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.

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I have to let you in on something that severely hurts my heart every time I think about it. Maybe by writing about it it won’t hurt as much.

I could have gone to the NASCAR Preseason Thunder testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier this week, but for reasons I won’t go into here I wasn’t able to attend.

This makes me severely depressed. I mean, what could be better than spending three days in Vegas with Dale Earnhardt Jr.?, I mean, with all those NASCAR drivers and their teams? Right, yeah, that’s what I meant.

But I’m moving on and I’m looking forward to the season ahead. There are a bunch of new faces to watch this year, for example, Ricky Carmichael and A.J. Allmendinger.

Ricky comes from the world of motocross and A. J. is from Champ Car. Carmichael is only 27 but yet his name is synonymous with motocross (and local Morgan Hill company Fox Racing). He won’t be in the Nextel Cup series anytime soon though, he’ll work his way up from the bottom, starting with super-late-model and Arca races. Which I think is the totally right way to go. I don’t like the idea of people being able to just jump into Nextel Cup races straight outta the gate.

That’s like a famous pro football player switching to baseball and being the starting picture for a major league team. Ridiculous. They should go down to some minor league team, learn and prove themselves.

But apparently Allmendinger is good enough to roll right on into Cup racing. He’ll be apart of Team Red Bull in a Toyota Camry ride.

In other news…

Oh how I wish I had DirecTV right now. DirecTV is launching a new premium service called HotPass that will allow you to watch ONLY your favorite driver during a NASCAR race.

Each channel has its own announcers dedicated to that driver, real-time stats and six different cameras. At any given time, two of those angles are shown — along with the network feed — on a triple-split screen.

NASCAR’s entire 37-race season costs $99 for DirecTV subscribers. And starting in 2008, everything will be available in high definition.

”It’s the home-team channel for your driver,” said Chris Long, the executive producer for HotPass. ”You’re going to hear driver audio. You’ll have the ability to listen (to the team), or you can listen to the announcers.”

The access is amazing, but I wonder how much longer it’ll be before we’re watching our fave drivers 24/7, while their showering or eating dinner. Read more about this by clicking here.

Jimmie Johnson poses with two young fans on Jimmie Johnson Day in San Diego on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at the San Diego Hall of Champions. (Photo Credit: Kent Horner/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Kyle Busch, left, talks with Dale Earnhardt Jr., right, during NASCAR Preseason Thunder testing. (Photo Credit: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images for NASCAR)

AJ Allmendinger takes a break during NASCAR Preseason Thunder testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Dale Jarrett talks with the media during NASCAR Preseason Thunder at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. (Photo Credit: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Go Colts!

Daytona is 30 days away and I’m getting more and more excited about it by the minute.

Teams continued to test at Daytona International Speedway this week, including Carl Edwards and his Office Depot crew. Turns out Cousin Carl is a bit of a music aficionado. He’s the co-owner of a new record label that he started with some friends. (photo credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Here’s more from a press release:

Playing a guitar is a bit of a project for NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series driver Carl Edwards (No. 99 Office Depot Ford), who reads chassis hiccups like sheet music and manhandles steering wheels.

But feeling his way through cords and riffs hasn’t stymied Edwards. As the creator — along with friends in his native Missouri — of new recording label Back 40 Records, Edwards hopes to provide a boost for unknown artists who need it.

“I like the people that write their own songs and are really singing about something that they care about,” Edwards said Monday prior to NASCAR Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona International Speedway.

“I tell you somebody I met the other day who was really cool was Danielle Peck, the country music singer. She was really nice and it was really cool to hear her story and how hard she’d worked, and then to listen to her music.”

Edwards knows the power of a big break: He has advanced from obscurity to stardom in only three years with Roush Racing. And as this week’s second session of NASCAR NEXTEL Cup preseason testing begins at Daytona, he’s searching for a way back to the top of the series charts.

“There were times last year where I thought, ‘Man, what am I doing wrong here?’” said Edwards, who followed 2005’s third-place finish with last season’s frustrating 12th-place effort.

A crew-chief change from Bob Osborne to Wally Brown, then back to Osborne for 2007 seems to have settled things, allowing Edwards to pursue a comeback — plus his new role as music mogul.

“We’ve got our record label going so I’ve been listening to that stuff — all the Back 40 artists — everything, man,” Edwards said. “The last really neat CD that I got — and I got to meet the guys — was the Robert Randolph band. I thought that was a great CD, so that’s probably what I’ve listened to the most, lately.”

Edwards, who jammed onstage with the band in December’s NASCAR Busch Series Awards Banquet performance, grew up listening to his father and two uncles strum guitars at family reunions. His own tastes took a historical turn — borrowing heavily from his parents’.

“When I was about 14, I found a record player and some records that they’d stacked away in the basement,” Edwards said, “and it was like John Denver, and Simon and Garfunkel — stuff like that. So for a long time, I never listened to current music. I was probably 17 when I started driving my car and I’d listen to whatever was on the radio.”

