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TNT Gears Up for NASCAR Coverage - Talladega Nights star Will Ferrell joins Wally’s World in Chicago: The second half of the NASCAR season revs up on TNT on Sat., July 8 with NASCAR Busch Series Racing from Chicago presented by Pennzoil Platinum at 4 p.m. ET. TNT NASCAR coverage continues on Sun., July 9 with the Bank of America Countdown to Green pre-race show at 3 p.m. ET, featuring Talladega Nights star Will Ferrell taking a spin with TNT's Wally Dallenbach in this season’s first edition of Wally’s World. Following at 3:30 p.m. ET is NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Racing from Chicago. The TNT NASCAR announcing stable will include Bill Weber (pre-race host and play-by-play), Benny Parsons (analyst), Wally Dallenbach (analyst), Allen Bestwick (pit reporter), Dave Burns (pit reporter), Marty Snider (pit reporter) and Matt Yocum (pit reporter). - Turner Sports Press Release

Cale The Courageous


A pal and I were waiting out a rainstorm in a golf course shelter the other day and started talking racin'.

"Who is the toughest, bravest driver you've seen and known in all your years of covering NASCAR?" he asked.

I replied that there have been plenty of super-tough, daredevil drivers.

I named some examples:

Seven-time champions Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt drove several times while suffering a variety of broken bones that were excruciatingly painful.

Bobby Allison competed through a stretch of one season with so many multiple injuries that he had to be lifted in and out of his race car by special handles sewn onto his uniform.

Buddy Baker and Sterling Marlin both ran events while recovering from painful burns.

"But overall," I said, "I've got to rank Cale Yarborough as both the toughest and most courageous." 

"Tell my why," said my friend.

"Well, because both in his youth and then as a race driver, Cale experienced a number of life-threatening incidents that would have cowed a lesser person.  But they never caused him to shy away from danger.  Not once that I know of."

"Wow," said my golfing buddy.  "Looks like it's going to be raining a while.  Tell me the story of Cale The Courageous."

Okay...

Cale Yarborough once flew over the railing and out of Darlington Raceway.

He was swept into the midst of a grinding, horrific 23-car crash at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway, an accident in which he saw cars sailing over his head "high as a telephone pole."

He rode through a stunning flip in the midst of a run that made him the first driver to qualify at more than 200 miles per hour at Daytona International Speedway.

However, Cale, a three-time Winston Cup champion, winner of 83 races, including four Daytona 500s, doesn't consider any of these his closest calls.

"I can tell tales that make a lot of peoples' hair stand on end," Cale once recalled.  "Tales that make driving a race car seem like riding a merry-go-round."

Yarborough then readily reflected on these terrors.

"Personally,"  said Cale, "I feel the closest I ever came to you-know-what was in my late teens down at Jacksonville, North Carolina.

"It was 1958 and I was working with an air show as one of the skydivers.  I jumped out of the plane at about 5,000 feet and did my diving number down to about 2,000, the altitude where I always deployed the parachute.  I tugged the ripcord and nothing happened.  For some reason, the dadgum 'chute had become fouled.

"I told myself, 'Don't look down.'"

Cale kept pulling and pulling on the ripcord, but nothing happened.  Finally, at about 200 feet above the ground, his parachute billowed.  But by now he was going so fast the force of the wind blew half the canopy away!

"Even so," continued Cale, "there was enough of the 'chute left to slow me down a little bit.  Luckily, I landed in a patch of high grass in a muddy field, which provided some cushion.  I came out of it with only a chipped bone in my elbow."

How did a self-described farm boy from tiny Timmonsville, S.C., come to be a skydiver?

"Pretty funny story," said Cale.  "Me and another ol' boy, a buddy, bought us a used airplane, an old J-4 Cub.  We kept it in a barn near the cornfield on my folks' farm.  One day a neighbor who had been a paratrooper in the military came by with a parachute and convinced us that jumping was a really enjoyable thing to do.  We started trying it and found that, sure enough, it was a lot of fun.

"Usually, we only jumped when the ex-paratrooper was around to oversee things.

