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Small-teamer of the week at Vegas: Travis Kvapil (Yates), who finished eighth in the Yates Racing machine. (Will a top 10 translate into some sponsorship? Eh, probably not.)

Small-teamers in the top 20 in points: Three. In addition to Kvapil, Mayfield (Haas CNC) was 16th and B. Labonte (Petty) was 17th.

Small-teamers on the bubble: A.J. Allmendinger. He's 0-fer-3 in making races. Now Red Cow's thinking of parking him.

The Small Team standings after the jump ...

No individual team takes this week. Just some overalls:

* I'm still not sure Roush Fenway is for real. Sure, Edwards has won two straight and now leads the points. Biffle's in the top 10 in points. Kenseth would have finished a lot better had Jeff Gordon not forgotten how to drive. And David Ragan had a top-10 finish for the first time since his days racing Big Wheels. Then again, any team, Roush included, would be hard-pressed to live up to Roush's back-to-back-to-almost back in 2003-05. That's a long way of saying I expect more from them than simply leading the points. Talk about your impossibly high bars.

* Don't count out the 48. Yeah, he stunk at Vegas. But the 48 team has made a career out of climbing out of holes that they've dug. I half suspect they've just decided to do this at the start of the season rather than at the end. Less drama, more challenge.

* Penske's fast start was too good to be true. None of the Penskes led a lap, and Hornish was a virtual DNF for the second straight week. Repeat after me, kids: Daytona means nothing.

* Watch Childress. Harvick and Burton are just sort of lurking there.

* No, I can't explain how Elliott Sadler got to ninth in points. Can you?

This week's BTRs after the jump ...

The big news this week: Carl Edwards gave up 100 points to Robby Gordon. Or that's how it ended up.

Edwards got nailed for a loose oil pan lid, which helped explain why his car ran on a rail Sunday. Gordon got a reprieve from a Small Team death sentence when the Stock Car Racing Commission ruled that his bad bumper cover was no big deal.

I'm still baffled by the Gordon decision. NASCAR has made it crystal-freakin'-clear that Thou Shalt Not Mess With The Outside of the Car. Remember Junior and the COT wing brackets last year? Remember when the 24 and 48 were screwing around last year with their front fenders? NASCAR went crazy with the fines, suspensions and points. NASCAR was consistent with the Robby Gordon situation. But the stock car commission's decision to give him back his driver points smacks of its version of The Call. Robby's the only single-car owner-driver team in Cup right now, and there's probably some strong sentiment to make sure he doesn't go under like all of the other Small Teams. (See McClure, Morgan). But can you imagine the outcry if a Hendrick or Roush team got this same penalty overturned? The precedent here is terrible, and it gives fans one more reason to distrust how this sport is run.

Now for the Edwards deal.

Because the crew chiefs can't tinker with the outside of the body, they're looking for things inside the body. NASCAR figured out the holes-in-the-wheel-wells trick at Daytona last year. They nailed a bunch of Buschnwide cars at Daytona this year for the loose oil pan lid thing. (Evidentally Cousin Carl's crew chief doesn't pay much attention to the second-tier series even though his driver won it by a million points last year.) If you can pick up a tenth or two by drilling a quarter-inch hole in the rear wheel well and covering it with tape, think about how much downforce you can get if the oil pan lid is acting as an internal wing. It's a genius piece of cheating — except for the getting caught part. That's pretty dumb.

Speaking of morons, one of the occupational hazards of my new gig is getting to drive around town. I'm allergic to both AM talk and most strains of classic rock, so I end up listening to the Fox Sports show on AM 790. The co-hosts were rattling on today about why NASCAR didn't take away Edwards' win.

That's what NASCAR did, in essence. When Edwards lost 100 points, that knocked him down to 95 points for the day. That's the equivalent of a 23rd-place finish, which puts him at roughly the last car on the lead lap. NASCAR also took away the 10 bonus points Edwards will carry over into the Chase (assuming he makes it, that is). He and Roush do get to keep the
oversized check. They'll keep the trophy, too, though it'll be hard to look at it without thinking WE CHEATED TO WIN THIS THING!