I like Carl Edwards, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, but I think I’m liking him more lately ever since Tony Stewart talked about how he thinks Carl is “Eddie Haskell”. I give Tony points for comparing Carl to Eddie, a name I’ve used for certain people in my personal life, but Tony kinda irks me so I still have to stick with Carl for the time being. Plus Carl is way cuter than Tony so there ya go.

In other news…

– Ashley Force announced that she’ll be racing in Funny Car this year. This is great news! I can’t wait to see her competing against the men — and her father — at Infineon later this year. In an episode of Driving Force (on A&E) they show her qualifying to get her Funny Car license. It’s one of the sweetest episodes. John Force gets so emotional when she finally hits the mark that it got me all teary-eyed (which really isn’t that hard, but still). Anyway, Go Ashley!

Ashley Force, 24, stands with her father, 14-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force, next to the funny car she will drive this coming season in the NHRA Poweraide Series Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 16, 2007 in Yorba Linda, Calif. (AP Photo/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Will Lester)

I’m not digging her shorter hair, she definitely looks better with it longer.

– He’s baaack. Jeremy Mayfield was back in the saddle testing his new Toyota ride at Daytona this week. *sigh* I can’t wait for this race season to begin. There are a million and one storylines to be watched. Hold on tight, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Driver Jeremy Mayfield talks with crew members during NASCAR auto racing testing at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2007. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Former NASCAR champion Benny Parsons lost his fight with lung-cancer today at the age of 65. He was loved by many and will be deeply missed.

Several drivers signed Michael Waltrip’s No. 55 Toyota Camry honoring the late Benny Parsons. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

I’m watching NASCAR Drivers: Non-Stop on ESPN2 right now. The show follows Clint Bowyer, J.J. Yeley, Casey Mears, David Gilliland and Jeremy Mayfield , amongst others, on and off the race track. The footage is from last year’s race season. It’s great! Take my word for it.

What’s better than seeing Jeremy Mayfield sitting at home completely frustrated that he’s not out there racing with everyone else? Ever since he was ousted from Evernham in August I was dying to know what he was doing with himself and this show answered all of my questions. Besides watching the races he spent time bowling with his wife, building a new massive house and, as i’ve noted in the title, he spent some time blowing up watermelons.

Jeremy will be back this year in the #36 360 OTC Toyota Camry for Bill Davis Racing.

The show also confirmed my feelings about Clint Bowyer. I once compared him to Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger at the suggestion of sports writer John Dugan. But I think that Clint really bares a striking resemblance to actor Steve Martin. What do you think?

Also on ESPN2 today is Michael Waltrip Racing: A New Era. Here’s some info from the show’s press release:

Michael Waltrip Racing: A New Era is an 11-episode, documentary television series that chronicles Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota’s new partnership in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series.

In the premiere episode, Waltrip breaks ground at his new fabrication shop and announces to his staff that ESPN2 will document all of the exciting developments for the new race team. He also visits Toyota Racing Development to see the new Toyota Camry stock car and Toyota executives explain why the company is partnering with the team and entering NASCAR NEXTEL Cup racing.

“This show was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to build a race team and give the fans an inside look into everything that goes into it,” said Waltrip, a two-time Daytona 500 winner. “From hiring the crew, to applying information about rules and competition, and seeing how it all comes together — that’s what this story is about.”

Even though the first race of the NASCAR season is still 37 days away — the prestigious Daytona 500 — racing has begun. Sort of.

Officially titled NASCAR Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder at Daytona, teams began testing their cars for the upcoming season. Teams that were in odd-number positions in the car owner standings as of July 12, 2006 tested this week. The even-numbered teams will test next week.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the fastest car in practice on Tuesday but of course that was overshadowed by the so-called drama between him and his step-mother Teresa Earnhardt.

Teresa was originally quoted as saying this to the Wall Street Journal. Junior then said this at a press conference on Monday. To which Ricky Rudd gave his two cents on Tuesday (he was asked for his opinion, so it’s not like he just busted out with it).

I just hope that this all blows over, Junior renews his deal with DEI and we can all get back to racing and trying to win!

In other news…

– Greg Biffle got engaged over the holidays to his kick-ass girlfriend Nicole Lunders. She’s the woman who got so pissed with Kurt Busch, after he put Biffle’s car into the wall at Texas last year, that she stormed over to Busch’s pit box and chewed out his fiancée Eva Bryan. That was the coolest thing I had seen at a race in a very long time.

– This year’s NASCAR Day has been set for May 18th.

Fans interested in participating in NASCAR Day can purchase a pin, sign up his or her company and even purchase NASCAR Day apparel by going to www.nascar.com/foundation. NASCAR fans, corporations, schools and organizations across the country are encouraged to donate $5 and all participants receive a collectible 2007 NASCAR Day lapel pin for their donation.

Kasey Kahne signs autographs for fans during NASCAR Jackson Hewitt Preseason Thunder at Daytona International Speedway. (All Photos Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)