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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 ...

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 ...

The weekend's almost here. Let's get to it.

Lap 1: The weather doesn't look great at Texas today - showers in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon. The three people who are praying for sunshine: Patrick Carpentier, Burney Lamar and John Andretti. Eight others who are praying for rain include Sam Hornish Jr., Dave Blaney and Chad McCumbee. Persistent showers all afternoon mean that those three would be washed into Sunday's Cup race.

Lap 2: Has time passed by Petty Enterprises? Uh, yeah. Memo to NASCAR.com's Bill Kimm: A team that that has fewer wins in 23 years (3) than Jimmie Johnson ripped off in four races late last season (4) is not in a "times have been tough" phase -- it's in freefall.

More after the jump.

First Saturday night race of the season. Whee!

Lap 1: This ESPN piece about Aaron Fike is a great little piece of journalism. Props to Ryan McGee for doing such a nice job on the story. But I don't think this is the thing that will shake NASCAR to its proverbial core. Think about the whole safety saga for a minute. There was a collective sad shrug when Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty died less than two months apart in 2000. Dale Sr.'s death at Daytona in Feb. 2001 was the holy-hell-we-need-to-do-something moment. Same with drugs. A few nobodies (Aaron Fike, Shane Hmiel, Kevin Grubb) get nailed, and NASCAR continues to say everything's fine. If Jeff Gordon or Junior or Jimmie Johnson gets busted, game on. Don't expect anything to change until that happens.

More rants after the jump.

Welcome to the (mostly) All-Earnhardt edition of The Spotter because Senior would have been 57 on Tuesday:

Lap 1: Ah, Richmond -- the second-best race on the schedule. (First: Richmond in the fall, the race before the cutoff for the Chase.) It's also the place where Junior won his last race two years ago. He'll win Saturday. You just watch.

Lap 2: Jeff Gordon's still a whiner. Boooo hoooo hoooo, Junior didn't help me. (More.) Let's face it, 24 fans: The Hendrick cars just don't dominate at the plate tracks any more. Two-Time's rope-a-dope hang-in-the-back tactic isn't sandbagging. It meant his car just wasn't that good. And, no, I can't explain why Casey Mears was had the best Hendrick finish. Can you explain how Furniture Row Joe ended up on the pole?

More after the jump.