| 3 |
1 |
 |
Dale Earnhardt Jr. |
Oh, s---. Not this again. |
| 2 |
4 |
 |
Kurt Busch |
We saw an auction on eBay for three unused Kurt Busch golf balls. Hold on a second while we send Jimmy Spencer the link for it. |
| 3 |
1 |
 |
Mark Martin |
He says he hopes he can keep his son from racing at Talladega. Which means Mark needs to start working the phone to see if he can get his son to drive a second car for Kirk Shelmerdine. |
| 4 |
2 |
 |
Jamie McMurray |
So now Dale Jr. has come out and started calling him MacMary, which means it don’t get much more official than that. Jamie, you might as well walk down to your local courthouse, pay the $100, and get it done. |
| 5 |
5 |
 |
Ryan Newman |
“It’s just stupid racing here at Talladega,” he said. He could have taken useful course at the Sterling Marlin School of Explaining, located in Columbia, Tenn. “It’s plate racin” works in any situation at Daytona or Talladega. Heck, that’s over 10 percent of the schedule. |
| 6 |
15 |
 |
Dale Jarrett |
He’s scored back-to-back top-fives. He hadn’t done that since 2002. Or since Elliott Sadler went to the barber. |
| 7 |
6 |
 |
Jeff Gordon |
Whoa. Looked like he had a car that could stay with Junior there at the end. He said he simply couldn’t get his car slowed down enough so he could pit with the leaders at Talladega, but maybe Jeff just didn’t feel like getting pounded with trash on the victory lap for the second time this year. |
| 8 |
7 |
 |
Tony Stewart |
He sat in the Talladega infield and played some racing video games this weekend, but we didn’t hear if he enacted any revenge on Robby Gordon or not. |
| 9 |
8 |
 |
Matt Kenseth |
It must be pretty nice to have those new Ford cylinder heads, but they might ruin Kenseth’s hard-earned reputation as a lousy qualifier. |
| 10 |
9 |
 |
Elliott Sadler |
Roll Tide. |
| 11 |
19 |
 |
Kevin Harvick |
He’s awesome on plate tracks, as evidenced by his three top-fives on them in 2004. Which means he is great at bump-drafting. Even in the pits. |
| 12 |
17 |
 |
Jeff Burton |
Shoot. Jeff re-took the head-to-head lead over Carl. Rookies. |
| 13 |
20 |
 |
Rusty Wallace |
He’s down to his last four chances to get a restrictor-plate victory. If he fails to win one next year, he needs to just bite the bullet and run the 2006 Daytona 500 as a teammate to Dale Earnhardt Jr. It worked for Michael Waltrip. |
| 14 |
14 |
 |
Michael Waltrip |
He took for over for Bestwick on Inside Nextel Cup. So that proves the chair behind that desk really is adjustable. |
| 15 |
12 |
 |
Jimmie Johnson |
Again, he needs to go to the Sterling Marlin School of Explaining Why I am in the Garage with a DNF. No need to say “……hurt the air duct and wouldn't let the air inside to cool the radiator….the car got hot and we cooked an engine” when “done blowed up, we’ll get ‘em at (insert track name)” is a timeless classic that works in any situation. |
| 16 |
10 |
 |
Jeremy Mayfield |
Under the old points system, he’d be only four points ahead of his teammate. |
| 17 |
13 |
 |
Kasey Kahne |
We finally got some Kasey Kahne merchandise after being sold out for a long time. We swear, Dalton had an easier time arranging liquor delivery for the Double Deuce in Road House. If you haven’t seen Road House yet, turn on TBS. It’s on. |
| 18 |
11 |
 |
Greg Biffle |
We assume he does not have to pay when he goes to Subway, but how do they do that? Does he get like a freebie card, or does he have to lug around a roll of those sandwich card stamps? |
| 19 |
18 |
 |
Sterling Marlin |
He’s finished 18th in the standings for two straight years and is working on a third – he’s currently 19th in the standings. So the streak needs to end, but he’ll have to catch Rusty Wallace (currently 17th) to do it, and Rusty’s got some strong tracks coming up. Who said the Chase made the race outside the top 10 boring? This is serious stuff here. |
| 20 |
16 |
 |
Carl Edwards |
We’re sure it’s only temporary, but this guy is having so much fun that he’d probably smile even if Robby Gordon spun him from the lead on the final lap of the Daytona 500. |
| 21 |
22 |
 |
Ricky Rudd |
He joked that he got in a two-hour nap during Bud Pole Qualifying. So did we, but it was during a commercial break. |
| 22 |
NR |
 |
Joe Nemechek |
Now that NASCAR is done handing down Dale Jr.'s penalty, they need to issue a decree that no media entity may not use the term “Front Row Joe” ever again. It was clever. In 1996. |
| 23 |
24 |
 |
Robby Gordon |
A stat only we’d care about: He’s currently just 133 points ahead of the combination of Johnny Sauter-Jim Inglebright-Dave Blaney-Jeff Burton quartet. |
| 24 |
23 |
 |
Terry Labonte |
He was sponsored by Delphi at Talladega. Which explains why they ran so badly. They simply took the car Joe Nemechek won with at Richmond last year and peeled the “2” off the sides. |
| 25 |
25 |
 |
Casey Mears |
He finished eighth at Talladega, which was one of the greatest feats in NASCAR history, because you know no one wants to draft with a pink car. |
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