FanHouse Racing

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.

Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway gave me that feeling of something I haven't seen in a while.

Most likely, I had that feeling because, well, I hadn't.

Sunday's race, the third win in-a-row for Jimmie Johnson, had a grand total of 55 loop lead changes -- the most NASCAR has had in a race since it started keeping tabs on the data provided by the several different scoring loops around the track.

Yes, NASCAR stars of today swapped position, for the lead, multiple times, with much at stake. Awesome!

I can imagine that those high numbers could be easily chalked up to a couple of quality battles -- side by side nonetheless -- that happened during the Dickie's 500 for the lead. (The best example starts at about 8:41)

First, it was Denny Hamlin vs. Matt Kenseth with less than 100 laps to go. Hamlin drove like he hasn't won a race in awhile to battle Kenseth for the lead for several laps. Swapping the position back and forth, Kenseth finally got the better side of the deal when Hamlin lost control of his No. 11 Chevrolet off of turn two. Hamlin never spun the car, but he impacted the wall hard enough to end any chances at a win (starts about 7:57).

Kenseth luckily avoided Hamlin's mess to find himself dueled in another battle in the closing stages on the event.

In a season that has undoubtedly tested the will of everyone over at Michael Waltrip Racing, the 55 team that owner Michael Waltrip drives for will have a new crew chief this weekend at Phoenix. Waltrip has failed to make 6 of the 7 races this season.

Waltrip, who sits 50th in owner points, lost his original crew chief David Hyder to start off the season at Daytona amid signs of darker days ahead. Hyder was suspended by NASCAR indefinitely for being in charge of the NAPA Chevy that was found to have a fuel additive in it.

Mikey's new crew chief is Buddy Sisco who has served in the same role for Jimmy Spencer and Tony Raines in the past few years. Sisco began the year with David Reutimann as the car chief -- a team that has seen a little more success in making races.

The overhaul at MWR also seemed to expand a little farther because Derrick Finley was named competition director, in addition to a larger reorganization of the competition department. Finley has seen roles with DEI, Travis Carter Racing, and with Scott Wimmer at Bill Davis Racing.

One website has a rumor that Waltrip is having to return $300,000 per race to his sponsor NAPA for each event he does not make.

It's almost depressing to see Waltrip having this amount of troubles because he really is a good guy in that garage area. His face and talent are needed in this sport and not having him around for race day is tough to swallow -- even for non-diehard Mikey fans. Waltrip has just got himself in too deep with all of the new projects he has, but he's a fighter and will dig out. I'm not an apologist for Mikey, but he's a fun and different personality for NASCAR.

It's definitely easy to kick someone when their down as many folks at the FanHouse have seen on the comments. Waltrip is down right now, but he's gonna claw back -- criticism or not.