"One day he wasn't there and I decided to make a jump.  I spread the 'chute out in a cotton patch and folded it into the pack--crammed it in, actually.  When I jumped out of the plane and pulled the ripcord, it looked like a tornado way up there in the sky.  Cockleburrs, pieces of stalks, cotton leaves and dirt came flying out of that parachute.

"It was some sight."

Cale went on to jump 214 times, but the failure of his 'chute that day at Jacksonville was in no way his first encounter with the Grim Reaper.  He'd already escaped the swipe of the scythe.

When Cale was a kid, one night beneath a full moon he was walking barefoot through the yard at his family's home when he suddenly encounted a snake coiled before him.

"I tried to jump away," recalled Cale.  "But the snake struck and hit me right behind my big right toe.  My stepfather opened the wound up, put a tourniquet on my ankle and rushed me to the hospital."

For the next week Cale was "about the sickest" of anytime in his life.  Upset stomach.  Headache and soreness.

A few days later, they found the snake, dead in the hedges near the house.  "It was a rattler," said Cale.  "We figured we ran over it heading to the hospital and it crawled into the shrubbery and died."

Not too long afterward Cale and a bunch of his buddies were down at a creek on the Yarborough farm, taking a dip.

"There were no swimming pools around Timmonsville in those days," he continued.  "So we swam in the creek.

"A bad storm was brewing, so all of us went home.

"I was standing at a window, watching as the wind and rain swept across our fields.  Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit at the edge of the yard and what looked like a fireball bounced up, broke the panes out of the window and hit me in the chest.  It threw me backwards across the room and knocked me out.  I'm not sure for how long.  When I came to, I smelled smoke.  But there was no fire."

A year or so later Cale went raccoon hunting one night with his uncles and some friends.  Their hounds treed a 'coon and Cale volunteered to shinny up the tall tree and try to shake the critter out.  But when he shook too hard, it was Cale that fell, not the raccoon.

Back to the hospital, where several days and nights of recovery were necessary for the concussion Cale suffered.

During his senior year in high school, Cale, a star running back on the football team, again found himself being registered in a hospital emergency room.  He had a leg injury, but not from football.

"I was out on a date with Betty Jo," he said of the childhood sweetheart who would become his wife.  "We went to a drive-in for burgers and soft drinks.  A guy got out of a car and started acting ugly.  I told him to watch himself, that a lady was present.

"Danged if that rascal didn't pull out a pistol and shoot at me.  The bullet ricocheted off the pavement and went through the calf of my leg, then out the bottom of my boot.

"It just as easily could have hit me in the head or the heart."

Ironically, despite the hundreds of thousands of miles he drove in a career stretching from 1957-1988, Yarborough never spent a night in a hospital bed because of a racing injury.

"It they hospitalized you for being shook up, it would have been a different matter," he said with a laugh.  "I've been shaken a lot by racing accidents, especially that big pileup at Talladega."

Cale admitted to experiencing still another close call that has become a colorful part of NASCAR lore.

"In 1977 I did something very dumb that involved a twin-engined plane I'd bought," related Cale.

"I was driving for Junior Johnson at the time, and I happened to mention to some of the crew guys, who were mountaineers from Wilkes County (N.C.) that I would like to have a pet bear.  A few days later I got a phone call from the race shop and was told I should come up to Wilkes County immediately to pick up my bear.

"I thought the crew boys, Henry Benfield and Bud Green and Mike Hill and that crowd, were playing a practical joke on me."

Even so, Cale flew to Wilkes County.  He found it was no joke.

The crewmen had enticed someone to trap a young bear weighing about 150 pounds for them to give to Cale.

"I wondered how I was going to get it back to Timmonsville," said Cale.  "Henry and Bud said it was no problem.  They tied the bear up real tight with plastic rope and put it in the back seat of my plane."

About halfway through the flight home to South Carolina, the bear wiggled free enough to start gnawing at the rope.

"I started sweating," conceded Cale.  "By the time I managed to land the plane and taxi it to where people were waiting with a cage, the bear was down to the last strands and almost free!

"Can you imagine having a wild bear loose in the cockpit of an airplane?!  I was wishing I'd brought my old parachutes along!"

Yarborough surviving so many escapades certainly is testimony to his toughness.

