FanHouse DaytonaInternationalSpeedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The celebratory Fourth of July pyrotechnics going off along the backstretch following Saturday night's NASCAR race at Daytona International Speedway were nothing compared to the last-lap fireworks show minutes earlier on the frontstretch.

Two-time NASCAR champ Tony Stewart muscled his way by Kyle Busch about 100 yards before the finish line -- holding his line as Busch tried to block him. Ultimately, Stewart was able to get his nose in position for the pass. When Busch tried to stop Stewart's final push, the two cars collided and Busch's car spun out, hitting the wall and paving the way for Stewart to capture the victory.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Catching up on the news and notes trackside at Daytona International Speedway.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. met with reporters briefly Friday and seemed pretty much resigned to the fact that he won't be making the 12-driver Chase for the Championship this season. He's currently ranked 19th, 285 points behind 12th place Juan Pablo Montoya with nine races remaining before the Chase field is set Sept. 12.

"It's going to be a real challenge for us to make the Chase,'' Earnhardt said. "We're still mathematically in it but we're not trying to catch just one guy. .. we're trying to catch four or five guys. And it's unrealistic to expect all them guys to have enough trouble.

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CONCORD, N.C. - No, there's no racing at Florida's Daytona International Speedway this weekend, but that hasn't stopped the rain from putting the home of the Daytona 500 in the spotlight.

As of Friday morning, the National Weather Service monitoring station at the Daytona International Airport (which sits just outside the 2.5-mile track's backstretch) had recorded some 18.54 inches of rain in the month, with over 17 inches of that coming in the last few days.

The substantial precipitation has created some amazing sights at the track as the infield lake has flooded onto the backstretch and the infield access tunnels have been nearly filled to their brim.

NASCAR's first driver to win three consecutive championships in 30 years proved to be a real, living, breathing human being Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

El Cajon, Calif.'s Jimmie Johnson "cut the middle finger on his left hand while using a knife to try to cut a hole in his firesuit" according to the AP. The wound required stitches and prevented the Hendrick Motorsports driver from driving his final stint on Sunday afternoon in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Johnson was at the track to take part in the annual 24-hour race -- won by the Brumos-Porsche team despite some words of jealously from the competition -- when the injury happened.

Like clockwork, NASCAR teams have traditionally kicked off the season with three days of preseason Sprint Cup testing at the famed Daytona International Speedway on the first Monday after the first of January.

This year, today [Tuesday] would have been the second day of single-car runs in qualifying setup mode for the first group of teams -- half of 'em show up the first week, the rest in the next -- but thanks to NASCAR's testing moratorium on any and all sanctioned tracks for 2009, the tradition has halted.

Indeed, NASCAR fans won't get a glimpse of new drivers with new teams or a chance to read about how this driver paced one session and that driver paced another. It's a loss for NASCAR media types because of how dead -- save for team mergers and Elliott Sadler's surprising, litigious release -- the offseason really can be.

But, for the first time since teams felt it was important to focus ridiculous amounts of effort, money and time on a two-lap qualifying run for the season's first race that won't matter for hardly any driver, fans aren't subjected to mindless chatter about who's fast and who's not.

And drivers like Tony Stewart, who understands being at Daytona for three days to take part in mostly single-car runs is so pointless and so boring that he has paid out of his own pocket for a driver to test for him, won't have to deal with NASCAR's most pedestrian event of the year.

We already heard about Tony Stewart's non-NASCAR racing exploits on Monday, so obviously, it's high time to keep that theme moving along with this tale about Jamie McMurray.

McMurray, the driver of the No. 26 Ford for Roush-Fenway Racing, could be found early this week doing some hot laps at the always-famous Daytona International Speedway.

Nope -- he wasn't breaking NASCAR's testing ban to get a head start on the 2009 season -- but rather, McMurray made the trip to DIS for "Daytona Kartweek" for some Sunday practice and racing on Monday and Tuesday.

And according to some DIS release material, the Crown Royal driver made the trip to Daytona the day after Christmas with his dad from North Carolina -- via car.

"My dad and I left 8:30 in the morning after Christmas," McMurray said. "I drove the whole way. This might sound odd but I wouldn't want to drive to Cup races but I missed the fact of stopping at a truck stop and experiencing that. It's different."

Oh, the truck stop experience. Mediocre coffee, questionable restrooms and more knock-off brand gadgets than anyone can handle -- here's to hoping that McMurray got the fill he desired.

