How Junior ended up with Amp/Pepsi

Here's a pretty good article about went on behind the scenes when Pepsi signed Junior. Their plan is to use Junior to turn Amp into the "working man's" Red Bull. Energy drinks are a $6.5 BILLION market?

California picks so far

It's Wednesday already, and qualifying is on Friday. I'll try to keep the latest picks updated here.

Week 1 Results

Looks like not much has changed since last year. Regan started off the year with weekly win. I thought he might be in trouble when Harvick started complaining about engine problems on lap 5, but he held on to get a good finish. Hendrick cars looked like they had the best shot of keeping that foreign manufacturer out of the winner's circle for most of the race. But mechanical failures and bonehead moves took all four of them out of contention. Where did Dodge come from? Nobody was talking about Dodges leading up to the 500, and I guess we all bought in, we didn't have a single Dodge picked in our pool this week.

Kudos to Blond Dog for almost nailing the average race speed. The average speed was 152.672mph, Blond Dog missed it by 0.372. Ryan and Byron were also right there within 0.6mph.

Next race is in California. It's a fast track, and drafting may play a small role with the new cars. Rousch and Hendrick have been successful there, will Toyota be a factor?

California qualifying is about 6:30 Eastern on Friday. So get your picks to be before then.

Who will 'Dega fans throw beer at when the 8 and 24 are teamates?

The efforts to sign #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr. to a NASCAR driving contract for 2008 and beyond has reached a critical point, and the top two teams on Earnhardt’s list are the Chevrolet teams owned by Richard Childress and Rick Hendrick, according to men familiar with the negotiations. Earnhardt today is leaning toward a deal with Hendrick [NOTE: where would Earnhardt go? HMS has four Cup teams and all three drivers signed for a couple more years, unless some sort of deal with Haas CNC Racing or Ginn Racing would be worked out], largely because of Hendrick’s very strong engine program, sources here said yesterday. Earnhardt and veteran crew chief Tony Eury Jr., his cousin and close confidante as well as the man who has led him to many of his 17 Cup victories, have talked with both the Hendrick and Childress camps in recent weeks about the positives and negatives each team owner would have to offer, sources said yesterday. And Eury will have a major voice in the decision, because Earnhardt’s primary goal now, at age 32, is to win a championship.

Impound races

A couple people have asked me about impound races. Here's the scoop: the Crown Royal Presents The Jim Stewart 400 at Richmond International Raceway will be the 2nd impound race of 2007, there are five impound races in 2007, both Talladega races, both Richmond races and Daytona in July.

Jayski has more info here: impound races

I missed this...

....NASCAR announced Wednesday that Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Chevrolet and Jamie McMurray, driver of the No. 26 Ford, have been fined $25,000 each and placed on probation until Oct. 3, 2007 for being involved in an altercation with each other's cars during this past Sunday's NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway.

The altercation occurred during the final caution period that came on the white-flag lap.

Did anybody see this "altercation"?

Richmond picks so far