Junior had been in serious talks with both Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress to drive for their teams, but in the end Hendrick won out. Much speculation as to why that was, but it’s probably just as simple as Junior going with the team that gives him the best immediate shot at winning a championship.

I imagine most Junior fans are happy to see him with a shot to drive a much more competitive car, but man, there have to be some heads exploding in the land of Junior fans as far as trying to wrap their head around the notion that Jeff Gordon is now a teammate and not the dread enemy.

I mean, the man is like 942 years old, he moved to a new team that’s not had a ton of success in recent years, stuck to his guns to not race a full schedule this year to, you know, enjoy his life, and he’s still 11th in the points standings.

That’s pretty crazy. And cool. Go Mark.

Forecast is for more of the same for the next few weeks, but I’m gonna try to get back into the swing of posting more here.

“I never once wished I was out there,'’ Martin said Monday. “When they started the engines, there was a few seconds there that seemed a little bit eerie to me. But that was the only time that it ever even crossed my mind.

“There was no anxiety whatsoever. I enjoyed watching the race. I nodded off once or twice during a commercial, but snapped right back up. It was just a wonderful weekend. I wouldn’t trade it for a Nextel Cup.'’

Again, good for him. You don’t have to look too far to find all sorts of athletes hanging on way too long past their prime, and that’s not even touching on the potentially more important aspect of simply being able to enjoy your free time and/or family.

This was touched on by commentators during the race on Sunday, but it’s worth noting that just because Mark isn’t racing a full-time schedule doesn’t necessarily mean that the car can’t still sneak into the top 12 and make the Chase, when it’s all said and done. Regan Smith didn’t do all that badly at Bristol and hung on for a 25th-place finish, so all this talk about Mark abandoning his last shot at a championship could be a bit pre-mature, even with him watching some races from his rocking chair.

Brian Vickers suffered second degree burns to his feet when an exhaust pipe broke midway through the 500-mile race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“We think that a piece of the tail pipe came off halfway through the race, so heat was blowing directly onto the floor board,'’ Vickers said. “The guys tried to put some lining in the car to protect my feet, but it didn’t really help that much. I basically had to run the whole race with my feet burning and that was just painful.'’

Vickers finished 15th in Sunday’s race, despite the smoke and carbon monoxide fumes that filled his cockpit for the final 200 laps at Bristol. He needed immediate medical attention and received oxygen while still in the car.

He went for a long bicycle ride on Monday to help his body rid the carbon monoxide, but had to do it standing up because his buttocks were slightly burned from the heat in the car.

Red Bull officials were prepared to pull teammate A.J. Allmendinger from his car to replace Vickers on Sunday, but Vickers insisted on finishing the race.

Got to be a tough season as it is, dealing with Toyota’s growing pains in its first year in NEXTEL Cup, without having to drive 250 miles or so with your ass and feet on fire. Nice job, Mr. Vickers.

“I’ve said the whole time, whether I like the car or not, we are going to do our best to be competitive. I don’t care what the car is.'’

The COTs seemed to agree with Toyota as well, as they managed to qualify five drivers for the race, by far their best showing so far this season. A.J. Allmendinger and Jeremy Mayfield are making their first starts of the 2007 season, along with Dave Blaney, Brian Vickers, and Dale Jarrett (who actually managed to race his way in for once and didn’t have to use one of his rapidly dwindling past champion provisionals).

Noticeably absent, again, was Michael Waltrip, who didn’t qualify for the 4th straight week. Mikey is still stilling at -27 in points, after that whole rocket fuel incident at Daytona, and is struggling to find much of a silver lining so far. I mean, hell, I’m currently ahead of Mikey in the driver standings, with 0 points, and that’s never a good thing to be trailing me in the standings after five races.

