Gentlemen, Start Your Engines


lease do not mistake me for a serious fan of NASCAR, but I do pay attention to what's going on in the sport, for the most part. When I was growing up, I had an insatiable appetite for sports and I read most anything from cover to cover. I didn't skip the articles about the "King," Richard Petty, Cale Yarbourough, Davey, Donny and Bobby Allison, Darrel Waltrip and so on.

As we all know, old habits are tough to break, so here I am, still reading numerous sports publications and therefore staying pretty much current on NASCAR.

Like most people, I have a favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. (son of my all-time favorite, the late Dale Sr). Dale Jr. left his late dad's team at the end of last season and moved over to what had been the Earnhardt family's main rival, Hendrick Motors Sports.

The Hendrick team, headed by the likes of four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, defending series champion Jimmy Johnson and Casey Mears, pulled off what many consider a major coup when team owner Rick Hendrick successfully lured Dale Jr. into his stable of drivers. In doing so, Hendrick may well have created NASCAR's equivalent to professional basketball's Dream Team.


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Whereas the Dream Team went undefeated en route to winning a gold medal at the Olympics, this Dream Team is by no means guaranteed a championship. NASCAR is loaded with top-flight teams such as Joe Gibbs Racing, headed by Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin; DEI, led by rising star Martin Truex; Rousch/Fenway Racing, which boasts the likes of Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle; and Richard Childress Racing, which is headed by Kevin Harvick and Clint Boyer.

All of the intrigue will start to unfold this coming Sunday, when NASCAR kicks off its season with its marquee event, the Daytona 500. Unlike other sports that save their biggest and best for the end of the season, NASCAR opens its season with the most recognizable auto race in the world (my apologies to Indianapolis 500 fans) and continues providing their fans with 30-odd races before the season ends and a champion is crowned in the middle of November. That's a season and a half by anyone's standards, which is awfully hard to overlook by anyone reading the sports page.

Who's going to win this Sunday? I'm rooting for Dale Jr.

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