The points is the big thing, and losing them will hurt. Next stop for NASCAR: Take away all of a driver's points from a race. Knocking Edwards from first to 20th overall will get a lot of people's attention.

This week's Small Team Rankings after the jump:

Small-Teamer of the week: Brian Vickers (Red Bull) finished ninth for his first top 10 of the year. He's now ninth in points.

No. of Small Team drivers who finished in the top 20 at Atlanta: Three, as usual. Vickers (9th), Bobby Labonte (12th) and Scott Riggs (18th). I'm beginning to think there's a quota.

No. of Small Team drivers in the top 20 overall: Vickers (9th) and Bobby Labonte (14th).

This week's Small Team Standings after the jump. ...

The Atlanta race: Teh stink.

Tony Stewart's post-race rant: Epic.

Say what you want about the Goodyears and Sunday's race, but you have to give props to Shrub and Fat Tony for finishing 1-2 at AMS, where the NHL will be playing its outdoor game next year. Those two might be among the least likable guys in the garage -- Tony's now officially off the Goodyear Christmas card list -- but, man, those two can wheel a race car.

The other team you need to be watching is Childress. All three of their drivers finished in the top 10 this week, and Harvick (third) and Burton (fifth) are in the top 5 in points. Bowyer's in 16th, but he's only 34 points out of the Magic No. 12 spot. It's not like they're winning races. Burton has the team's only top 5 finish of the season (he was fifth at Vegas), and the Childress trio have led just 78 laps all season. (Bowyer has 57 of those, with most coming Sunday at Hotlanta). But the three of them are brutally consistent. Harvick and Burton are among the four drivers (Biff and Shrub are the others) who have completed all 1,042 laps this season. Neither have finished lower than 14th.

They might not be thrilling, but that kind of driving will get you in the Chase.

This week's Big Team Rankings after the jump ...

Small Team fans have to be pulling for Brian Vickers, whose ninth-place finish at Atlanta vaulted him into ninth in the standings. And new teammate Mike Skinner shows why team owners love the retreads: He got the 84 in the race (something that AJA couldn't do) and brought it home three laps down 27th.

In less positive news, the Bill Davis No. 27 team appears DOA - no sponsorship, and they're not entered at Bristol. Jacques Villa-who?

Also, the pressure's on for a lot of the Small Teamers because the top 35 gets reset for the 2008 after this season. Some Big Team Drivers (McMurray and Waltrip) are a little too close to the cutoff, and Mayfield (34th) and Yeley (96th) don't have much room to maneuver. But Dave Blaney (37th), Kyle Petty (40th), Ken Schrader (41st), Furniture Row Joe (42nd), Mike Skinner (43rd) and Bill Elliott (44th) are going to have to drive like madmen or risk being on the wrong side of the line. (Chances are, they will be.) Making their jobs harder is that a lot of established teams (the 77, the 40 and the 01) are at risk of losing their top 35 status that carried over from last year, which means they have a lot of incentive to bang their way to the front.

Yeah, it could be crazy, especially if some drivers have figured out Bristol's new banking and others haven't.

The Small Team Rankings are after the jump.

You see the list of NASCAR blogs on the right side of the page?

Keep going down. ... Farther. ... Keep going. ... Yep, that's it. All the way down there.

I'm going to try something different, which is why there are two links now instead of a few dozen. Everything will be revealed after the jump.

Here's round 2 of the blogs I pay attention to that *aren't* affiliated with media sites. These are rank amateurs who write about racin' because they can and because they want to. Some of them might be getting paid, but that's not the point. The folks on this list aren't hard card-carrying members of the NASCAR media pack.

You want to be listed? Here's how:

1. Write regularly, which is to say at least as often as me. I'm down to about two or three times a week.

2. Learn 2 spell. (Yes, kids, spelling does count in RL.)

3. To paraphrase Jim Rome, have something to say and make it interesting. Bonus points for making me laugh.

Did I miss you? Let me know. jnewsom@news-record.com

The list of Joes (and Jos) is after the jump.