Wanna read some more? Just click the link above to the track's release.

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Cancel any trips you've got scheduled to attend NASCAR's preseason testing at Daytona International Speedway in January 2009. (Yeah, all four of you.)

NASCAR announced Friday morning at Homestead-Miami Speedway -- site of the season-finale events for the Sprint Cup Series, Nationwide Series and the Craftsman (soon to be Camping World) Truck Series -- that all testing on NASCAR-sanctioned tracks will be banned in 2009. From the Charlotte Observer:

The suspension of testing, primarily a cost-cutting measure, includes preseason testing at Daytona International Speedway.

Teams still will be allowed to test at NASCAR weekly racing series tracks - such as Hickory Motor Speedway or Concord Motorsport Park in the Charlotte area where most operations are based - and at tracks not affiliated with NASCAR.

The decision, for example, could be a boost to Rockingham Speedway and its new owner, Andy Hillenburg. Hillenburg has built a short-track testing facility adjacent to the one-mile oval that used to host NASCAR events.

I've got to say that NASCAR is making an intelligent decision here to cut travel costs, but if you think for a minute that this move will save team's -- especially ones in the Sprint Cup Series -- extraordinary amounts of money, think again.

I wrote the other day about how much I disliked the new format NASCAR is going with for the season-opening Budweiser Shootout in 2009 at Daytona, mainly because of the qualification procedure.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. hates the new format for a completely different reason, though:

"I don't know what the extra five laps are for," he said Friday at Auto Club Speedway, site of Sunday's Pepsi 500 Sprint Cup race. "What the heck? They [NASCAR] don't get it. They messed up The Winston, the all-star race, and they're messing up the Shootout.

"They ought to line us up, make us run 10 laps. They want us to run around there for 25 first and have a 25-lap segment? That'd be cool. But 10 laps to go, all or nothing - that's what the fans want, that's what the drivers want.

"The last segment being 50 laps? We're just going to sit there for 30. I just don't get it. They don't get it. I don't understand. I don't know what the focus group is they're talking to to get these formats.

"It's frustrating because I want to like running those races. I don't want to dread them, but right now I'm dreading running them because the formats are no fun."

If Earnhardt Jr. was aiming for a scathing critique of the format, then he was spot on. And can you blame the guy?

Kyle Busch finished first in a race for the second time in a week. Unlike the first one, this win will actually stick.

It's a little early to call since the race just finished, but as far as I know, Busch's team did not have to cheat to put him in victory lane this morning in his 100th Busch Series entry.

Shrub had the fastest car and kept it out front most of the day. Kevin Harvick, who had a most impressive 2nd place finish after a few setbacks, was really the only other contender.

Compared with the Late Model race he ran last weekend at All-Star Speedway in New Hampshire, I'll bet that Busch is a lot more satisfied with today's win.

Getting busted for deliberately puncturing your tires and having your win canceled has to be kind of a downer.

Winn-Dixie 250 Results | Busch Series Standings

Update: Busch's Race-Winning Car Fails Inspection

6:00AM is a little on the early side to get up and watch racing, but apparently not too early to roll out of bed and onto the couch and wait for the eyes to open.

It's also, apparently, not too early to get annoyed with race commentators. This morning, it's Rusty Wallace on my nerves.

I actually started getting annoyed with Wallace last night when I heard about the comments he made with respect to Dale Earnhardt Jr. firing Shane Huffman. Wallace said it was a mistake, that Huffman was a good short track driver. Then he called Junior out for qualifying 35th and basically said the car was junk no matter who drove it.

Wallace changed his tune bright and early in Daytona when, by lap 16, Junior had driven the #88 from the back of the field up to the 13th spot. They talked about what a great car the team had and Wallace even went as far to say that if Junior was on a list of available drivers to run at Daytona International Speedway, he'd sign him up.

Ya think?

'Course, Junior and his junk have fallen back to 22nd by now, so I probably shouldn't be talking smack either, but hey, I've downed three cups of java in the past hour and a half--I'm a little punchy.

I liked Rusty a lot better when he was behind the wheel of the #2. I liked the Miller Lite Dodge a lot better then, too, but that's another story.

Aw, what's that, Steven Wallace is out of today's race? Maybe he should consider driving for a team that doesn't have a crap car.