The Essentials Coverage: ESPN on ABC @ 3:00pm/ET Green Flag: 3:45pm/ET Distance: 312 laps/312 miles/500 kilometers Other: Follow it on ESPN360 if available Venue: Phoenix Int'l Raceway, sold out
Keep These in Mind... 1) Chasing Dreams - The second-to-last round of the Jeff and Jimmie Show: 2007 gets underway with the green flag. It's simple, Jeff Gordon has to overcome a 30-point margin in the next two races to win his fifth Nextel Cup title. Johnson has to beat him to claim his second.
Johnson averages a finish of one spot higher than Gordon at Phoenix, but Gordon was the last to win at the track in April.
2) Three-peat? Kyle Busch could become the first driver in NASCAR history to win in all three divisions on the same weekend. Busch took the victory in Friday night's Craftsman Truck Series race and followed that up with a Busch Series win Saturday night at PIR.
He starts 38th Sunday at Phoenix in the Nextel Cup race.
3) A Flavor of Indy in the Desert - For just the third time in history (thanks, Jayski!), three former winners of the Indianapolis 500 are in Sunday's race. Sam Hornish Jr., Juan Pablo Montoya, and Jacques Villeneuve all made the field.
Add in former open wheel drivers Patrick Carpentier, Casey Mears, Robby Gordon, and Tony Stewart and you see very quickly how quickly NASCAR has become the all-around proving ground for drivers.
4) Truex Strong in Practice - Martin Truex Jr. starts second at Phoenix but had the car to beat in Happy Hour practice yesterday. He ran the fastest lap of the session, followed by Kasey Kahne, Casey Mears, David Stremme and Jeff Gordon.
Chase point leader Jimmie Johnson was seventh on the time sheet.
Have we finally reached a point where writers and bloggers won't have to follow Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s every move?
It sure seems so -- as Dale Earnhardt Jr. has finally made laps in a Hendrick Motorsports car (and not because a Shrub ditched the track).
Junior got his second take of Hendrick Motorsports power and chassis Monday and Tuesday during a test session at Atlanta Motor Speedway in the next-generation car that will be sported throughout the Sprint Cup Series in 2008.
Because his current contracts aren't up -- specifically with Budweiser -- Junior drove a red and white No. 5 painted up like the first car that team owner Rick Hendrick ever backed in Cup competition. That car featured Hendrick Motorsports original name of "All-Star Racing" on the rear quarter-panels and "Chevy City" on the hood -- one of Hendrick's car dealerships during those days.
Dale Jr. will drive the No. 88 Mountain Dew AMP/National Guard Chevrolet Impala for Hendrick Motorsports in 2008.
NASCAR confirmed Sunday morning at Atlanta Motor Speedway that they will switch to the new generation race car in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The new car (I'm tired of calling it the Car of Tomorrow when its here today) will be raced full-time in the top NASCAR series next season.
"We're working on an '09 [Nationwide] car," Bodine said. "[Having it ready for] '09 is tentative. It's not set in stone but we're working on it. We've informed some of the Busch owners and we've got a prototype at the R&D center."
"There will be a different body style and different aerodynamic package," Bodine said. "We're working on all that stuff. We're just not there yet, still working through all that process.
Sporting several new safety features, a rear wing, and a front splitter, the next generation chassis and body style brought hope that NASCAR would finally apply some clarity and definition between the Sprint Cup Series and the Nationwide Series.
Instead, NASCAR will revert back to the old thinking of running two series that are hardly different, which will continue to lead to insane amounts of Cup regulars parading the Nationwide Series (formerly Busch).
The safety additions are without a doubt a good idea, but let's hope Bodine is right in that they will use a different body style and aerodynamics.
It doesn't seem that the problem of carbon monoxide (CO) exposure in the car of tomorrow gotten any better since the problem was exposed after the car's debut in Bristol.
On Monday, David Stremme was forced to relinquish the wheel of his #40 Coors Light Dodge two thirds into the race because he was ill, complaining of headaches.
Stremme claimed to be suffering from a sore throat and flu-like symptoms since Friday, but upon evaluation in the infield care center his blood showed elevated levels of carbon monoxide.
What's it gonna take to get safety-conscious NASCAR's attention focused on this issue?
You can't see or smell carbon monoxide, but at high levels it can kill a person in minutes ... Hundreds of people die accidentally every year from CO poisoning caused by malfunctioning. ~ Environmental Protection Agency
Jimmie Johnson has won the fourth of four car of tomorrow races for Hendrick Motorsports and his fourth win for the 2007 season.
Please hold while I try to muster up some excitement ...
At what point will Hendrick wins cease to become news? They are an incredible 7 for 10 on the season so far and have already celebrated a major milestone this year.
Despite my love for everything Earnhardt, I still have a lot of respect for Mr. Hendrick and HMS as a whole, so I certainly don't want to take anything away from their accomplishments.
It's just that after a while it gets B-O-R-I-N-G.
But great job all day by JJ and his teammates Kyle Busch, who rallied to a 2nd place finish from after starting in 34th, and Jeff Gordon , who finished 4th.
