NASCAR roundup

News:

• Sources: Sadler set to return to No. 19
• Petty, Gillett Evernham to merge
• Chevy to remain Daytona sponsor
• Owner reaches deal on fraud charges
• Logano to defend All-Star title
• Baldwin to debut Cup team at Daytona

Analysis:

• DW: Teams spend too much
• Owens: Where were the fireworks?
• DW: Petty cash, not enough
• McReynolds: It all starts here
• Mondaca: Nine stories for '09

Looking back at 2008:

• Sprint Cup
• Nationwide
• Trucks

Blog:

• Check out the NASCAR community

These cars are difficult to drive. They are not a very comfortable car to drive and you are always flirting on the edge of disaster. It's either plowing the nose or slippin' the rear end around. When you are driving a car like that it makes it very difficult to race people.

Let's use last week's venue, Lowe's Motor Speedway, as an example. When the cars were all bunched up and had new tires on them, they ran into each other and wrecked. It's because they don't have good control over the race car. I've driven cars that don't handle well and you don't race people. But when you get out front, where you are by yourself, all you have to do is focus on hitting your marks lap after lap. You can focus on what you are doing because there is no one in front of you to distract you. So you have the benefit of running your preferred line and using the whole race track. That's what makes the car out front seem like it is so much faster than the rest of them back in the pack.

These cars don't like to be around each other. The drivers are uncomfortable when they are around each other. I don't think they trust these race cars so therefore they don't race each other hard a lot of laps when they are side-by-side. Occasionally, like at Dover a few weeks ago, we had three great drivers with cars that were pretty equal so they were willing to take a few chances to win a race. As we have seen, most of these races do get exciting down there at the end when they are willing to put it all on the line.

Now I have driven these new cars, but I haven't raced them. I just can't believe that being out front in "clean air" can make that much difference with this particular race car. I might be wrong – I would have to see these cars in the wind tunnel, but I believe the advantage on being out front is the ability to simply focus on what you need to do and maximizing your track position by being out front.

Oh by the way

Look for Jeff Gordon to get his first win of the year this weekend. Jeff is just so good at Martinsville. He and his teammate Jimmie Johnson have had some classic duels there the last couple of years. I think Jeff is carrying a lot of positive momentum from last week's race at Charlotte and I think he will be the one to beat this weekend. I know he doesn't want to go through an entire season without a victory and Martinsville is his next to last best chance to win. I know in my darkest hours that Martinsville was always my salvation and I believe it will be for Jeff as well.

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Oh by the way II

As I noted earlier this week in my column, I think the improvements made to the pit road at Martinsville are going to be a big plus to these teams. I haven't seen it up close, but it looks like they have widened it and it's going to be a whole lot easier getting in and out of your pit box particularly when you are pitting in the turns the way you do there.

Oh by the way III

Be sure to check out the new scoring pylon this weekend. They have had the same scoring pylon at Martinsville for like 100 years that only showed the top five positions. Now they have a big scoring pylon with a big screen on it so I think that will be beneficial to the fans and the crews.

You know, they continue to make improvements on the facility and that's good news. Martinsville is rich with NASCAR history and tradition and we always have to be racing there. I hope they have an exciting race this weekend. With gas prices finally falling I hope more folks can go to the race and it's a sellout crowd. That would be good for our sport.