But Cale, who still farms the family fields among many other businesses he owns and oversees, said he feels there's another reason he has come through so many close calls on the race track and off.

"The Man Upstairs intervened on my behalf," he said.  "I really believe that.  Otherwise, about any of the incidents I was involved in could have gone the other way."
Stewart may have made his final fence fling
By MARK LONG, AP Sports Writer


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Tony Stewart may have climbed his last fence.

It's not because he's tired of winning. The two-time Nextel Cup champion is concerned about injuries and suspects such antics wear him out.

"This is going to kill me,'' Stewart said shortly after climbing the fence at Daytona International Speedway to celebrate his second consecutive victory in the Pepsi 400 on Saturday night.

The victory capped another stellar weekend at Daytona for Stewart. He also won the International Race of Champions road course event Thursday and finished 12th in the Busch Series race Friday.

He raced more than 700 miles in three days and drove about a hundred more with numerous practice and qualifying sessions in sweltering heat and humidity.

"I'm just happy I survived,'' Stewart said. "Maybe I'm not in as bad of shape as I thought I was.''

Stewart felt ill Thursday after completing an IROC practice, two Busch Series practices, two Cup practices and then the IROC race. He didn't feel a whole lot better Friday during the Busch race and Cup qualifying.

He seemed just fine Saturday.

Stewart led more than half the 160-lap event, surged back in front with two laps remaining and held off a late charge from Kyle and Kurt Busch. The Busch brothers finished second and third. Road racing specialist and pole-sitter Boris Said was fourth, followed by Matt Kenseth.

When it was over, Stewart celebrated with his trademark fence climb, but made the mistake of jumping into the crowd -- where he found himself overwhelmed by rowdy fans. He had to be rescued by his crew and several NASCAR officials, who cleared a path for the NASCAR champion.

"I don't know why I do half the stupid stuff I do,'' said Stewart, who started climbing fences following his Pepsi 400 victory last July. "I felt good after the end of the race until I got stupid and went up the flag stand again.

"(But) there was no way I was going to let those race fans down. I was either going to get all the way up or I was going to fall off and fall on my butt. But I wasn't going to stop. It was every bit as big, if not bigger, than it was last year.''

This race was nothing like the one last year, when he led all but nine laps.

Stewart was out front when Jimmie Johnson crashed into Bobby Labonte with 14 laps to go to bring out just the fourth caution in what had been an unusually calm race. It set up one final round of pit stops, and Stewart dropped to 10th on the restart.

He used a sweeping move on the low side of the track to jump into second, and was preparing to pass Said when a wreck brought out another caution. On the restart, Stewart dropped way back and then steamed by Said for the victory.

It was his second win of the season and ended a slump that began six races ago when he broke his shoulder blade in an accident in Charlotte, N.C.

Stewart had finishes of 42nd, 25th, third, 41st and 28th since the accident, and dropped from fourth to seventh in the standings. The victory pushed him back up to fifth, 299 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson.

Now, Stewart hopes the Daytona win propels him as it did last season, when he captured three of the next five races and vaulted to the top of the points standings.

"I hope it's that way and I hope it's the same momentum,'' Stewart said. "But more than anything, even if we didn't win -- if we just stayed in the top five or top 10 and didn't crash or blow up -- it was going to be a good night for us. This is the kind of night that leads you to hope that maybe history can repeat itself.''

But maybe without any more fence climbs.

"As long as he keeps his helmet on, we're good,'' team president J.D. Gibbs said. "Keep the gray matter.''   Stewart toning his image
The champion of Daytona's past 2 summer races has the fans embracing him.
Ed Hinton | Sentinel Staff Writer

 
DAYTONA BEACH -- Small-track fans in the Midwest have known all along that Tony Stewart is, at the depths of his volatile self, a man of the people.

Now a nation knows.

After he dominated and won the Pepsi 400 Saturday night for the second straight year, fans at Daytona International Speedway didn't even have to reach out to touch him.

He literally fell in among them. On their side of the fence.

Long controversial outside his native Indiana and surrounding states, where he is known at a more personal level, Stewart last year here began to endear himself -- tempestuous image and all -- to the masses when he climbed the fence at the flag stand in salute to the spectators who'd bought the tickets that give him a job.

