This one really was a no-win situation for NASCAR officials, as far as whether to throw the yellow or not. If they do throw the yellow, everyone gripes about it (regardless of whether Mark or Kevin was declared the ultimate winner), pointing out that the wreck was well behind them and had no effect, that they easily could have raced to the finish without endangering any wrecked cars, yada yada yada.

And those people would have been right. One of the reasons NASCAR went to the green-white-checkered format was to address the complaints of fans when races ended with a whimper, under caution, so it’s a little hard to hold their feet to the fire as questioning their decision to let them race to the finish and not throw the yellow. I think most fans and drivers alike would agree that a race to the finish is best option, assuming that it’s safe to do so.

On the flip side, everyone pointing out a lack of conisistency in when NASCAR throws the yellow in situations like that is also absolutely right. Technically speaking, the fact that it’s the last lap shouldn’t have any impact on whether or not you throw it, how fast you throw it, etc. Any other time in the race the yellow would have been immediately out, as that was a pretty massive wreck and not just someone tapping the wall. I imagine everyone watching was a little surprised that they didn’t throw the yellow, as I know VroomChick and I definitely were.

Even though I’d personally rather see them race to the finish, I guess I end up on the side of those asking for a little consistency. It’s always going to be a bit of a judgment call, as far as what warrants a yellow, but in a wreck like that it’s kind of hard to argue for not throwing it, even if it is Daytona, even if two cars are neck and neck, racing for the finish line.

What’s a flagman to do?

Should the caution have come out on the final lap? NASCAR was in an impossible spot.

Throw the caution and people would scream, and you’d also have the issue of deciding who was ahead of whom at that moment. It would have been a mess.

But by waiting until Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin finished, you have a mess, too. That’s why consistency in officiating is so vital.

On any other lap, there’s no question the caution would have come out immediately. NASCAR has to make it a practice of calling the last lap just like the first.

If you don’t let guys race back to the caution on the final lap at Pocono in July, they shouldn’t race back to the caution on the final lap of the Daytona 500, either.

Sure, they save the trouble of figuring out who was where when the flag came out by not throwing the flag out … but they did throw the flag out once Harvick and Martin crossed the finish line. How does that make it less confusing? I think that makes it more confusing. Now they have to figure out where everyone was as they bounced around like pinballs over the finish line. Had the flag come out as soon as the wreck started, wouldn’t they have had a pretty clear picture of where everyone was just prior to that?

NASCAR is definitely a nation of its own with a government of its own… and its own red (and yellow and green and checkered) tape.

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.

The Winners

Tony Stewart: Smoke is looking pretty dang fast and motivated so far, winning both the Shootout and his Gatorade Duel. If he can dodge trouble he’d have to be the odds-on favorite at this point to finally get the Daytona 500 win that’s been eluding him.

Robert Yates Racing: Regardless of where David Gilliland and Ricky Rudd end up finishing, it’s been a great week for RYR, rebounding nicely from a pretty disastrous 2006 season.

Juan Pablo Montoya: If anything he might have run too well this week, as far as setting expectations very high for his first full season in NEXTEL Cup racing.

Boris Said: He’s well on his way to proving that he definitely belongs in NEXTEL Cup racing, and not just on the road courses, either.

Joe Nemechek and Mike Wallace: Both were on the qualifying bubble and raced well enough in their Duel to make the big show on Sunday.

James Hylton: Yeah, he didn’t make the race on Sunday, but he managed to stay competitive in his Duel on Thursday, despite racing against some drivers one third his age who were piloting much better equipment and cars around the track.

The Losers

Michael Waltrip/Michael Waltrip Racing: I’m not going to spill any more cyber ink detailing the situation here. Let’s hope they run well (but not too well) in the Daytona 500 and we put all this rocket fuel brouhaha behind us as quickly as possible.

Evernham Racing: All their drivers got slammed for rules infractions, with assorted fines, suspensions, and docking of driver points.

Matt Kenseth: Kenseth rounded out the “cheater” crew, getting slapped with fines, suspensions, and losing drivers points.

