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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWEqW4LagVM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oIqkaZU8sY

Carl decided to pull a Ricky Bobby and run to the start/finish line after his car was left unable to do so after its wild ride.

Congratulations to Brad Keselowski on his 1st NASCAR Sprint Cup series win (in just 5 tries).

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished second.  Based on his excitement in Victory Lane with Brad, I think he was very happy with 2nd and ecstatic to see Brad win the race.

Finally, my condolenses go out to the family & friends of David Poole (longtime NASCAR journalist).  I always enjoyed reading the articles he wrote for the Charlotte Observer.  One of my favorite articles I’ve read about Dale Earnhardt Sr was one he wrote about Sr’s lucky penny.

Andi mentioned to me back in Michigan that she noticed a special black seat on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s pit box for car owner Rick Hendrick.  I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to see it…until Sunday.  The above picture is of the seats on the Hendrick Motorsports 88 (Junior’s) pit box.  Each of the Hendrick Motorsports pit boxes have a seat labeled for Rick to sit on when he visits during the race.

I title the above picture…”Where are you going, TJ?”  For those that do not know the guy above in black, his name is TJ Majors.  He is Dale Earnhardt Jr’s spotter.  We saw TJ walk upstairs to the spotter’s stand high above the track.  A while later (and pictured above), he walks back by us toward pit road.  He disappeared back behind and reappeared a few minutes later with what, I swear, looked like a radio.  Crazy guy.

Brad Keselowski made his Sprint Cup series debut on Sunday.  He made me a tad nervous during qualifying but made the race on time.  He ended up finishing 19th in the race on Sunday.  I thought he did great.  He wasn’t just making laps (as another rookie appeared to be doing).  He was fighting for every spot and fought very successfully.  I’m looking forward to him getting to drive in more Cup races.

Speaking of Brad…He drove a 5th entry for Hendrick Motorsports on Sunday.  He drove the #25 GoDaddy.com Chevy.  Because it isn’t a normal entry for HMS, there were some oddities with regard to his team.  First, you’ll notice the pit box above is really the JR Motorsports 88 pit box from Brad’s Nationwide team.  (Funny side note…There were some “fans” in the pit very confused about this pit box.  They couldn’t figure out when Junior started being sponsored by the Navy.  I guess they missed Junior’s 88 National Guard/Amp pit box at the beginning of pit road.)  The other different thing is that Haas CNC Racing crew members were the crew for the team.  You can see the guy in the photo above has a Haas CNC shirt on.  Lance McGrew (from Hendrick Motorsports) was the crew chief, though, in case you were wondering.

Carl Edwards won his 8th race of the season on Sunday.  I was hoping to see a different winner than I’ve witnessed before (maybe Dale Earnhardt Jr…hehe).  Unfortunately, the gas mileage gamble Junior’s team made didn’t pay off and he finished 20th instead of 1st.

Click here to see the pictures I took on Sunday.

The New Kids on the Block concert was AMAZING!  I’m sitting here listening to their music as I’m working and writing this entry.  I’ve got several pictures and a full review coming later.

Penni & I had a great time at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend.  Ron Hornaday won the Craftsman Truck series race Friday night.  Kyle Busch won the Nationwide series race Saturday afternoon.  Carl Edwards won the Sprint Cup series race last night.  I have lots of pictures and stories from TMS to share in the upcoming week.

Stay tuned!

Michigan International Speedway is location in Brooklyn, Michigan.  It seemed quite literally in the middle of nowhere.  There was a town closeby and the track had neighbors but nothing major and there was not really a major highway going in and out of the track.  (Oh yeah…Speaking of the road…A lot of people complain about traffic in & out of Texas Motor Speedway being some of the worst.  We don’t ever have problems at TMS.  MIS was much, much worse.)  Because the track is so close to Canada, there are a lot of Canadian NASCAR fans that come down for the race.  The track flies, not only an American flag, but also a Canadian flag.  Plus, we listened to both the Canadian and United States national anthems.

As I mentioned in my last post, we had weekend pit passes.  These allowed us to be on pit road during qualifying & practice plus there was also an area back behind pit road that drivers passes by when going to & from the garage and their motorcoaches.  Here is a shot from pit road during the Nationwide series qualifying on Saturday.  The 2nd photo is of Regan Smith signing autographs along the fence of fans behind pit road.

