By Sam Atwell

I think the attempt by Dale Earnhardt Junior to answer questions about his team, actually caused more questions to be asked. Even though they moved up to 19th in the point standings, they still had a mediocre run on Sunday. The debate is on about the future of crew chief Tony Eury Junior. Should Eury Junior take all the blame? Nope. There is enough blame to go around. There have been driver errors aplenty this season. Any criticism of Eury Junior is met with a bristling defense by Earnhardt Junior. He says it is his fault for the way they have run this season. He says it is unfair for Eury Junior to be under the microscope, but that is what you get when you are with the fan favorite. If there is going to be a fall guy in this scenario it is going to Eury Junior. You can’t make a change in driver for the 88 team.

The bulk of Dale Junior’s success came when Tony Eury Sr., was his crew chief. He has only two wins with Tony Eury Junior as his crew chief. To say they haven’t lived up to the expectations at Hendrick Motorsports would be an understatement. The 2008 season started with such promise, they were the most consistent team at Hendrick for the first part of the season. Then somewhere along the way it seemed the wheels came off. It hasn’t gotten any better. They have successfully avoided dropping out of the top 35, but there needs to be some marked improvement in the performance of the team in short order or there will be some changes made.

So is the problem in race decisions? Yes. Is it the driver and his focus and attitude? For the answer to that question I think we need to take a look at an answer Junior gave to a question in Bristol.  He try’s to explain the difference between racing to win and racing for fun. He said that it is up to the professionals and the experts to figure out what we need to do to be a winning race team. He says he just wants to have fun, like racing late models and going to the track with his buddies, that’s where he is at. Junior may have given the biggest insight into the performance of his team and that is the desire of the driver to be a champion. The next time his cell phone rings it may not be his buddies wanting to hang with Junior, it might be reality calling.

By Sam Atwell

It is great to get back to business after a weekend off. Not a whole lot of news during the off week, aside from some tire testing. No earth shattering team news, just a nice quiet week to reflect on the first four weeks of the season.

One thing is clear after four races; two drivers who had off season’s last year are back! Jeff Gordon is leading the point standings with two top fives and three top tens and Kurt Busch is third in points with one win, two top fives and three top tens. It doesn’t appear that anything is going to stop them this weekend. Bristol is a great track for both drivers. Gordon has five wins, 13 top fives and 19 top tens. Gordon comes into the race at Bristol leading all drivers this season with a 120.5 driver rating and one of the most amazing statistics, over last year, is Gordon’s average running position of 5.8.

Kurt Busch is equally good at Bristol. He has five wins, five top fives and nine top tens. Kurt Busch is second in driver rating this season with a rating of 108.2. Bristol is one of Busch’s favorite tracks to race on and he looks forward to coming back to Bristol this weekend. Coming off of the huge win in Atlanta Kurt looks to pick up his sixth career win at Bristol with the momentum that the team brings with them.

Even though much of the attention this weekend will be on the top twelve, the more interesting battle may be near the 35th position and the two drivers who may be struggling to make races after the Bristol races.

Mark Martin came out of retirement this season to drive for Hendrick Motorsports. Martin and his team haven’t lived up to the expectations for this season. Martin was expected to take the number 5 team to the chase, but bad luck has had something to say about that. Two blown engines and a blown right rear tire have put Martin in a bind and he heads to a track that hasn’t been too kind to him over the years. He does have two wins at Bristol, but they were long ago and far away. His last win came in 1998 and he has only one top ten in the last twelve races. It is vitally important that they have a great run this weekend not only to start digging themselves out of the hole they are in, but to stay in the top 35 in owners points to have that valuable guaranteed starting spot.

Ryan Newman is the other “high profile” driver that may be in danger of falling out of the top 35 in owners points. Newman is 32nd in owners’ points 38 ahead of 36th place Aric Almirola. Newman hasn’t seen great success at Bristol. Newman hasn’t been to victory lane and has only one top five and seven top tens in his career. Newman just hasn’t been able to put the whole thing together this season. An average finish of 27.8 is just how their season has gone. It is a new team and there are struggles that come with that, but you can just look across the headquarters to his boss, Tony Stewart, who is with a brand new team and is sitting sixth in the point standings.

Anything can and usually does happen at Bristol and could shake up the point standings. It will be a race full of beating, banging and tempers, but it is NASCAR racing at its best, its Bristol baby!!

By Sam Atwell

Well we made it, four grueling weeks into the season and we have our first off week. Off weeks are good for the teams, but it seems silly to have one just a month into the season. This has been a hectic four weeks from Daytona to California, Las Vegas and Atlanta. The racing has been pretty good, for the most part; throw out the destruction of the entire field by Kurt Busch last weekend in Atlanta. Even with the off weekend, I will guarantee that some of these drivers will be racing somewhere this weekend.

The resurgence of Jeff Gordon is good to see, I for one, will be glad when we never have to hear “Jeff Gordon hasn’t been to victory lane since October of 2007″. As good as this team is running it won’t be too long before he has a win, and don’t be surprised if there are a couple in a row.

As good as Gordon is running there are two of his teammates that have had a large amount of trouble this season. I wasn’t one of those who thought Mark Martin would contend for a championship this year, heck I didn’t even have him in my top twelve! I sure didn’t want to be right this way. Martin can’t buy a break. Two blown engines and a blown tire have left Martin in 34th place in the point standings. Forget about the top twelve, he needs to stay in the top 35 to guarantee a starting spot in each race.

Dale Earnhardt, Junior is just confusing to me. This is his second year at Hendrick and he has started out this year just like he finished last year. The blown engine is just bad luck, but the pit road problems are another story. I don’t know if Junior is putting too much pressure on himself or what but missing the pit stall a couple of times, loose lug nuts, missing the pit box are all human errors. Junior is into his tenth year in the cup series, it is time to live up to all the hype as a driver.

2009 has had one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen, the gas man chasing a tire down in the infield grass. Jimmy Watts just had a brain cramp, at what point did he look up and say to himself, “This is a bad idea!” It jumbled the field, but it didn’t really matter, Kurt Busch had them covered.