Casey Mears, who hasn't fared as well as his teammates all season, managed to pull off an 18th place finish despite some bad luck early in the race. He holds on to a spot in the top 35, moving up one to 34th.
NASCAR said this weekend that the tentative schedule for the Car of Tomorrow program is up to the teams for next season. Currently, the COT is supposed to appear in 29 races next year after 16 this year. A full schedule is planned for 2009.
Several teams have suggested that they would like to see the COT run full-time next season so they can get away backing two different programs for one series.
Jeff Green would especially happy with the move, considering his Best Buy car has earned two top ten finishes in the three COT races this season.
"Like I've been saying, we just seem to have a better handle on the COT than the other car," said Green.
I say bring on the COT and let's get back to focusing on racing. It's only going to hurt the lower-revenued teams by forcing them to stay competitive with two types of race cars.
And I'm starting to enjoy the visual aspects of the new car, as well.
Yesterday, I was all set to talk about how Chevy is kicking everybody's ass with the car of tomorrow. Ford driver Greg Biffle and the stats would even back me up.
"We were probably the best in 2005 as a manufacturer, and then in '06 and '07 Chevrolet is back up top where they've been most of the time. And it's not really a surprise to us to see that they're running as well as they are. They've got a bunch of great teams – Gibbs, Hendrick, Childress just off the top are very, very strong race teams. Technically, there's one of us, if you will. We have Roush and Yates over in the Ford camp. If you were to say we had three Roush conglomerates all running Fords, then the tables might be balanced a little different, but they've got three strong, strong teams and three strong teams with good drivers driving Chevys. That's something we know we have to battle. They've been a little bit better at it and, let's face it, you take Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and all those guys and feeding a little bit of information back to Chevrolet, it'll trickle around to those teams a little bit faster. But in our organization all we have is us – we have our five teams to gather that information and use it within ourselves. It's tough to beat the odds. The odds are there are more Chevrolet teams and better cars."
The race stats definitely speak to that:
The Impalas ran the show at Bristol, leading 487 of 504 laps and finishing with eight cars in the Top 10 positions. It was more of the same in Martinsville where the Chevys led 489 of 500 laps and took the top seven positions.
But testing headlines don't tell a story of dominance:
One of the designs of the NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow project that has seemingly stayed under the radar has already played a large role in the outcome of at least one race for this new design.
Jeff Gordon banged, slammed, and brushed Jimmie Johnson's rear bumper in nearly every corner Sunday with about ten laps to go. One would have expected Johnson to eventually slide up the track and Gordon to slide right on by for the victory. But he didn't, and Gordon didn't.
The CoT is sporting a newly designed front end and almost fits with the rear end of another car like matching puzzle pieces. The front bumper is flatter and taller, allowing it to bump the car in front of it -- not lift it up.
Brett Bodine, a former driver and now NASCAR's Director of Cost Management, couldn't be happier with the design.
"The thing that's really impressing me is that with the bumpers being lined up, cars aren't spinning each other out when there is nose-to-tail contact. That's what the whole bumper design was about."
Jimmie Johnson sure benefited from the design Sunday at Martinsville. He feels its going to improve racing.
"The guy behind you can't just go in there and knock him out of the way. You've actually got to drive the car past him."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had the same comments last week at Bristol, saying "it was kinda cool" that "when you hit them, it just throws them forward".
The CoT has now passed the short track test except for a few issues with foam padding and tailpipes. Those will be fixed and are relatively minor. However, the true test lies with Phoenix and beyond, as the cars start to hit speedways with more speed. For now, though? This car has run well, raced well, produced nothing drastically surprising, and things are only looking up.
After last week's complaints about the car of tomorrow exhaust systems, I expected we'd have more air quality complaints by the halfway mark of today's Goody Cool Orange 500.
Jimmie Johnson even tried to preempt any potential problem by preparing for today's race with oxygen therapy:
"Everybody has different beliefs with it, and it hasn't scienced out to a T yet. But the schedule I have been on is Friday for an hour, Saturday for an hour, Sunday morning for an hour. And then if I can, Sunday afternoon after the race; that is really when you can feel it the most. If you can get on some oxygen, it helps you out a lot."
But being short on oxygen at Martinsville isn't exclusive to the COT.
Check out this video from 1998 when race winner Ricky Rudd suffered a broken air conditioner in 90 degree heat. He gave his post-race interview lying on the ground in victory lane with oxygen in hand:
The Essentials
Is this finally ending?
That didn't take long.
It doesn't seem that the problem of carbon monoxide (CO) exposure in the car of tomorrow gotten any better since the problem was 
Jimmie Johnson has won the fourth of four car of tomorrow races for Hendrick Motorsports and his fourth win for the 2007 season.
NASCAR said this weekend that the tentative 
Yesterday, I was all set to talk about how Chevy is kicking everybody's ass with the car of tomorrow. Ford driver Greg Biffle and the stats would even back me up.
One of the designs of the NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow project that has seemingly stayed under the radar has already played a large role in the outcome of at least one race for this new design.
Prior to today's race, Kevin Harvick was "
After 