Speaking of the fence of fans…Some drivers stop along the fence and are nice enough to sign some autographs.  I got 5 autographs on Friday standing there.  I got the following autographs on Friday.

• Michael McDowell, Driver, Michael Waltrip Racing #00
• Sam Hornish Jr, Driver, Penske Racing #77
• AJ Allmendinger, Driver, Red Bull Racing #84
• Regan Smith, Driver, Dale Earnhardt Inc #01
• Mike Helton, President, NASCAR
• Jeff Hammond, Former Crew Chief & Current Co-Host of NASCAR Trackside

Another advantage of our pit pass was that we were able to be on pit road before the Sprint Cup race on Sunday.  We got to get on the track at the start/finish line.  We were also able to walk along pit road and see the pit boxes & signs for each Sprint Cup team.  Here are shots of Dale Earnhardt Jr’s pit box and pit sign.

On Saturday during Nationwide qualifying, I stood at the front of the line of cars with the JR Motorsports #88 Navy Chevy until it went out for its qualifying laps.  David Stremme (driver of the Rusty Wallace Inc #64 Dodge) decided to take a closer look at the Navy car while waiting his turn to qualify.  I’m almost surprised he didn’t hop in the car.  Maybe that would have made him too obvious, though.

There were a couple Nationwide series cars with paint schemes that I thought might interest a couple of my readers.  Tony Stewart was the driver in Michigan of the Joe Gibbs Racing #20 Old Spice Toyota, and Jason Leffler drove the Braun Racing #38 Great Clips Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Toyota.

I took this photo during the national anthem prior to the NASCAR Sprint Cup 3M Performance 400.  I’ve always thought it was cool how the drivers, crews, and officials line up on pit road.

We sat across from the JR Motorsports #5 pit during the Nationwide series race.  Rick Hendrick (owner, Hendrick Motorsports) sat up there during the entire race.  Landon Cassill was also up there.  I think he was working for the team in some capacity.  Here is sequence of photos I took during the team’s first pit stop.  (Mark Martin was driving this car in Michigan.)

Carl Edwards won both of the races in Michigan.  His tradition, after winning a race, is to do a backflip off of the car.  Here are the two shots I got of him doing so.

Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR

At this point in 2007, Jeff Gordon was leading the Sprint Cup standings (and was 344 points ahead of 2nd place).  He & Jimmie Johnson were tied for the most wins so far with 4 a piece.  After today’s race, Kyle Busch leads all drivers this year with 8 wins and is leading the standings by 242 points.  Both of those stats are alarming to me.  First of all, I expected Kyle to do ok in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing.  I figured he’d have 1 or 2 wins and probably make the Chase.  Instead, he has 8 wins and is a sure thing for the Chase (if not the championship).  The 242 point differential between Kyle and 2nd place is a big surprise to me.  Jeff Gordon had 4 wins at this point last year but was farther ahead of 2nd place than Kyle is with 8 wins.  This makes me think that it may be any one’s ballgame once the Chase starts.  Kyle has definitely had some great finishes this year (very reminiscent of Jimmie Johnson at times in 2006 & 2007 when nothing seemed to stop the team from a top 5 or win).  Unfortunately, he has a handful of very poor finishes (including Martinsville, which is a Chase track).  He will more than likely need no stumbles (or bad luck) in the Chase to keep his roll going and end up 2008 Sprint Cup Champion.

Until today, Dale Earnhardt Jr was 2nd in the Sprint Cup point standings and had been gradually shrinking Kyle Busch’s points lead.  Unfortunately, a 22nd place finish dropped him to 4th in the standings behind Carl Edwards and teammate Jimmie Johnson.  Junior isn’t known to be a great road course racer so I’m happy with the finish.  I’m just a little upset he lost all of the points he had been gaining.  The series is on to Michigan next weekend where Junior won the spring race.  Did I mention I’m going to be there in person?  I’m hoping for a repeat performance of his win in June. 

A belated congrats to Ron Fellows.  Ron was driving a JR Motorsports car last weekend in Montreal and brought home the 3rd NASCAR Nationwide series trophy for JRM in 2008.  (Mark Martin & Brad Keselowski have both taken home trophies this year.)  Now, it is Landon Cassill’s and Junior’s turns to win one for JRM.