Saturday night he went overboard, scaling the fence all the way up to the flagman's stand, capturing the checkered flag and then dropping impromptu into the "mosh pit," as he called it, alluding to the seas of humanity that toss around at rock concerts.

Why?

"I don't know why I do half the stupid stuff I do," Stewart said, in perhaps his most concise description of his mood swings ever.

Once accused of shoving down a female fan (the charges were later dismissed) and once penalized by NASCAR for thumping a photographer in the chest, Stewart was as euphoric Saturday night as he'd been furious on some other race days.

"There was no way I was going to let those race fans down tonight," he said later, "because it started here, and this was the year after it all started, and I was either going to get all the way up or I was going to fall off and fall on my butt."

Overweight among a generation of fitness-obsessed drivers who obey personal trainers, Stewart often makes fun of himself for being fat.

"But I wasn't going to stop until I either got all the way up or fell off," he said. "They expected it. You could see it when we came down the front stretch [on his cool-down lap]. They were already on their feet by the flag stand."

Indeed, a crowd estimated at more than 100,000 seemed to be anticipating the celebration all race as the fans stood and cheered each time Stewart took the lead -- he led 86 of the 160 laps, easily the most in the field.

Showing phenomenal solo strength in his Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet, Stewart manhandled multi-car squadrons from Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing trying to gang up on him.

He took the lead for keeps by blasting past dark horse Boris Said with two laps to go, then held off brothers Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch, who finished second and third, respectively.

Even on the track, Stewart's blatant show of individuality made him the crowd favorite.

Understandably, someone asked about his new "love affair" with the fans.

Still, he would not assume he'd entirely made up for his bad-boy image of the past.

"I'm a very passionate person," he said. "I'm not sure I'd even call it a love affair. I think we're dating at this point, me and the fans at Daytona."

What he has done, essentially, is bring his happiness from the heartland short tracks of America -- where he has always felt at ease, and mingled with the public -- to the superspeedways and national television which for so long have brought out his ornery side.

Last week he'd gone to race at a short track in Wisconsin with Matt Kenseth, whom he'd wrecked intentionally in the Daytona 500 in February, and with whom he'd traded insults after they wrecked each other in NASCAR's all-star race at Charlotte in May.

Kenseth's father is promoter of a little local track, and Stewart raced there as a favor to the family -- and, perhaps, to himself.

"We went up with Matt and had a great time with the fans," he said.

It carried over to Saturday night.

"After tonight, I think every time we come here we're going to have a huge fan base of people who come to this race and respect the fact of what we've done in the last two years here," Stewart said.

Maybe this fling, this dating, could turn into something serious. 

This week in sports history: The King's last win
Sal Maiorana / Sports Xchange
   
 
Richard Petty was one day past his 21st birthday when he told his father, stock car racing pioneer Lee Petty, that he'd like to give racing a try.

Richard had been working as one of his father's mechanics from about the time he was old enough to know what to do with a box-end wrench. He had grown up on the dusty, rowdy NASCAR circuit, watching his father win more races than anyone, and he figured it was about time to strap himself behind the wheel and make left turns at what was then about 100 miles per hour.

Lee Petty, a man of few words, pointed to a 1957 Oldsmobile rag-top sitting in a corner of the Petty Enterprises shop that was covered with about an inch of dust because it hadn't been used since the end of the 1957 season. It was Lee's way of telling his son, "If you want to race, there's a car, get it ready and go race."

So that's what young Richard did.

And no one in the history of motor sports ever raced better than Richard Petty. The man who became known as King Richard won 200 races during a glorious career that can be paralleled quite easily to the exploits of Babe Ruth, Jack Nicklaus and Muhammad Ali, all American icons and kings of their respective sports.

Petty once described his baptism-under-fire start in NASCAR racing this way: "It's a whole lot like jumping into water that's over your head. If you're ever going to learn how to swim, you do it real quick. Well, when you've got about 30 other cats aiming right at you in a race car, you learn to get out of their way. If you can do it by outrunning them, that's a whole lot better."

But outrunning those other "cats" 200 times?

It is a number that is almost incomprehensible, nearly double his nearest competitor, David Pearson, who won 105 times. Here's some perspective: The great Dale Earnhardt won 76 times before his untimely death in 2001.