The other big news is that despite much speculation otherwise by nearly everyone, Mark Martin made good on his word and is sitting out Bristol, sticking to the plans for him to race only a part-time schedule this year. I’d personally like to see him out there, making one last run for a championship, but good for him for easing out of racing to spend more time with his family, and to just take a break and enujoy life a bit. He’s got every reason to abandon that plan, so it seems all the more important to him, to be faced with the chance to make one last run but to turn his back on it for the things that are more important to him.

Catching up a bit, Las vegas was entertaining enough (although the drivers themselves would beg to differ), even if He of the Boring Personality and Massive Eyebrows took the win. Hard to argue that he didn’t deserve it, especially overcoming his pit crew’s sudden inability to hold onto big honking tires.

I’m not sure at what point Toyota starts to freak out, but they might be nearing it. Growing pains are inevitable but I’m not sure anyone expected them to struggle this much just to qualify, much less to actually be competitive in a race.

Does anyone really expect Mark Martin to not run a full season, despite his repeated claims that he’s just a part-timer now? He says all of the right things as far as sticking to the plan and stepping aside at Bristol but there’s no dang ol’ way that happens if he’s still leading the points standings then. No Dang ol’ way.

Put a sock in it, Mr. Pruett.

Yeah, I know. It sucks. This was your chance to shine, as far as having a fast car and a road course to show it off on, you’re getting a little long in the tooth and this may have been your last, best shot at grabbing a victory in NASCAR racing. Your own damn teammate got too aggressive and spun you out. Sucks.

But claiming that it was “lowdown, nasty, dirty driving” is pretty out of line and uncalled for. You left the door halfway open to let Montoya’s nose in to begin with, and then you moved down and tried to block him, knowing he’d stuck his nose in there, confident that he’d back off and not risk spinning out his teammate who was leading the race.

Montoya was definitely driving too aggressively there, especially with a teammate leading, so he’s not completely innocent. But that was pretty far from lowdown, nasty, dirty driving. And that’s ignoring the fact that he had a much, much faster car and plenty of laps left to pass you. If he didn’t pass you there, he was just going to pass you later.

Just guesstimating here, but I’d say that was pretty much a 50/50 split, as far as each driver’s responsibility for what happened. So how about manning up and accepting that, instead of popping off publicly about how much your teammate Montoya sucks?

The racing star will be selling season tickets at the speedway ticket window for an hour on March 13, letting fans get their tickets straight from Biffle or over the phone.

“I’m excited about the prospect of Greg joining our staff,'’ Kansas Speedway President Jeff Boerger told the Kansas City Kansan. “He’s had a lot of success on the track here and I fully expect him to have the same success selling our season ticket package.'’

I know, I know, it’s just a silly publicity stunt, yada yada yada, but I still find it kind of odd. Do they really expect a huge crush of fans rushing to the ticket window, just because Greg Biffle is working there for an hour?

Not being a huge Biffle fan, I’d probably go out of my way to avoid the window he was hawking tickets at, but that’s just me.

Nextel Cup Series director John Darby said Wednesday that he expects teams to run a full schedule with COT racecars by 2008.

The original plan NASCAR developed after consulting with team owners called for a three-year phase-in of the new car, beginning with 16 of the 36 races in 2007 featuring it. The current plan calls for 26 of the 36 races in ‘08 to be run with COT cars, with a full schedule to follow in ‘09.

Now, Darby is saying the full slate of COT races could be coming a full year sooner.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens at Bristol on March 25th, as far as the first race this year using the COT. The spin they’re putting on the early testing results is that teams and drivers are coming around and warming up to the COT, which might explain such talk as above.

Whether that’s reality or not, we shall see. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the switch happens quickly and is pretty painless, especially when teams are faced with the alternative of having to run two different programs while in limbo-land for a few years, straddling the current cars and the COT.

Whether they love the COT or not, the writing seems to be on the wall, so it’s likely going to be a rip-the-bandage-off-and-get-it-over-with-quickly sort of deal, regardless of whether drivers and teams love it or hate it. In the end, it’s just a car, and it’s not like they’re switching from horse-drawn carriages to jet-fueled MikeyMobiles.