By Sam Atwell 

Five races down in the 2008 season and Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are not in the top twelve in points!  What is wrong at Hendrick Motorsports?!?   The short answer is nothing, and the long answer is nothing.  Dale Earnhardt Junior is fifth in the point standings and has run very well this season.  Jeff Gordon has run well everywhere with the exception of Bristol and he finished 11^th there.  Jeff Gordon has just had some bad luck and or driver error.  In Daytona a mechanical problem put him out of the race when he was running fifth.  In Las Vegas he was battling for second when he got into Matt Kenseth.  He already has more DNF’s in 2008 than he had all of last year, but all that is easily explained.  Jimmie Johnson, on the other hand, has run well on occasion but there have been a couple of times this season when the #48 team has looked clueless.  They have adjusted on the car and have not been able to get it right.  

Don’t worry, they will be alright and Martinsville have come along at a good time for Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson to right their respective ships.  I really think the issue is how much other teams have improved over the off season.  No one could touch Hendrick Motorsports last season.  They spent the time and the money to go out and test and gain an understanding of the new car.  The other teams, for whatever reason, didn’t test as much or spend as much money and it showed last season.  Was it because they didn’t think NASCAR was serious about the COT?  I hope not.  There are some very astute businessmen in the NASCAR garage and I believe that they decided that they had to step it up.  Toyota has been the most impressive, but having Joe Gibbs Racing come into the Toyota camp was definitely a big help. 

Hendrick drivers will get their share of wins and Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson will be in the race for the chase as well as the chase for the cup.

By Sam Atwell 

Sunday we saw the end of an era in Bristol TN.  Dale Jarrett drove into retirement, much the way the last few years of his career has been.  Jarrett finished 10 laps down to the leader in the Food City 500.  Don’t you believe that Dale Jarrett forgot how to drive a racecar the last few years; he was just driving for the wrong teams.  Last season had to be a dreadful year for Jarrett.  He made the move from Robert Yates Racing to Michael Waltrip Racing and Toyota.  There were many reasons given for him to make this move.  The biggest reason, in my opinion, was for one last large payday.  I cannot blame him for that; I would take a large check any day.  There were other reasons, one his championship provisional, which expired quickly last season.  The other reason was to provide leadership and a veteran attitude to the start-up team.  I think he did that.  I think that it was mission accomplished for Dale Jarrett at MWR. 

Dale Jarrett was not always a back marker in the Cup Series.  He won 32 races, including 3 Daytona 500 wins, 2 Brickyard 400 wins, and oh yeah, 1999 Winston Cup Series Champion.  He had an amazing stretch between 1996 and 2001 when he won 24 races for Robert Yates Racing.  In his championship season, Dale Jarrett, could do no wrong.  He missed every accident, never had a pit road mishap, and took the championship with 4 wins, 24 top fives, and 29 top tens.  Dale Jarrett was a winner and he was a winner with class. 

Dale Jarrett will be missed in the garage every weekend as a driver, as a mentor and as a friend to his other drivers.  Fortunately, for us racing fans we will still be able to enjoy him as he steps into the broadcast booth for ESPN and their coverage of the Nationwide Series.  Jarrett has already done an excellent job and will continue to do a great job as a race analyst.  He will bring that championship spirit with him to ESPN and racing fans across the country are the ones who will benefit from his excellence.

Dale Jarrett, thanks for the memories and thanks most of all for being a truly good human being!

By Steve Parker 

Once again, Tony Stewart has made bigger headlines with his helmet off than with it on.  Stewart’s nearly non-stop rant against Goodyear last weekend at Atlanta was nearly as hot a topic as his teammate Kyle Busch’s historic victory.  That’s saying something since Busch took the first ever checkered flag for Toyota.

Stewart nearly overshadowed the record book win with his loud and venomous tirade that the tire Goodyear brought to the fast mile and a half speedway was pathetic.

While few if any other drivers said they disagreed with Tony’s tantrum, most did agree that he, as Jeff Gordon put it, “made it personal.”  Stewart said that Goodyear had been, “run out” other racing series, and that they were not able to keep up with racing technology.  It was typical Tony and it’s the biggest issue I’ve always had with the guy.  I have no problem with a driver speaking his mind.  Terrible Tony takes it too far.  He just doesn’t know when enough is enough.  I remember a couple of years ago when John Andretti did something on the racetrack to tick off the Rushville rocket.  Stewart railed on Andretti in his post-race interview as if Andretti had purposely wrecked him costing him a shot at the chase.  Something Stewart has been known to do.  Ask Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer about a certain crash at Pocono two years ago. 

One of the most talented drivers of this or any generation, Stewart can just be such a jerk.  He does it even when he doesn’t need to.  The Goodyear comments are a perfect example.  Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., to name two, were also not happy with the super hard tire Goodyear made them at Atlanta, but they didn’t feel the need to launch a person attack against the company. 

I’ve always been impressed by the perfect balance Junior seems to strike.  He is known for speaking his mind and being very candid.  He doesn’t come off as the south end of a north bound mule when he does it. 

When Stewart goes too far – as he did last year with his comments about phantom caution flags – and gets his hand slapped, he will often say something to the effect that he just needs to stop being honest.  That people “can’t handle the truth.”  I guess.  There nothing wrong with being honest, but Tony just seems to take some kind of pleasure in taking it about three steps too far.  There’s very little anyone could teach Stewart about driving a race car, but he could learn a lot from Dale Earnhardt, Jr. about being honest with class.