I can’t wait to giggle on Sunday when I hear Mike Joy’s baritone voice excitedly remind us that “we’ve got the green flag for the start of today’s Goody’s Cool Orange 500!”
Really gets those juices flowing, huh?
I do understand that Goody’s has a product to sell and, as the primary race sponsor, can name the race whatever it darn well pleases. That doesn’t mean that it’s a great name. Take a look at the schedule, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find one that trips off the tongue. May’s Richmond race — the Crown Royal Presents the Jim Stewart 400 — is a mouthful but gets points for creativity.
(The only one that is worse is the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, but that’s purely for aesthetic reasons. Indianapolis Motor Speedway shouldn’t need a sponsor for its race, no matter how much money Allstate threw at them.)
You’ll recall that last year, we ranked the top three and bottom three race logos. When I took a look at the GCO 500 logo, I immediately thought we had a contender. I’m not so sure anymore, but we can wait until the end of the season to determine that.
• BRIAN VICKERS gamely decided he would race this Sunday, despite some serious issues with the COT. Vickers burned his feet during last week’s race at Bristol and also dealt with a pretty bad case of carbon monoxide inhalation.
It’s worth watching to see what, if any, affect this has on him this weekend.
Chris Jenkins from the AP made a few good points in his weekly blog: We often celebrate athletes that play hurt, but it’s a difficult proposition to find the line between forging on and knowing when to step back.
We often forget about the fallout from the numerous accidents each week, and how quickly drivers are able to get back on the horse, so to speak. Earlier this year, David Reutimann was knocked cold in a crash; there was some question whether he’d have to sit out a week. But it’s been a while since a Cup driver missed a race because of injury.
Of course, part of that is due to NASCAR’s safety improvements. But most assuredly, part of that is also due to a driver’s willingness — or perhaps stubbornness — to allow an injury to keep him off the track.
We can hope that Vickers made the right choice.

But there’s a school of thought that the honor isn’t as great as it seems. Like the venerable Sports Illustrated cover jinx, strange events and performance drop-offs have accompanied those on the cover of EA Sports games.
Stewart may be buffeted by the fact that most of the EA jinx centers around NFL, MLB and NHL players. And the recent results are pretty inconclusive.
Last year was largely a fiasco. EA went with Elliott Sadler, who posed for the cover in his M&M’s uniform that he wore with Robert Yates Racing. By the time the game appeared on shelves, Sadler had already moved on to Evernham Motorsports.
The year prior, accentuating its focus on teammates, EA had Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson on the cover. Gordon remains a threat to win each week, but the days of his dominance are getting further in the rear-view mirror. Johnson again appeared to be a title contender, but came up short that season. He broke through a year later, of course.
The year before Gordon and Johnson, it was Kevin Harvick. He’s always been a very good driver, but has really come into his own starting with last season. When the cover was shot, he was one of the people in the Childress Racing stable; now, he’s the driver for the primary team at RCR, a claim few would argue.
So Stewart seems a bit more immune to the problems that have befelled people like Dany Heatley and Ray Lewis.
If there is a jinx on the NASCAR side, maybe Stewart has already gone through the worst of it. He didn’t make the Chase last year, a position very unbecoming for a driver of his talent. In five points races this year, he’s a second, two more top-10s and two finishes of 35th or worse.
That includes last week at Bristol, when Stewart had the dominant car but suffered a failure in his fuel pump, relegating him to a 35th-place finish. Stewart’s crew chief, Greg Zippadelli, is confident the problem has been corrected.
Stewart will certainly be on the short list of contenders this weekend at Martinsville. Can he put that bad streak behind him, or will the curse continue?

