Countdown: Kentucky

The Bluegrass State can boast mightily of its bourbon, its blue-ribbon horses and its basketball. Some of Kentucky's hardwood goes to make barrels to age corn-based whiskey, while more ends up under the sneakers of hoopsters wearing Kentucky's blue and white or Louisville's red and black.

Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were both Kentucky natives, as were scout Kit Carson, engineer Casey Jones, writer Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Monroe and Loretta Lynn of country music fame, fried chicken magnate Harland Sanders and actress Irene Dunne.

Kentucky loves its horsepower, whether it's the call to post at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Lexington's Keeneland or Turfway Park just south of Cincinnati -- or the motorized kind at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta.

Best behind the wheel

• Jeremy Mayfield, Owensboro

	Inside the Numbers Jeremy Mayfield's Cup career Year Races W T5 T10 1993 1 0 0 0 1994 20 0 0 0 1995 27 0 0 1 1996 30 0 0 2 1997 32 0 3 8 1998 33 1 12 16 1999 34 0 5 12 2000 32 2 6 12 2001 28 0 5 7 2002 36 0 2 4 2003 36 0 4 12 2004 36 1 5 13 2005 36 1 4 9 Totals 381 5 48 96

Three-time champion Darrell Waltrip was born in Owensboro, but since he uses Franklin, Tenn., as his racing address, the title of Kentucky's best falls on Jeremy Mayfield by one win over Michael Waltrip.

Mayfield had to supply his own power when he first started racing BMX bicycles at a local track in his hometown, but soon graduated to go-karts, street stocks and Late Models. His success on the short tracks of central Tennessee convinced Mayfield to move to Nashville at 19.

Working as a fabricator for Sadler Brothers Racing, Mayfield got to drive a Late Model on the weekends, becoming the Kentucky Motor Speedway's rookie of the year in 1987.

By 1993, Mayfield had advanced to the ARCA series, where he posted eight top-five and 10 top-10 finishes, good enough to be named rookie of the year. Mayfield made his Cup debut in October at Charlotte, finishing 29th in a Sadler Brothers-owned Ford.

A part-time schedule in 1994 landed Mayfield a ride in Cale Yarborough's car for the final 12 races of the season -- and a full-time ride the next year. That included an eighth at Pocono, where Mayfield would win his first NASCAR race three years later.

Mayfield won twice in 2000 while driving for Michael Kranefuss -- at Fontana and Pocono -- then went through a winless spell with Roger Penske before landing two more victories in the last two seasons while piloting Dodges for Ray Evernham.

Other noteworthy drivers from Kentucky

• David Green, Owensboro: 1994 Busch Series champion has 78 career Cup starts

• Jeff Green, Owensboro: 2000 Busch Series champ has five top-fives in a 10-year Cup career

	ARCHIVE NASCAR.COM takes you inside the garages and breaks down the action from Daytona.  •   Complete coverage, click here

• Mark Green, Owensboro: 209 career Busch starts, with a best of fifth at Charlotte in 1997

• Ferrel Harris, Pikeville: Five top-10s in 41 career starts, including a seventh at Talladega in 1978

• Ralph Jones, Upton: 15th in the 1979 Daytona 500 was his best finish in 20 appearances

• Bub King, Corbin: Of his 35 starts, the best was his third at South Bend in 1952

• Tommy Thompson, Louisville: Drove a Chrysler to victory in a 250-lapper at Detroit in 1951

• Michael Waltrip, Owensboro: Two-time Daytona 500 winner has four superspeedway victories

We wish ...

Boxer Muhammad Ali had become a NASCAR driver.

His political convictions aside, the self-proclaimed "greatest of all time" and real Louisville slugger could give Lowe's Motor Speedway's Humpy Wheeler a run for his money when it comes to outlandish promotions.

Keeping it on track

• Kentucky Speedway

	ACCELERATION 2006 There's more to the new season than just driver changes. Read more about what to watch for as we rev toward Daytona.  •   Testing archive,  click here •   Complete coverage, click here

Opened in 2000, the 1.5-mile tri-oval hosts four race weekends a year, including the Busch Series and Craftsman Trucks. Carl Edwards became the first driver to win races at Kentucky in both series when he won the 2005 Busch Series Meijer 300 presented by Oreo. He had previously been to Victory Lane in the Truck Series in 2003.

Kentucky Speedway filed a lawsuit in July against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp., alleging the companies have violated federal antitrust laws by illegally restricting the awarding of Nextel Cup races. The lawsuit seeks to force NASCAR to award the track a Nextel Cup race.

Gone but not forgotten

• Corbin Speedway

This dirt half-mile which opened in 1952 hosted its only NASCAR race in August of 1954, when soon-to-be champion Lee Petty beat Hershel McGriff to win the $1,000 first-place purse. Those two were the only drivers on the lead lap, as 13 of the 21 cars were running at the finish.

Corbin Speedway remains in operation as a quarter-mile. London's Roger Parker was the Late Model track champion for 2005.

A word from our sponsor

• Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Georgetown

TMMK will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2006. It 1986 it was announced that Georgetown would be the site of Toyota's first wholly-owned plant in the United States. TMMK is a $5.3 billion dollar investment and employs about 7,000 team members. Total TMS sales of North American-built vehicles totaled 1,393,100 units, representing 61.6 percent of the total vehicles sold in 2005. There were 307 selling days in 2005, as compared to 308 in 2004.