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that this will be updated from now on.

School sucks.

Random Texas Observations

--OMG! Hendrick hasn't won in 2008!

--OMG! Dale Jr. hasn't won since 2006!

--(sorry, gotta get those out of the way)

--Hey! I got the race winner correct for the first time all year! Not that it was an incredibly gutsy pick, but at least I'm right once in a while. (Note: I've already made up my mind about who I'm taking next week, and it's not a Hendrick car)

-Part of me was in disbelief reading Jeff Gordon's postrace quotes. Yeah, the fact that Gordon finished last for only the second time in his career is stunning, but more stunning to me is the way that his team has never gotten a handle on Texas. He's run well at Atlanta and Charlotte, and Texas isn't too far off from those racetracks. It's not like Texas is a Rockingham type place or anything. If Gordon's recent (and past) history is any indication, we may be waiting a while for a Texas victory. (of course, he could very easily go out and win in the fall)

--Carl Edwards should be considered the early Chase favorite. Atlanta, Texas, Charlotte and Kansas are all in the Chase, as is Homestead. Uh oh.

--And while it is stupid to anoint favorites just 20% of the way into a season, there's also a high probability that the rest of the field will catch up to Carl at the intermediate tracks at some point during the year.

--Joe Gibbs Racing gets the team of the race award. Three cars in the top 7 is downright impressive.

Your Complete St. Petersburg Preview

Ack! A non-NASCAR post!

I may be looking forward to this race more so than the Texas race, and I love races at Texas. This is the first chance for the former Champ Car guys to be competitive, and I don't think that you can count any of them out. Will Power starts second, and Justin Wilson is starting third.

Helio Castroneves is going for his third straight victory at St. Petersburg, and will now actually have to deal with more than 20 cars to get to victory lane. That said, I don't like his chances for a third straight win. Give me Tony Kanaan, the polesitter, who I think is going to be this year's champion.

As for everyone's favorite, Ms. Danica, she starts 19th and has virtually no shot at winning this race unless she comes up with an off the wall pit strategy that somehow works out. My guess is that Danica is going to have to get that first win on an oval this year because she's going to be overmatched on the road courses with the influx of the new guys.

Winner: Tony Kanaan

Your Complete Texas Preview

On a related note, Michael McDowell has become almost a cultish figure because of his crash on Friday. I think there may be 100x the people that know his name today than on Friday morning.

The popular pick here is Dale Earnhardt Jr., and he's a tempting choice. On the pole, has won here previously (and the repeat winner jinx was broken last year by Jeff Burton.)

However, I just don't think that Junior is going to get that win today. Of course, maybe I'm being selfish because a Junior win would mean a flood of "Junior finally wins" and "Hendrick finally wins" stories. I'd rather deal with just one of those scenarios at a time instead of both at the same time.

So I'm going to avoid them both and go with an obvious pick. Carl Edwards has dominated on the track similar to Texas already this year, and oil tank lid or not, Edwards is going to be fast today. Heck, it could be Biffle or Kenseth too, but my money is on #99.

Winner: Carl Edwards

(Last week I went with Jimmie Johnson, so I'm still 0-fer on the year, even though my finishes are somewhat respectable)

(And can we get a moratorium on the "everything is bigger in Texas" shenanigans on TV? We've been to this place at least once a year since 1997, and there has been two races a year recently. This is not new.)

Michael McDowell

Just made a name for himself on YouTube.

That was one of the worse single car crashes that I have ever seen. Just ridiculous.

(If qualifying ever resumes, I'll take Lamar, Andretti and Nemechek to miss the race)

The Demise of Petty Enterprises? (Pt 1)

Demise may not be appropriate because Petty Enterprises truly hasn't been competitive since John Andretti won way back in 2000 at Martinsville.

Sure, Bobby Labonte has had some good runs in the 43 car, but he's a former Cup champion, and there's no sign that he's lost anything behind the wheel.

So it comes as no surprise that General Mills left Petty for Richard Childress next season, and will most likely take Labonte with it. Of course, Robbie Loomis is putting on a brave face and saying that PE is optimistic that they can re-sign Labonte. But this is the same Robbie Loomis who said that the team was capable of winning each of the first five races this season. (heck, it might have been more.)

And all of this comes on the heels of Kyle Petty failing to make the show at Martinsville and then taking himself out of the 45 car in favor of Chad McCumbee at Texas. Kyle hasn't been competitive all season, and McCumbee did well last year (all things considered) when he subbed for Kyle. But does anyone think that Chad is really the future of Petty Enterprises?

Petty just recently moved out of their shop in Randleman, a mere 10-15 years later than everyone else had moved to their Garage Mahals. The place that they moved to? The old Yates Racing shop. But even as PE attempted to join the times, they were still behind. Yates moved to an even nicer shop, where they could co-op with Roush Fenway.

Now Petty has a new shop, but no flagship sponsor. And probably no flagship driver. And a second car that can't compete on a regular basis. In a lax economy, that spells disaster.

As a 22 year old fan, I really have no conscious memory of the greatness of the 43 car. Sure, I know all about Richard Petty and how great he was. But videos and stories aren't the same as memories.

So maybe I'm a bad person for not being saddened when I see the Petty banner do so poorly. Sure, I want to see them succeed, and I feel bad for them. But part of me can't help but think that somehow these events have been brought on by PE's history. There wasn't this parity and technological advances when Richard was winning races. It wasn't a big money sport. Richard could do what he wanted to do and dominate. But as the field has caught up to the Pettys, the Pettys kept doing what they thought was successful.