The drivers contending for the 2009 championship are…

• Mark Martin
• Tony Stewart
• Jimmie Johnson
• Denny Hamlin
• Kasey Kahne
• Jeff Gordon
• Kurt Busch
• Brian Vickers
• Carl Edwards
• Ryan Newman
• Juan Pablo Montoya
• Greg Biffle

As you can see by the above list, Dale Earnhardt Jr didn’t make it in.  I really haven’t yet figured out who I think has the best chance to win the championship.  Although, my gut says Tony & Jimmie are very good early favorites to win it all.  It will boil down to whoever can have the most consistent (good consistency, that is) finishes for the remaining 10 races.  Who are you rooting for to win?

The drivers spent the past couple of days doing a whirlwind media tour in New York City.  Here is a clip of one of the appearances.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWEqW4LagVM

Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

Matt Kenseth won the rain-shortened 2009 Daytona 500.  Shortening that race due to rain is very much of a let down.  Number 1 – It’s the Daytona 500!  That just isn’t a race you want to see delayed or shortened because of rain.  Number 2 – If the last 48 laps were anything like the previous 50 or so, there would have been a lot of drama and action still to come.

Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

I just don’t know what to say about Junior’s performance during the race today.  I know he’s been battling the flu for the past week which might have had to do with the fact that his head just didn’t seem in the game.  He missed his pit stall during the first caution of the race, which sent him to the back.  Then, during a caution on lap 120, he got a penalty for getting service while the car was not completely in the pit stall.  4 laps after this, he & Brian Vickers get a little tangled up which ends up involving 8 other cars (including Kyle Busch, who seemed to be on his way to a win).

“I got a run on him. He saw me coming. I got a big ol’ run on him and I went to the inside,” he said. “I didn’t try to make any late move or some surprise. He went to block me and hit me and sent me down to the grass.

“I tried to recover my car and I got back into him coming back up the race track. I don’t hate it for him, but (I do) for everyone else that got wrecked.”

Only Dale Earnhardt Jr knows exactly what happened in that race car today.  He obviously shouldn’t have hit Vickers but he did.  I have a feeling I’m going to have to avoid all discussions of this incident this week, though, because the “Junior haters” are going to be out in full force.  The media will also, as usual, not let this incident die.  Every driver involved in that wreck will be asked in every interview this week what happened and how they feel right then.  Oh well, I guess I know what fans of drivers like Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon feel like.  By the way…Dale Jr ended up finishing the race on the lead lap but in 27th position.

Here is a rundown of mine (& Penni’s) other noteable finishers.

• Tony Stewart – 8th
• Martin Truex Jr – 11th
• Jeff Gordon – 13th
• Mark Martin – 16th
• Kasey Kahne – 29th
• Jimmie Johnson – 31st
• Ryan Newman – 36th

And…I’d like to congratulate AJ Allmendinger on his 3rd place finish.  He raced his way into the Daytona 500 on Thursday, and deserves lots of kudos on his finish.

The next race is next Sunday evening out in Fontana, California.  Let’s hope for a less drama-filled race, at least from Dale Jr’s perspective.