Jeff Gordon: He’s more an unfortunate loser, as his car inadvertently ended up an inch too short in inspection after winning his Duel on Thursdsay, sending him to the back of the starting grid for Sunday.

Toyota: Not only did they have RocketFuelGate to contend with, but not a lot of oomph from their cars on the track.

Team Red Bull: Not a good debut, with both drivers (Brian Vickers and A.J. Allmendinge) disappointing on the track and not making the race on Sunday.

The good news is that on Thursday he raced his way into the Daytona 500, finishing eighth; the bad news is many people believe he shouldn’t have even been on the track after someone on his team was caught cheating by NASCAR. He claims that he considered not even running on Thursday, but not only did he decide to, he managed to run well enough to qualify for the Daytona 500.

On the bright side, all three of Michael Waltrip Racing’s (MWR) cars will make the Daytona 500, as Boris Said’s finish in the first Gatorade Duel was good enough to have the ripple effect of guaranteeing MWR driver David Reutimann a spot in the Daytona 500, based on his qualifying speed last Sunday. Dale Jarrett (the third MWR driver) struggled in the Duel on Thursday but gets into the 500 based on his past champion provisional.

On the not so bright side, what would normally be a cause for celebration for MWR is in actuality pretty glum, and only serves to point out the current black eye the team has. How should Mike Bliss feel right now, watching all three MWR cars in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, as he barely missed making the race in his Duel when he was nosed out by Boris Said at the finish?

The results would normally have been a nice boost for Toyota, but now it only serves to fuel talk of their rocky entry into NASCAR, with some people suggesting that it was a poor choice to go with Michael Waltrip Racing, based on recent events. I think that’s a stretch but it’s hard to argue that Toyota is also in a difficult spot now, through absolutely no action or fault of their own.

Let’s not even discuss the firestorm that’d erupt if Mikey somehow managed to win the whole thing on Sunday.

“We’ve got people’s attention now,” NASCAR competition director Robin Pemberton said Wednesday.

Waltrip, a two-time Daytona winner, lost his crew chief and team director right before the biggest race of the year. The two were suspended indefinitely after an illegal substance was found during inspection for the season-opener.

Waltrip, docked 100 points, will be allowed to participate in Thursday’s races that determine the field for the 500.

David Hyder, his crew chief, was thrown out of the garage and fined $100,000. Team director Bobby Kennedy also was kicked out.

Waltrip said he was “so sad and embarrassed” but tried to shift blame to an unnamed individual within his team.

“This is not the action of an organization, a manufacturer or a sponsor,” Waltrip said in a statement. “This was an independent act done without consent or authorization from me or any of my executive management team.”

You’re a nice guy, Mikey, if not the greatest driver in the world. You’ve carved out a nice niche for yourself and I think you’re an intelligent, likable person. My wife likes you, I like you, a lot of fans like you.

But that’s a pretty pitiful excuse and “explanation”, and doesn’t help your case any at all. Do you really expect us to not only believe that some renegade member of your team monkeyed with the car in the dead of the night but also that no one else happened to notice it? Despite all of that checking over and tuning up of your car before qualifying, do you really expect us to believe that something like that would somehow go unnoticed by everyone, except for the officials inspecting the car?

Aside from weak excuses and explanations, you’ve also apparently managed to draw the ire of other teams as well for breaking the unspoken rule that cheating and creative engineering is fine as long as you leave the engine, tires, and fuel alone.

Nice work, Mikey. Way to kick off the season on a high note.

• Robbie Reiser, crew chief for Kenseth, and Kenny Francis, crew chief for Kahne, were kicked out of Daytona International Speedway and suspended four races.
• Rodney Childers, crew chief for Riggs, and Josh Brown, crew chief for Sadler, were suspended for two races and will all miss Sunday’s race.
• Kahne and Kenseth were docked 50 drivers points apiece, while Riggs and Sadler lost 25 each.
• Reiser and Francis also were fined $50,000 each, while Childers and Brown were fined $25,000 each.

The suspensions were expected and are in line with Chad Knaus’ suspension last year for similar shenanigans, but docking the drivers points before the season even has started is unprecedented and guaranteed to raise some eyebrows.

