Warning: Objects in this post may be the only way to successfully live through the NASCAR off-season. For best results, read rearview mirror early and often.
Driver: Martin Truex Jr. Team: No. 1 Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolet '08 Final Standing: 15th (-2845) Best Race: New Hampshire (4th-place) Worst Race: Kansas & Phoenix (43rd-place)
Season in a box: After picking up his first career win in 2007, most people would have guessed that Martin Truex Jr. -- DEI's new top driver after the departure of Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- would have been a solid competitor in 2008. Instead, 2008 turned into a season of turmoil, rumor and by the time the 2009 season was starting to take shape, it had left questions as to whether he'd be at DEI in 2009.
Nine months after the 2008 NASCAR season began, we're back to the offseason. With NASCAR's awards banquet on Friday, Dec. 6 (stop by for the live blog!), here's a look at ten of the season's best moments.
The Sprint Cup season hadn't even officially started for 2008, but hot shoe Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s Martin Truex Jr. were already spittin' mad after the first race run under the Nationwide Series banner at Daytona International Speedway.
Here's a glance back:
Truex was heated after finishing 11th in the Camping World 300 despite challenging for the lead late in the race. A block by Busch as Truex tried to take second place killed his momentum and opportunity to challenge Tony Stewart for the win.
Busch wound up 2nd.
From the NASCAR Scene: "Kyle drives like a girl," Truex said. "I mean, come on. We're out here racing for fun. We had a hell of a battle. I had a lot of fun racing today with him, and then I had a huge run and he just blocked me.
I would imagine Danica Patrick, statisticians who know men are actually the less talented drivers and females everywhere cringed at the comment, but dang, that was pretty funny.
FanHouse's Geoffrey Miller is at the track in Concord, N.C. for Saturday night's Bank of America 500 in full fan mode. He's hoping to avoid Kevin Harvick's motor coach driver from his location in the Ford Grandstand, Section I.
"In my opinion, the 01 (Smith) was forced below the line," Earnhardt Jr. said on Friday at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
"The two did make contact – (Smith) was on the inside of Tony and he had no choice other than to move away from Tony and that sends him below the line and in my opinion, the 01 wins the race. I feel like Tony did what he had to do. In the car, everyone would have done what Tony did, everyone would have done what the 01 did. Neither one of them were wrong or right.
"What's curious is when are you forced? Show me some video. I want to know what's forced and what's not. I felt like that was being forced."
And can you argue with Earnhardt Jr.? His statement further exemplifies how confused drivers were on NASCAR's rule, and how they remain to be confused now even after NASCAR tried to clarify the rule this week.
In most sports, rules that apply directly to a particular event are known at the very least before said event starts.
In NASCAR, though, only part of those rules in place, and the rest is up to the drivers to figure out based on past knowledge, or more correctly, what NASCAR's future rule will be.
Yes, NASCAR drivers are now expected by the sanctioning body to be as talented as Miss Cleo -- sans the lawsuits and deceptive billing and advertising claims.
NASCAR clarified those rules for future use -- Regan Smith no longer has to wonder if he should wreck the leader for a win because that's what NASCAR seemingly wants -- on Monday through a statement from the sport's president, Mike Helton.
"In NASCAR's opinion he was not forced below the yellow line. NASCAR correctly took immediate action to enforce the policy by penalizing the #01 and scoring the #20 as the race winner," Helton said.
"Since the end of the race there has been some confusion as to what is allowable during the last lap at Daytona and Talladega. To be clear, as we go forward, there will be no passing under the yellow line at any time during NASCAR races at Daytona or Talladega, period. This includes any passing below the yellow line near the start/finish line on the final lap."
Well, I'm certainly glad we got that after the finish of Sunday's race, because, you know, knowing the rules might have changed the outcome a bit -- especially after the confusion that even NASCAR's employees had over the rule for the past few months.
NASCAR fans got a pretty doggone good show Sunday afternoon at Talladega -- especially if you're a fan of edge-of-your-seat-for-500-miles action.
But more than the action, what the fans at the track and the ones at home were ultimately left with was a big, big question.
When in the world is NASCAR going to find a consistent, plausible rule book?
I'll state it bluntly: Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s rookie driver Regan Smith got screwed on the final lap of the Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway after NASCAR handed Tony Stewart the win -- his first of 2008. Smith, they said, broke the out-of-bounds rule by making a pass of Stewart under the yellow line just before the start/finish line.
Smith crossed the start/finish first and had seemingly handed Stewart a seventh-career 2nd-place finish at the Alabama track.
Smith deserved to be doing burnouts.
He deserved to be celebrating an improbable win in victory lane.
And, most of all, he did not deserve to be getting penalized for something a well-known driver got away with en route to a victory at the same track in 2003.
