For this past weekend’s race at Darlington I was in La La Land (aka Los Angeles). I was at my sister’s house celebrating Mother’s Day.

The great thing about the race being delayed until Sunday was that I was able to watch the race with my nephews. I had never done that before and it was fun explaining to them who I liked (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Casey Mears, Clint Bowyer) and who I didn’t (Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart).

When they asked why I didn’t like Kyle Busch, I said it was because he whined a lot, a problem that my nephews — ages 10 and 8 — could relate to. It suddenly occurred to me that this was a great opportunity to show them how important it was to control their anger, to not whine but to instead articulate their frustrations in a more productive way. Hopefully by seeing my distaste for Busch and Stewart they’d understand that it’s not cool to whine about every little thing that goes wrong for them. Sometimes you just have to take it and move on.

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This whole Jeff Gordon winning thing is becoming a problem.

I don’t like the fact that he’s been winning so many races lately. I don’t dislike the man, I’m just tired of him. We know who Jeff Gordon is, we know he’s a winner, blah, blah, blah. I want to see someone else, someone else who can become the next face of NASCAR.

Because even if you’re not a fan of NASCAR you know who Jeff Gordon is. I suspect that Jeffie is a little jealous of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Even though Gordon is still obviously kicking butt and taking names, I think he’s irked that Dale Jr. is more popular than him, especially now that there’s all this hubbub surrounding Junior’s free agent status. If Junior would just get out there and do stuff like Saturday Night Live (and win the Championship) he’d be the new golden boy.

Others are trying to make names for themselves outside of NASCAR, Carl Edwards for example. Lately he’s been on MAD TV and covers of many magazines. Carl has been working it and I appreciate that. He’s making the most of the opportunities that are being given to him. He’s got charisma too, which is helpful. I like Carl, but of course I don’t want him to win a championship before Junior.

If I’m anything I’m loyal.

Like whoa.

I come into work this morning and I start up Internet Explorer to find my personalized Google homepage filled with the same headline listed over and over and over again.

“Earnhardt Jr. leaving DEI after the season”

I had to do a double take. Maybe it was just the media being clever trying to trick me but no, it was all true. Dale Earnhardt Jr. scheduled a press conference for today (the invites to the media were sent out midday yesterday) and before the thing even began speculation was flying all over the place about what he was going to announce. Everybody’s money was on him announcing his departure from DEI, and so they were right.

It’s a very sad thing for him to have to leave DEI. It would have been the sweetest thing if he could have stayed and won a championship for the company his dad started. But I guess it wasn’t meant to be that way.

Being the true and dedicated fan that I am I don’t care which team he goes to next, uhm… wait… it can’t be Hendrick, puhleeese don’t go to Hendrick, not like he could anyway they’re already at the 4 team limit. I’m ok with Richard Childress Racing or Joe Gibbs Racing, although him having Tony Stewart as a teammate makes me want to retch, but whatever, I’d get over it.

I really hope that Dale Jr. and his sister Kelley get what they want and find the right team/company that can support their efforts to win (and win consistently).

I thought it was really awesome, and speaks to how cool Dale Jr. is, that he asked Darrell Waltrip to come down for the announcement. Darrell has said many times in the past that he thought Junior would have to DEI at some point in the future in order to really make a run for the Cup championship.

So my next questions are… Is Junior’s crew chief and cousin, Tony Eury Jr., coming with him?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. takes a break during testing at Lowe’s Motor Speedway Monday. (Photo Credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images for NASCAR)

I am invested in the success of Toyota’s NASCAR race teams.

Why you ask?

Well I own a Toyota (a cool and fun Toyota Matrix XR named “Trinity” my homage to the lead female character in “The Matrix” film franchise) and I like the company. So if Toyota isn’t a winner I’m not a winner! Well, sort-of. I don’t take it that seriously but you get my point.

My first car in high school was a 1970-something Toyota Corolla named Betsy (right) that every member of my family drove before it got handed down to me in the late 1990’s. I loved that car, it was old but it lasted for a long time. Toyota knows how to make great cars that last, that are reliable. But now they need to make some race cars that can win, heck, just qualifying would be nice.