Yet hard as it was to believe, there was Petty on a fabulous Florida Fourth of July wheeling his world-famous Petty blue No. 43 STP-sponsored Pontiac into the winner's circle at Daytona International Speedway for the 200th time, accepting congratulations from, among others, President Reagan, after he had won the Firecracker 400.

"200," Petty said. "When you look at it, it does seem like a lot."

No kidding. And every one of his fellow drivers felt the same frustration during Petty's glory years, knowing that no matter what they did to their cars, King Richard was going to beat them.

"It was very frustrating," said Benny Parsons. "All the rest of us would be out there on Saturdays digging to the last moment to get our cars halfway competitive. Meanwhile, Richard's was covered up, ready to go, and you knew he was up in Level Cross (N.C., his hometown) taking a nap and resting to beat us again."

Level Cross sits about 10 miles south of Greensboro, a sleepy, rolling little village dotted with massive white oak and long-leaf pine trees, a general store, a ball field, a fire station, and Petty Enterprises. Obviously, there wasn't much to do for young Richard, so he immersed himself in his father's racing business.

By the time he was 10, Petty could take apart an engine and put it back together, with all the parts in the right places. When Lee Petty went into racing on the newly-formed NASCAR circuit full-time in 1950, Richard, his brother Maurice and cousin, Dale Inman, were part of the crew - when they weren't in school - building bodies and engines and working in the pits on race days.

Petty played on his high school's football team, but that was merely something to do in the fall when the racing season was over. His true love was cars, and after spending more than 10 years learning everything there was to learn about a race car, Petty entered his first race in 1958.

He had that '57 Olds tuned just the way he wanted it, and all that was left to do was choose a number - 43 because it came right after his father's No. 42 - and paint the body. There was a gallon of blue paint and a gallon of white, not enough of either color, so Richard mixed the paint together and Petty blue was born.

The greatest career in racing history began on a half-mile white clay track in Columbia, S.C., a 200-lap event in which Petty went the distance, finishing sixth. He entered eight more races that season, never won and didn't even make a return to the top 10. He pocketed a grand total of $760, about enough to pay for gas and hot dogs for him and his crew, and he wondered if perhaps he was better off back in the pits tending to his father's car.

Petty decided to race again in 1959. It proved to be a wise choice.

He thought he won his first race in Atlanta when the checkered flag was waved above his car, but before Petty could hoist his trophy, he was informed that a protest had been lodged - by his father. Lee Petty claimed the flag had been waved one lap early, and it turned out that he was right. So the winner was the man who was riding second at the time and ran the extra lap Richard didn't - Lee Petty.

A couple months later - July 18 in Columbia on the same track he had made his debut - Richard finally claimed that elusive first victory, winning a 200-lap race with a daring last-lap pass of Jack Smith.

By the time Petty put his car on the grid at Daytona for the 1984 Firecracker 400 at the age of 47, he had won at least one race in every year since 1959 except for 1978 and 1982. He had won the Daytona 500 a record seven times, he owned 54 superspeedway victories, 41 500-mile victories, seven Grand National season championships, 71 second-place finishes, 535 top-five finishes and 643 top-10 finishes.

Petty was solid all day, and with just 20 of the scheduled 160 laps on the historic 2.5-mile track left to be run, it was a two-man race between Petty and Cale Yarborough as they held a 25-second advantage over their closest pursuers. Petty was in the lead with Yarborough masterfully drafting and positioning himself for a slingshot pass at just the right moment.

Around and around they went, Yarborough waiting for an opening. Time was running out and he still hadn't made his move, and then at the start of lap 158, his hand was forced. Rookie Dale Heveron lost control of his car and veered onto the grass apron in turn one, bringing out a yellow caution flag. Petty and Yarborough had already passed the flagstand when the yellow was waved, so this meant the first man to return to the flagstand would be assured of the victory, because passing is not permitted under a caution period.

"When I saw that car upside down in turn one, I knew that whoever got back first was the winner," said Petty. "That essentially turned lap 158 into the last lap. Cale knew it, too. All the planning about what strategy to use on the last lap didn't mean anything then. I took off and so did Cale."