NASCAR awarded Stewart the win after the powers-that-be decided that Smith's move under Stewart as the field came through the tri-oval for the final time was illegal.
For Stewart, it was the best of times as he celebrated a win at a track he's never won at in Sprint Cup competition despite finishing second six times at the track, but for Smith, it was a heartbreaking defeat that left him with plenty of questions -- as well as everyone that watched the race.
And now that we know that Tony (or at least we think we know) won't be piloting the No. 20 Toyota in 2009 for Joe Gibbs Racing in favor of owning his own team, we need to look at Stewart the team owner/teammate. In other words, who is going to work best with Stewart as a teammate in 2009?
Let's start with the most-rumored candidate, "Flyin' Ryan" himself:
Ryan Newman - Newman seems to make the most sense for a number of reasons. Newman is a fellow Hoosier like Stewart, has a dirt track and open-wheel background just like Stewart, and he's in the final year of his contract with a struggling Penske. And, oh yeah, dude is fast.
Newman has 43 career poles and 13 wins -- including the 2008 Daytona 500. You put Newman into a fast car, and he can put you in victory lane. He's also got some pretty sweet wrestling moves, too. The only thing he doesn't bring is a sponsor package, though it wouldn't be hard to find one. Martin Truex Jr.- Truex could be next great defector from the idling ship that is Dale Earnhardt Inc. With one career win coming last summer at Dover, Truex made the Chase for the Championship in 2007 but his chances don't look as good this time around.
It wouldn't really be a NASCAR season without Dale Earnhardt Jr. at least grabbing a part of the headline spotlight, would it?
The folks over at the Charlotte Observer (arguably the sport's best coverage in my book) seem to be getting wind of Junior starting to work with Tony Stewart about a ride with JR Motorsports at the Sprint Cup level. From the story:
Under this scenario, JR Motorsports would field at least two Cup teams and likely abandon its Nationwide program or scale it down significantly, sources said. JR Motorsports already receives chassis and engines from Hendrick Motorsports and could continue that relationship on the Cup side.
After sitting on the pole, Biffle led 95 laps -- the second-most to race winner Kyle Busch -- before being relegated to finish of 43rd due to a broken timing belt. Upon exiting, Biffle was nothing short of heated with the performance put forth by the efforts of his Roush Fenway Racing team.
"It is really frustrating, but, you know what, I've just come accustomed to expecting it because it's just week after week it's something. Something breaks. Something falls off. We've got wheels loose. We had wheels loose twice tonight," said Biffle.
Biffle has become so used to his problems in 2008 -- like these myriad of issues at Texas -- that it's obviously starting to drain on the driver who's up for a new contract after this season. In other words, could greener pastures be on Biffle's horizon?
The FanHouse spoke of this possibility last year, but now more than ever, Biffle seems to putting himself in line to leave the security blanket of racing known as Roush Fenway Racing. Remember, just one week prior to Darlington, Biffle said that he wasn't talking to other teams, and he's told the media that he was 90% sure he'd be back with Roush.
Wednesday wasn't happiness and joy for several teams in the Sprint Cup Series garage area at Daytona.
For starters, the practice times were impacted by rain showers that threw a wrench in the day's schedule. Luckily for them, though, the rains held off enough for engine problems to show their face during practice instead of during Thursday afternoon's Gatorade Duels.
All of the Hendrick Motorsports cars were affected -- Earnhardt, Gordon, Johnson & Mears -- as well as several Toyotas. Tony Stewart, Dale Jarrett, J.J. Yeley, A.J. Allmendinger and Kyle Busch all changed out their Toyota powerplants.
In addition, Scott Riggs, racing a fifth engine from Haas/CNC Racing swapped out his motor.
Hendrick Motorsports head engine builder Jeff Andrews blamed the issue on a bad coating on the lifters. Richie Gilmore, the engine builder for Richard Childress Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- a team that had no problems -- explained how the coating works:
"If the coating wears off just a little bit, it's like glass and then you have steel on steel and you have that coating going through your engine," said Richie Gilmore, who runs the joint engine program between Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Richard Childress Racing.
None of Gilmore's engines had lifter problems, but the issue had him and other teams scrambling to check their equipment following practice.
"Everybody's going to be pulling stuff apart and looking at it, and it might be a bigger issue," Gilmore said.
The coating isn't a manufacturer specific product, so its likely that Hendrick and the Toyota teams used the same product and a bad batch caused the problems.
The 
Regan Smith
In most sports, rules that apply directly to a particular event are known at the very least before said event starts.
NASCAR fans got a pretty doggone good show Sunday afternoon at 
Tony Stewart
It wouldn't really be a NASCAR season without 
In case you missed last Saturday night's 
Wednesday wasn't happiness and joy for several teams in the Sprint Cup Series garage area at Daytona.
