First, I want to say that I still have one pair of tickets to the NASCAR Sharp AQUOS 500 at California Speedway, courtesy of Kodak, available to giveaway. Email me and they’re yours. Winners have been selected.

Watkins Glen was… something. That’s really the best way to describe it. It wasn’t fun for Dale Earnhardt Jr. which is incredibly annoying to me. I could not believe it when they said his engine blew up. I didn’t think that DEI could be trying to sabotage Dale on his way out, but after this weekend I can’t rule it out entirely. I mean this is just too messed up for words. I don’t know if I can take another Chase without Dale in it. The world will not be right. So I’m not counting him out yet until it’s all over, said and done. A lot of things could happen between now and when the Chase is locked in. Right? Right.

A few things that tickled me about the race this weekend:

1.) Juan Pablo Montoya as the in-race reporter. Yea, I knew that wasn’t going to work out well from the get-go. He’s a punk and even before the race started he couldn’t talk or give any insight because he was too busy whining about his steering wheel. Ok, I’m sure he had real concerns, but I just thought it was funny that the first chance they try to talk to him he’s pissed.

2.) The tussle between Juan Pablo and Kevin Harvick was classic. I loved it. I don’t care if Harvick was overreacting — he is a hot-head so I’m not shocked that he got into a shoving match over something that wasn’t even really JPM’s fault. It was highly funny and Harvick outdid himself at the end of the race when he said that he wanted to kick Montoya’s a**. It’s a shame he’s going to get fined for that. I dunno how I feel about the whole fining thing for saying a “bad” word. I’m ok with the money part, but the docking of points is a bit much. And I do agree with Rusty Wallace that instead of that money going to the points fund, they should give it to charity. That’d be a far better use of that money.

3) Ok… so what was up with that fool who decided to try and get Matt Kenseth’s autograph during the red flag? That was very bold of him and yet so very stupid. Although it would have been better had Matt actually signed his hat for him. I wonder if NASCAR would have fined him for that? I guess you wouldn’t want to encourage that kind of behavior.

4.) Seeing Jeff Gordon frustrated was a highlight. It is sad that he lost the entire race with one mistake, but after seeing Junior fall out of the race with his engine issues I wasn’t that sympathetic. I guess the thing I appreciated about seeing Gordon pissed after the race was that those were real, true emotions and he had no one to blame except himself, and he knew it. Plus I also liked the fact that he didn’t put on that happy face racers are always famous for doing, putting some happy spin on top of the fact they lost. But there was no getting away from this one, this was a hard loss.

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A couple weekends ago I caught some of the Fox Sports Net series Beyond the Glory, it’s like Behind the Music but for sports. This particular installment was about Matt Kenseth. The content of the show was good, it talked about the year he won the Cup Championship and then the year following and Matt’s quest to prove that he could win races.

The thing that got me about this show was the voice over guy. His tone was terrible. He made everything sound so dark and depressing. Get this guy some Prozac. Jeez. I think they were going for some sort of edgy effect but it ended up just sounding completely uninspired and lame. Matt deserved better.

I don’t care.

I don’t care that four crew chiefs were suspended for cheating this week. And you wanna know why I don’t care? Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t do anything to their teams. Yes it sets them back in points and money, but they’ll find replacement chiefs and the team will still compete on Sunday.

The race is what matters and if NASCAR really wants to punish people for cheating they shouldn’t allow them to compete. It’s ridiculous.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. accidentally curses on national television (this was a couple years back if my memory serves me) and he’s docked points but a bunch of people cheat on purpose and they’re docked points too. It doesn’t match up in my eyes.

Kasey Kahne and Matt Kenseth are hot, big name drivers right now, but I think we could live without them in the Daytona 500 this year if that’s what it takes to get teams to realize that you can’t get away with this type of behavior anymore.

This is a big weekend for NASCAR fans. This Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami is the last race of the 2006 season and it will decide who will win the NEXTEL Cup Championship.

Jimmie Johnson leads the Chase and has to finish 12 or better to clinch the title, but at the same time there are 4 other drivers that are still mathematically eligible to win the Cup.