Petty and Yarborough gunned it around the track as 80,000 fans rose and roared in unison. Yarborough shot his Chevrolet past Petty in turn three, but Petty immediately maneuvered to the inside and drew abreast as they entered turn four. Bumping and grinding down the straightaway to the finish line, Petty inched ahead and managed to hold that advantage until he flashed across the line.

"In making his pass, he had to go into turn three harder than he had all day," Petty said of Yarborough. "His tires didn't stick and he had to burp the car just enough to keep from hitting the wall. That enabled me to get back inside and alongside him.

"We touched fairly hard three or four times, and the last bam sort of squirted me out ahead. When the cars came apart it seemed to give me the slightest edge. It see-sawed back and forth between us three or four times from the fourth corner to the line. Cale acted and I reacted and it just happens I'm sitting up here instead of him. I have a feeling the action would have unfolded about the same way if there hadn't been a yellow."

Yarborough cruised into the pits thinking the race was over at that point, but there was one lap to be run under caution, and that faux pas cost him second place as Harry Gant - a half-lap behind when the yellow flag was waved - moved up. Yarborough realized his mistake in time to get back onto the track and claim third place.

"I can't say how much this means to me, the President being here and all," Petty said. "He asked me `Were you and Cale actually touching fenders coming down the stretch?' and I told him `Yes sir, we were.' It blowed his mind we were hitting like that at 200 miles an hour."

And it blew everyone else's mind that this man had won for the 200th time.

POSTSCRIPT: For a couple of years, rumors had circulated that as soon as Petty captured his 200th victory, he was going to retire. But Petty had no intentions of quitting, and the constant talk had become irritating. "A real good part about winning today is that it's going to end all this aggravating speculation," he said. "People will see that I'm going to go right on racing as usual and that this win doesn't change my plans for the rest of this year or anytime in the foreseeable future. I want to win a lot more than 200 races." However, Petty never won again. He kept racing for eight more years, but No. 201 eluded him and in 1992, he decided enough was enough and put the No. 43 car into the garage for good. The final tally on Petty's career was 200 wins in 1,185 races, and more than $7.7 million in prize money.

Daytona
Guest columnist Kimm: NASCAR needs Gordon to make the Chase
By B. Duane Cross, NASCAR.COM
 

While I'm still enjoying R&R and state baseball playoffs, Bill Kimm, morning show host on Sports Talk 790 The Ball in High Point, N.C., is serving as Ricky Rudd to my Tony Stewart with today's commentary ...

NASCAR fans, we need Jeff Gordon to succeed. Love him or hate him, he is the face of NASCAR -- and the sport will do what it takes to ensure that he matters in November.
 
Yes, Kasey Kahne has the looks. Yes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has the pedigree. And yes, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart have the wins. Even Denny Hamlin looks pretty good after finding Victory Lane earlier this year.

But Gordon remains numero uno when it comes to the sport. Any doubt, just look at how much of him we saw during Saturday night's race.

Sure, he was sponsored by Pepsi (and, after all, this was the Pepsi 400), but it goes beyond that. When the No. 24 was taken out of the race in the closing laps, a victim of the Greg Biffle-J.J. Yeley carnage, more than 100,000 people stood and applauded.

No other driver has that kind of pull -- not Smoke, not Kyle Busch or even Kurt Busch. No one -- and that's why NASCAR loves Gordon and needs him.

And you should love Gordon right now, too. Unless you are OK with Brian France altering the Chase to make it easier for someone like Gordon to get in.

France announced on Friday that some changes would be coming to the Chase for the Nextel Cup, though he didn't tell us what they would be. But know this: Any changes will be to guarantee the sport doesn't see a repeat of 2005, when Gordon and Junior were bystanders during the "playoffs."

Nothing is wrong with the Chase and 10 drivers are plenty. If NASCAR really feels the need to make it more exciting, then have all 10 drivers start at zero points.

Every other sport makes playoff teams start over, so why should NASCAR be any different? Start them all at the same level and see what happens.

NASCAR also should give more points for a win, both in the regular season and the Chase.

Nine races remain until the Chase, ladies and gentlemen, and if you do not want the sport to make any drastic changes, I suggest you root for the No. 24 to get into the top 10. I know it pains you, but it's for the betterment of NASCAR.

