So that knocks out every populated area in the county. And you see how well Cup racing worked out in out-of-the-way places like North Wilkesboro and Rockingham.

* Shareholders of publicly traded companies like Speedway Motorsports aren't going to react well to disposal of a key asset. And, hey, guess what, SMI stock is trading at a YTD low of $36.43. Nothing to me screams sell off like a crazy man threatening to tear down his main money maker.

And all of this because Cabarrus county commissioners won't let Bruton build a drag strip? Heck, moving LMS is the only card Bruton has to play, and he's playing it well.

Like I said, the guy ain't stupid. Now about the Cabarrus County commissioners ...

Now that a superhuman Jimmie Johnson has pulled within nine points of a not-exactly-slumping Jeff Gordon, the points race just got a little more interesting. It's still over - Clint Bowyer doesn't have enough laps in him to realize that. (No, I don't think he can make up 111 points. But thanks for asking.)

Here is Dustin's story on Johnson's (successful) two-tire gamble and some interesting radio chatter in the No. 24 camp. Give Letarte credit for not calling out a four-time champ, even if that four-time champ whiffed on the tires call. Also, don't forget to check out Dustin's always-excellent blog where he breaks down what happened in those last crazy laps. (Here's his post-race take.)

But this is interesting: How exactly is Denny Hamlin the only driver out of 43 to get water in your fuel cell? It's sealed, and so is NASCAR's fuel delivery system (from the truck to the can to the tank). No, I don't understand the chemistry of how this might happen. I'd love to hear it explained.

Finally, the best piece of video from the weekend has nothing to do with racing. It's this. I count 15 laterals and some hyperbolic announcing. This isn't the greatest play in the history of college athletics, and it's not even the greatest play of the season. (This is; the play is at about the 4:00 mark.) But it sure is fun.