While Dave Blaney is currently ranked 3rd (David Reutimann of Michael Waltrip Racing is in 4th) in the points standings for the Busch series — which is really awesome — his teammates at Bill Davis Racing and the other Toyota teams are seriously lagging.

As much as I was annoyed with Brian Vickers for stupidly spinning out Dale Earnhardt Jr. last year (I have a hard time letting things go, can’t ya tell?) at Talladega I’m starting to root for him again. Part of that is because I dig Red Bull (eventhough I’ve never drunk a Red Bull in my life, I appreciate great marketing) and of course Toyota in general.

I feel bad because AJ Allmendinger is completely new to this NASCAR thing and he’s not getting the opportunity to really prove himself, show us all what he can do. Jeremy Mayfield is back but you can hardly tell because he’s only been in 3 races so far this season. I’m looking forward to him racing — competitively — against his ex-Evernham teammates.

Then there’s Michael Waltrip. Only one race under his belt this year and the rest of his race teams are seriously struggling. Dale Jarrett is out of provisionals, so if he doesn’t qualify on time for Richmond he’s not going to be in a Nextel Cup race for the first time after 424 previous starts. Maybe there’s an early retirement ahead for Dale? He’s really good at analyzing the Busch races on ESPN.

In other news…

At least someone at Red Bull Racing is winning… Today they announced that 20-year-old mechanical engineering student Matthew Marchiando from the University of California-Davis won the first-ever Red Bull Velocity Lab internship. He’ll be spending his summer at the Red Bull Racing race shop in Mooresville, N.C. I post this because he’s local to me (Davis, Calif is an hour north of me in the San Francisco Bay Area). Marchiando’s internship application included a plan on how to perfect “how the front splitter limits front-end travel” on the Car of Tomorrow. Good luck Matthew!

Yes, Bobby Labonte was due for a win and I’m glad he finally got it today during the Busch race at Talladega.

What I’m more happy/disappointed about is that Casey Mears finished 3rd in the same race. He led laps and was in a position to win it at the end but because of a late caution he got the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Hopefully this’ll give him good momentum into tomorrows NEXTEL Cup race. There are still only two drivers that I want to get a win under their belt for this season, it’s Casey and Dale Earnhardt Jr. For some reason I have this huge interest in Casey. I think it has to do with watching him on the NASCAR Drivers 360 show on ESPN. Once you’re able to see a driver in his regular everyday environment it’s the turning point in whether you root for him or not.

As much as I would like to say that what a person does off the field, track or court shouldn’t matter when it comes to the game that they play, it does to a certain extent. It’s just easier to like the nice guy, even if they do something “bad” during the game.

In other news…

I was alerted by TallGlassOfMilk that the wives and girlfriends of NASCAR drivers are tossing out those boring synthetic fiber credential lanyards in favor of stylish beaded ones. Check out the photo gallery of the girls sporting their trendy necklace-esque lanyards on AnswerThis…

I just got off a teleconference call with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

It wasn’t just me on the call (I wish), it was for all NASCAR media. Anyway, Dale basically said that there’s nothing for the fans to worry about when it comes to his contract negotiations with DEI.

In regards to the contract issues he said, “I’m pretty excited that things are going to be fine.” I think that his fans should be happy for him in whatever happens; because it’s obviously what he thinks is best for him, the team, and his family.

All I know is that I can’t wait for these negotiations to be over so we can all focus on other important things like… uhm… things that I can think of right now, but I know there’s other things people could be talking about.

Sort of like this…

Should Jeff Gordon surpass Dale Earnhardt in the career victories category this coming weekend at Talladega (they’re currently tied at 6th with 76 wins each), Junior says that people should throw toilet paper instead of beer cans, if they’re upset about Gordon moving ahead of his father in the record books. I should clarify that he’s not encouraging people to be mad about it, he’s just doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.