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Boy, that guy is just sneaky.

Two weeks ago, all the rage was about Carl Edwards finally mounting a charge to overcome Kyle Busch's impressive stranglehold on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Then, Jimmie Johnson won two races (including Sunday's Chevy Rock & Roll 400), came out of hiding, and decided to play the Chase for the Championship game as the veteran ace among championship newbies.

After reading about yet another one of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s personal quirks, my head is still spinning.

And it's spinning because frankly I just don't get it, despite the article talking about his way of collecting old race cars like its an entirely normal thing. From the NASCAR Scene:

So whatever happened to the car that slid along the Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway wall last year, leaving a trail of flames as driver Brad Keselowski held on?

It's not at JR Motorsports.

It's at Junior's home.

OK, it's not inside the home, but it's on team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s property. [...]

"It's a good conversation piece," Keselowski said. "It's actually out back in the woods. It's on a hill and there's vines and stuff growing through it. It's cool because Dale left it completely intact. Every single piece other than the radio is in it. It's really cool to see."

So, in short form, Dale Earnhardt Jr. collects old race cars only to leave them to rust, rot, and generally just turn to nothing on the deepest parts of his property.

Is that not at all weird?

Jimmie Johnson made his case Sunday night at Auto Club Speedway in California that Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards aren't the only contenders for the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.

And, boy, did he do it in style.

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?

Halfway through Saturday night's Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, three of four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets were nowhere near the lead as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, and Casey Mears all had suffered early trouble.

Jeff Gordon, meanwhile, was managing to hang on to the Top 5.

Jeff Gordon has had two weeks of racing in a row that he would just like to forget.

Combine that with a season of ups and downs, and 2008 has been nothing like 2007 was for the four-time Sprint Cup champion. Thankfully for No. 24, though, the annual late-summer Sprint Cup visit to Bristol Motor Speedway is on tap for Saturday night.

With finishes of 29th and 42nd the past two weeks at tracks Gordon is normally quite good at -- Watkins Glen and Michigan -- the points situation for the Hendrick Motorsports team has tightened up quite a bit. Prior to that two-race stretch, Gordon was nearly in the group of drivers who could have been considered locks to the Chase.

A flat tire and a poor handle on his road course car derailed those thoughts as now Gordon sits less than 100 points from the Chase for the Sprint Cup cutoff spot of 13th position. Gordon currently sits ninth in the standings, but he was as high as sixth two weeks ago.

To go along with his ugly stats of recent, Gordon has failed to win a Sprint Cup race in all of 2008's 23 events.

History, though, is on Gordon's side as the Sprint Cup Series prepares to line 'em up for 500 laps at Bristol Saturday night.

For two weeks in a row, the crew members on the other side of the pit wall have helped take a good finish out of the hands of a Hendrick Motorsports driver.

Last week at Watkins Glen, it was a bad call by Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief Tony Eury Jr. Sunday afternoon at Michigan International Speedway, it was a bad pit stop by Jeff Gordon's No. 24 over-the-wall crew.

Gordon started Sunday's 3M Performance 400 and ran in the Top-10 for most of the race's first 90 laps. On lap 85, Dave Blaney smacked the outside wall on the backstretch to bring out the race's second caution -- bringing the entire field to pit road.

Gordon came to his crew in fourth spot having just run some of his best laps during the previous green flag run. On the ensuing four-tire change, lug nuts fell off one of the wheels and caused a lengthier stop than the other leaders. The result was Gordon coming back on track in 14th position.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. chose to race in Saturday's Nationwide Series race because he doesn't consider himself a great road course racer and wanted to get more experience to help his team get a better finish for Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen.

Next year, he might think about serving as crew chief in the Nationwide event so he can overcome blunders like the one Tony Eury Jr. got the No. 88 into Sunday afternoon while Earnhardt Jr. was leading.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver led 33 of the race's 90 laps, but he didn't lead anymore after a caution came out while he was leading on lap 64.

Or should that be dashing?

Say what you will about Goodyear and their problems from a week ago at Indianapolis, but in my mind, they took a big step forward with Saturday afternoon's wet-weather affair in Montreal.

Yep, NASCAR Nationwide Series racing actually competed on a wet track with points on the line at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for the first time in the history of the sport, and thanks to Goodyear's effective heavy rain tire, it was at least an entertaining show to watch.

Remember this guy?

Jimmie Johnson -- word has it that he has won two Sprint Cup championships -- appears to be the new Kyle Busch in the NASCAR world.