I've done to the STRs and the BTRs what Red Bull did to AJ Allmendinger:

Fired them.

Technically it's temporary, but you know and I know that AJA should just leave his form-fitting custom seat at home instead of hauling it to the track, especially since the airlines are starting to charge extra for that second bag. I've told the BTRs and the STRs the same thing.

You don't know what BTR stands for? Don't worry about it -- I was bored with 'em, too. So now on to something different after the jump.

I've updated the Pros and Joes to reflect one correction and some other blogs.

On the Pros side, I corrected the Jade Gurss entry to note that he's no longer on the Junior gravy train. He e-mailed to say he's now working for KHI and Petty. I also added John Daly's blog. Folks who like to rip on the NASCAR announcers will love him.

Yes, that's what I get for (a) not checking the blogs I linked to (I started the update process a month or so ago and got distracted) and (b) forgetting where I put all of my notes.

More after the jump.

We're heading to the Carl Edwards Speedway in Nashville for Saturday's Busch Nationwide Buschwide race. The Cupsters are off, so we're forced to preview the Buschwide event. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing: The race will have a lot of new and different drivers who will find all sorts of new and different ways to wreck their race cars.

Lap One: Take out your Cupsters, and here are your Busch Nationwide standings after five races:

1-Mike Bliss 627
2-Mike Wallace -24
3-Brad Keselowski -36
4-Jason Leffler -48
5-Kelly Bires -79
6-Bobby Hamilton Jr. -89
7-Jason Keller -103
8-Johnny Sauter -123
9-Steve Wallace -160
10-Marcos Ambrose -169

More after the jump ...

I might have ditched the STRs (don't ask if you don't remember), but I'm sticking with the Small Team Standings.

Why? Why not? It's an exercise in nothing-ness. Then again, most of blogging is nothing but nothing.

Got that? Good. The pre-Martinsville standings are after the jump.

Oh, I love me some Martinsville. Let me count the ways:

Lap One: That little paper clip about 45 minutes north of here produces some good, good racing. It rewards the patient and the resourceful and punishes the rash and the foolish. Take care of your stuff, and your stuff will get you to victory lane.

Lap Two: The Lost Martinsville Date issues rears its predictable head again. (I wrote it on my calendar back in January: March 25 -- "Someone will write that Martinsville might lose its second date.") So why does Martinsville have two dates anyway? That's one too many, IMO.

More after the jump ...

Lap 1: The best thing you'll read all weekend is Dustin Long's interview with Kyle Petty. (This is the latest in his series of what used to be called "In Their Words." Stop now and go read it. I'll wait.

Lap 2: I used to pick on Jason Leffler for two reasons. First, because he was so hapless in the No. 11, a Big Team ride, that Denny Hamlin has put in the Chase twice in two years. Second, in a series of commercials announcing its sponsorship, FedEx mentioned only the No. 11 car and not the driver. (It was as if no one was driving it. Which, considering the No. 11's performance in 2005, was pretty close to accurate.) Now that Leffler's doing pretty well in the Buschwide Series, I need a new whipping boy. My pick in a thread from earlier this week was Sam Hornish Jr., who followed a top 15 Daytona with two outside-the-top-40s. He's on a good team with good equipment and he has an Indy 500 trophy. That doesn't mean he'll succeed in the Drive Fast Turn Left series, but it suggests he shouldn't stink so bad. Anyhoo, is Hornish the best candidate for constant scorn and ridicule in this space, or do you have someone else in mind?

More after the jump ...

Lap 1: Props to Denny Hamlin for winning Sunday. And props to anyone who sat through the thing outside. (Roanoke's Aaron McFarling shows his respect here.) I half expected the jet blowers to have snowplows strapped to the front just in case. And was it actually drizzling during the race?

Lap 2: If you want pictures, our friends in Roanoke did it up right. Go here.

More after the jump.