It’s the small track that doesn’t live up to its billing: Richmond and Bristol can — but sometimes don’t — provide the quality racing that the 1.5-mile cookie cutters often lack.
Martinsville’s paper-clip layout is enough that there’s really only one groove; to fall outside means you’ll watch positions roll by with the rhythm of a metronome. (Set it for 40.)
The race is less about strategy and more about survival. Stay up front, keep the fenders as clean as possible, and hope you’re in a good position in the final 10 laps. That’s not good racing; strategy should be far more flexible than that.
And it’ll be the second COT race, too. Maybe racing with the COT will get better. But to think of what it did to racing at Bristol last week and to try to project it to Martinsville ... man, that ain’t pretty.
• DOWN AT RIR, they’re a little busy at the moment with Busch series testing. Public relations director Keith Green was presumably busy too, so we’ll catch up with him when we can about the track’s ongoing preparations for the May race.
I promised weekly updates, and thought it deserved an explanation.
• I DIDN’T MEAN TO STEAL Kris Johnson’s headline. Obviously, it’s more than a little similar to my entry yesterday.
I tried to track down times, and the first comment on his blog was three hours before I posted mine. So he definitely didn’t borrow anything from me.
We made different points, anyway.

But I’ve read in a handful of places that some people don’t appreciate Busch’s opinions.
And that kills me.

We, the media, like to complain about sports figures and how they relate to that famous line from Bull Durham. You know…

“You’re gonna have to learn your clichés. You’re gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They’re your friends. Write this down: ‘We gotta play it one day at a time.’”

“Got to play ... it’s pretty boring.”

“’Course it’s boring, that’s the point. Write it down.”

So when someone has the guts to say what they really think, we should be happy for it. Busch doesn’t like the COT; he said so, in no uncertain terms. (Plus it has the added benefit of being anti-establishment, always a bit of a bonus for us.)

I wonder if the folks upset with Busch are confusing his image with his words. He’s got every appearance of being a brash punk with some of the things he’s done on and off the track.

So it may be easy to think that because he spouts off about the COT, it must be because he’s a punk. I’d say that’s not necessarily the case; it could be, but not necessarily.

Remember, he was diplomatic after the Busch series race at Vegas, even though he was spun out by Jeff Burton on the last lap.

Busch isn’t as brash as he used to be. Imagine his reaction if Burton’s spinout had happened even two years ago. He’d have gone nuts.

Both Busch and his brother, Kurt, have settled down over the past few years. Remember, Kurt was hardly a saint during his first few years (remember the throwdown with Jimmy Spencer?), but in the few occasions I’ve dealt with him, he’s been pleasant. So I can’t speak badly of Kurt.

Kyle is going down the same path. He’s going to speak his mind, and that’s OK — or at least it should be OK, particularly with all of us who depend on him saying something noteworthy.

No one was seriously injured on Sunday, so that’s a positive. But it demands qualifying factors: Serious injuries are rare at short tracks, thankfully, because of the reduced speeds. And who’s to say if anyone would have been banged up a bit more in the old cars?

Next week probably won’t answer that question any further, either. Martinsville is the smallest and slowest track on the circuit. (Though, honestly, the longer we wait to answer that question, the better.)

With that distinct non-answer, we move on: Was the competition any better?

A loaded question, of course. If competition means an exciting finish, then yes: Kyle Busch nipped Jeff Burton at the finish line. If competition means exciting moments throughout the race, then no.

For most of the afternoon, it seemed like another race. It didn’t feel like Bristol. There were hallmarks of typical Bristol – Dale Jarrett fuming at Matt Kenseth – but on the track, we were left with an absence of exciting moves that we’ve come to expect. There were passes here and there, but mostly, it felt like last fall.

If competition means giving more teams a chance to race for a win, then no. Among the top 10 finishers, only one could truly be called a surprise: Jeff Green, who came in sixth. One could argue that Clint Bowyer (eighth), Jamie McMurray (ninth) and Casey Mears (10th) were all surprises, but there are all drivers on elite teams whose unnoticed (Bowyer) or disappointing (McMurray, Mears) finishes have tempered our expectations for them.

Mike Bliss and Ward Burton finished 17th and 18th, good days for both of them. But Bliss was a lap down, Burton two laps down. Both finished ahead of Kasey Kahne, who ran well but was done in by a wreck in the early part of the second half of the race. In that respect, Bliss and Burton finished last among the survivors.

The evidence all points one way, and it may be tempting to take that last step and say the project isn’t a success.

But that would be too far to leap, at least at this moment. There are several more races and several more practices and qualifying sessions for the COT to change our minds. And we should give it every chance to do so.