I also apparently wasn’t paying much attention as I thought it was only Kahne and Kenseth that had run afoul of the authorities, but apparently Evernham Motorsports as a whole was looking for a little extra edge, as Sadler and Riggs also got hit with penalties.

As far as lasting effects, the suspensions likely won’t matter much, as Jimmie Johnson proved last year in Knaus’ absence, but losing drivers points definitely stings, especially for Sadler, who is more likely to be on the bubble of making the Chase than Kenseth or Kahne.

Obviously it’s way too early to know, as anything and everything will happen, but it’ll be interesting to see if those docked points ultimately play any role in who does or doesn’t make the Chase.

None of the stories I’ve seen so far mention any penalties for Michael Waltrip, who may have managed to grin and aw-shucks his way out of trouble, despite mysterious substances being found on his engine manifold.

Huddle House, a 420-unit nationwide family restaurant franchise with deep ties to the South, along with Front Row Motorsports have announced a partnership for the No. 37 Dodge driven by Bill Elliott at the Daytona 500 — uniting two Georgia homegrown icons into a powerful force for the opening of the Nextel Cup season.

Huddle House, fresh off an infusion of funding from its recently announced $124 million acquisition by Allied Capital, has signed on as the primary sponsor of racing legend Bill Elliott, giving the Huddle House brand extensive positive exposure to tens-of-millions of Americans who are known to be very loyal to the companies that sponsor their favorite drivers.

While there’s been increasing chatter in recent years that Elliott needs to hang it up and fade gracefully into the sunset, if he insists on turning laps I guess it’s good news that he’s got a sponsor. And I suppose it could have been worse and potentially more degrading, if it’d been the AARP, Ben-Gay, or Life Alert that stepped up to sponsor him.

Robert Yates has to be doing backflips of joy (carefully and gingerly, of course) after David Gilliland grabbed the pole for the Daytona 500, with Ricky Rudd right behind him. It’s not a shock to see Gilliland up there after his performance in the Bud Shootout on Saturday but I can’t imagine too many people out there picked Ricky Rudd to be on the front row with him. Rudd will have plenty of people pulling for him, though, as he’s definitely the feel-good story of the young 2007 season, roaring back after being out of racing entirely last year.

Joining the happy RYR drivers in the highlight circle were Boris Said, Sterling Marlin, and Johnny Sauter, all of whom weren’t guaranteed a spot in the race but locked down their entries based on qualifying results.

On the flip side of the happy coin, Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne both failed inspections, due to illegal holes drilled in various locations of their cars, ostensibly to improve aerodynamics. (Michael Waltrip had an engine manifold confiscated because of unidentified substances on it but was allowed to continue qualifying with a clean replacement manifold, although his car was then impounded after he qualified 24th.)

It’ll be interesting to see what action NASCAR takes against Kenseth and Kahne, as on the surface it seems pretty similar to Jimmie Johnson getting busted last year, when crew chief Chad Knaus took the fall and was suspended for 4 races. The fact that Jimmie went on to win the Daytona 500 didn’t exactly help out NASCAR much, as it made the slap on the wrist of suspending Knaus for 4 races look like exactly what it was, a meaningless slap on the wrist.

Unlike other sports, NASCAR is in a much tougher spot when it comes to doling out penalties, as major sponsors simply won’t stand for drivers to get suspended, especially for huge races such as the Daytona 500. Everyone knows that teams push the envelope as far as possible, as far as what they do to squeeze extra performance out of the cars, but that inevitable leads to a difficult spot when something is unearthed and cars get impounded, as NASCAR then has to publicly appear tough on “cheaters” without monkeying with their bread and butter, which is big-name drivers representing big-name sponsors, going around in circles for every single race.

The Toyota pack wasn’t exactly overwhelming in their debut in NEXTEL Cup racing, with David Reutimann finishing the highest at 14th. While Dale Jarrett and Dave Blaney are guaranteed spots, the other six Toyota drivers have to try to race their way in during the Duels on Thursday.