In the meantime, we saw a couple of pretty good races by the Craftsman Truck Series and Nationwide Series drivers. Joe Gibbs cars didn’t win either one of them, so it was certainly a change of pace. Carl Edwards won before the home crowd and Johnny Benson pulled out a win at Kentucky Speedway. I heard tonight that only 31,000 showed up for the truck race, and even though it was a truck race, you’d think that it’s going to be a stretch to sell a Sprint Cup race to the powers that be in Daytona Beach. We’ll see.

There was other news of note. Randy Moss attended his first race as a NASCAR owner after buying the Morgan Dollar truck team recently. He claims to have been quite a NASCAR fan for some time. I would never have guessed it when he was catching passes for Marshall University’s football team or for the Vikings, Raiders and Patriots. It shows you just never know. Everyone’s praising him as the real deal and not a celebrity owner, but he said this may be the only race he gets to attend this year. It’s funny when an NFL star gets into this sport how the media and the sanctioning body get almost giddy about that. The year before Troy Aikman became an owner (Hall of Fame Racing); I stood with him at Charlotte and chatted. Nice guy. Funny side story. A young lady came up to him and said, “Mr. Elway, can I have your autograph.” He didn’t let on. I wonder what she thought when she got home to see her paper signed by Mr. Aikman.

We also learned the true story about Tony Stewart leaving Joe Gibbs Racing. In his weekly radio program, Tony was asked by Darrell Waltrip if the rumors that he wanted to go back to Chevrolet true. Toni’s answer was frank, as you expect it to be from the plain-spoken driver. Apparently when Gibbs went to Toyota, Chevrolet went to work to find him a Chevrolet to drive and pushed the issue. Tony said the initial offer for Haas-CNC was made in December and orchestrated by Chevrolet.

What about that “lead in the water bottle” controversy concerning J.J. Yale’s car? It now appears that it maybe didn’t happen, and yet the pre-race penalties cannot be taken away. How’s that for justice?

Finally, we learned that Speedway Motorsports, Bruton Smith’s outfit that owns Bristol Motor Speedway, Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and Kentucky Speedway, has fallen out of favor with investors. The stock price has lost nearly half its value and the uncertainty of debt and management of the empire makes it look like an iffy investment. Who would have thought that? I’m betting on Smith to right the ship, but the so-called forced retirement of H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler couldn’t have helped.