I really, really want Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win, this should come as no surprise, and he still has a slim chance of at making it happen. I’m not saying that I want Johnson’s car to run into some problems, but I am.
I will say this though, I do agree with Matt Kenseth when he compared Johnson’s team to the Indianapolis Colts. They’ve both come so close to winning the championship in the past but always seem to get in their own way and can’t seem to close the deal. And for that reason I won’t be completely irked if the Lowe’s team comes out on top this year.

Since this is the last race of the season I should probably be sad, but I’m not. NASCAR isn’t like football or baseball when you have to wait for months and months for the season to begin again, so long that you forget who got traded where. With NASCAR it’s basically two months and we’re back in the game again.

Sunday also marks Juan Pablo Montoya’s first ride in a Cup car. I can’t remember which race it was earlier this year but they interviewed JP during a pre-race show and asked him how he liked NASCAR so far. He said that he found pit road to be a bit scary, with the crew members jumping out in front of his car as he made his stop. I was sooo glad a real racer said that, because those Formula 1, Indy Car peeps have it easy. They’re already in place for their stops, they don’t have to run and carry big, heavy tires.

But then again, it’s still dangerous, check out this F1 pit stop:

We’re finally down to the last ten races of the season that will determine who will win the Nextel Cup Championship for 2006. The top ten drivers — Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne — spent a few days in New York making the rounds on TV to remind America that NASCAR still exists, and oh yea, they’ve got a playoff season now.
The only thing that I was able to Tivo was Live with Regis & Kelly, where everybody but Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (I think) were there to throw cream pies at Regis, Kelly and Gelman for some sort of record. That’s not the point of this story. The thing that got me about that appearance was Matt Kenseth’s posture. He has the worst posture ever!! I want to shake him and attach a stick to his back to make him stand up straight.

In this photo he’s talking with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the Chase driver’s dinner in New York earlier this week. Notice the slouch? It’s not as pronounced in this shot as it was when he was on Letterman. He looked almost Mr. Magoo-ish.

So now the top ten drivers are separated by only 5 points each. This is where it gets fun and really stressful. Not just for the drivers but for me! At least the drivers have something to do, I can only eat so many potato chips before I get sick. I don’t know if I can handle hundreds of laps hoping and praying that nothing happens to my favorite drivers, er, driver.

There’s a rumor running around that, on the heels of the announcement of Juan-Pablo Montoya coming to NASCAR from Formula 1, Danica Patrick might be pondering a jump from IRL to NASCAR.

I have very mixed emotions about this. First off I have no idea why she’d want to make the move. I don’t understand why she’d think about coming to NASCAR just because her contract with Rahal-Letterman Racing is up at the end of this season. It’s not like she’s made such a huge impact on IRL yet. Yes, she’s a woman and yes she’s the first woman to ever lead laps in the Indy 500, but she didn’t win the race. She should actually wait and do something before moving on to something else. Win the championship, win more races. Make a name for yourself outside of just being a woman. I’m not saying that she isn’t trying but I just want a real reason outside of her dad (he’s also her business manager) wanting her to go to NASCAR.
I’m a total feminist, I’m all for women excelling in male dominated arenas. I just want us to push past all of the excitement that we’re running with the big boys, I want us to pass/beat the big boys too!

The only thing that’s bugged me about Danica is a comment she made in an interview a while back. The writer asked Danica if she kind of thought of herself as the Gloria Steinem of racing, to which Danica said something like “Is that bad? Who is that?” You could have knocked me over with a feather. How can you not know who Gloria Steinem is and be a woman at the same time?? Ugh! While I don’t expect her to know everything about Steinem’s career, you should at least have a general understanding of what she’s about.

If Danica is to come to NASCAR she should work her way up, start out in the Busch series at least. Oh and don’t get me started about the Busch series. Why can’t they keep the Nextel Cup full-time drivers out of Busch racing? I think Busch would be better if it was full of unknown, up & coming drivers leaving the Nextel Cup series as something even bigger to aspire to than it already is for them.

About this past race weekend at Chicagoland; how cool was it to see Jeff Gordon spin out Matt Kenseth? And then how awesome was it to see Matt Kenseth super pissed off after the race?? I love that stuff. I know NASCAR frowns upon that kind of thing but there’s nothing you can do about it. The drivers are human and I would hate it if they acted like weren’t. The best thing about competition in general is the human spirit and passion behind it. Plus you know we’re all going to be tuning in next weekend to see if Kenseth retaliates! We can only hope.