Say Anything

"What I've always said about the Chase was that we needed a few years under our belt to see how it evolved, to change the strategy, see how the actual formula that we have, see how it really works, and now we're in our third year, starting to get that sense, and my view is, we will make some adjustments going into 2007. It's a natural time to do that. A) As I just said, we'll have three years under our belt to judge it. And B), we have a new television partner in ABC and ESPN coming on board who will televise the final 10 [races] live on network television, matter of fact, including Richmond. So the ideal time for us to make adjustments, not major changes, but adjustments, will be in the offseason this year."
-- NASCAR chairman Brian France
 
Figuratively Speaking

3 -- For three different reasons:

• Drivers ranked in the top 10 in points after Race No. 17 in 2005 who failed to make the Chase. Elliott Sadler was fourth and finished 13th, Jamie McMurray was seventh and finished 12th and Dale Jarrett was 10th and finished 15th.

• Jimmie Johnson now leads Matt Kenseth by only eight points, marking the tightest points race in 10 years through 17 races. In 1997, Terry Labonte led eventual Cup champion Jeff Gordon by three points.

• This season also marks the third consecutive year in which Johnson has led the point standings through 17 races. Maybe third time is the charm; he failed to win the title in 2004 and '05.

Fast Facts

• Tony Stewart has nine top-10 finishes in the past nine restrictor-plate races, including six consecutive top-fives. He also has six top-10s in the past six races at Daytona.

• Penske revival? Kurt Busch's third-place finish at Daytona was his fourth consecutive top-10, while teammate Ryan Newman finished 11th to extend a streak of five top-15 finishes in a row.

• Jimmie Johnson has been ranked among the top 10 in points for 86 consecutive races, tying Darrell Waltrip for eighth place since the current point system was established in 1975.

Up Next

Chicagoland Speedway | 3 p.m. ET Sunday | TNT

• None of the five races at Chicago have been won from a top-five starting position, and three races have been won from a starting position outside the top 10.

• Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson have four consecutive top-five finishes at Chicago, tied for the longest current streak. Johnson holds the edge in average finish -- 3.0 to 8.8 -- but Stewart has one victory.

• Four drivers in the top 10 -- Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick -- have been running at the finish in every race. Kasey Kahne (two) and Tony Stewart (three) are the only top-10 drivers with more than one DNF.

Fantasy Perspective

Two, four, six, eight -- that's who we appreciate:

• Second-place Matt Kenseth ... has competed in all five races at Chicagoland with two top-10 finishes ... finished second last year and led a race-high 176 laps ... has a 9.4 finishing average at the track.

• Fourth-place Kasey Kahne ... has competed in two races at Chicago, finishing 36th and 41st -- both DNFs -- for a 38.5 average finish.

• Sixth-place Mark Martin ... has competed in all five races at Chicagoland with three top-10 finishes ... has a 12.6 average finish at the track despite not finishing on the lead lap in two races (2003 and 2004).

• Eighth-place Kyle Busch ... finished 14th last year in his first start at Chicago.

OK, so I sloughed off my responsibilities last week and did not file a column for the first time in two years. Thanks for the e-mails that inquired about when I'd be back, and if you didn't notice there wasn't a piece last week, well you didn't miss anything.

Last week's Fantasy Racing -- the Sonoma race -- was a lot like this week's: Yours truly picked the winner and won the weekend points tally (narrowly beating 790 The Ball listener Jessie B., 24 points to 21).
 
And Finally ...

EA SPORTS' NASCAR 07 features Elliott Sadler on the cover. ... Most everyone knows about the perceived "Madden Jinx" that holds sway over the game-maker's popular NFL franchise, but consider:

• 2006 -- Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson
• 2005 -- Kevin Harvick
• 2004 -- Tony Stewart
• 2003 -- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
• 2002 -- Jeff Gordon
• 2001 -- Tony Stewart and Jeff Burton
• 2000 -- Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte and Mark Martin
• 1999 -- Dale Earnhardt, Mark Martin
• 1998 -- Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Bobby Labonte

Only Gordon -- in 1998 -- won the Cup during his reign as EA's coverboy.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.