Blaney’s strong showing may give Toyota some hope, especially since he was mixed up in an early wreck but managed to rebound nicely. He never managed to really challenge Harvick but was good enough to grab second, ahead of Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer, and Mark Martin.

NEXTEL Cup regulars dominated the action, grabbing the top 12 spots and 15 of the top 20, with Scott Wimmer the highest finishing Busch Series regular at 13th place.

Not exactly going out on a limb here, but give me some credit for not picking Tony, as the bulk of the masses are (and for good reason). I’d like to go with my heart and pick Junior but for whatever reason I think Happy is going to take the victory today.

Other random prognostications, in no particular order:

Sterling Marlin will do something stupid, like jump out of his car and tug on the sheet metal or drive too fast with a tire down until his car catches on fire.

Fox will continue to show that dumb 3D animated car feature for this race but realize it’s absolutely dumb and silly and drop it shortly thereafter.

It will be pointed out by the announcers 162,172 times that some drivers got in trouble during the week for rules infractions.

It will be pointed out by the announcers 162,171 times that it’s the anniversary of Dale Earnhardt’s death.

Robby Gordon will wreck but it will be someone else’s fault.

“It’s hard when you have what I call a deadbeat owner that doesn’t come to the racetrack,” Harvick told reporters during a stop at Richard Childress Racing.

“You always see Richard Childress. You always see Chip Ganassi. All these owners, they all come to the racetrack. It’s not just a money pit that somebody says, ‘Well, I can make money off of Dale Jr. I can make money off of Dale Earnhardt.”

Earnhardt, who is in the final year of his contract at DEI and currently participating in tense negotiations for a new deal, squirmed on the podium as he was asked to respond.

“You’re killing me,” Junior grumbled. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t think there is a comment for that remark.”

Junior did go on to defend Teresa more strongly, pointing out (correctly) that she’s had to deal with a ton of crap in the last five years.

That’s not to say that some other owners haven’t dealt with a ton of crap and still managed to make it to the racetrack (Hendricks Motorsports, for one), but they weren’t suddenly forced to the forefront like Teresa Earnhardt was, either.

Give her some credit for not simply cashing out and exiting stage left like many people would have done.