In the Field: Elliott Sadler

We were just in Vegas, now we're going to Atlanta and there's definitely a lot of talk about Bristol and the debut of the Car of Tomorrow. But how can you not talk about March Madness and college basketball -- especially after last weekend?

All the conference tournaments were going on and you had Selection Sunday while my Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Charger team and I were racing at Las Vegas. I'm a huge college basketball fan -- a real fan of all college athletics -- so to me, it doesn't get any better than March Madness.

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I might have been out in Las Vegas, and me and the boys from home had as good of a time as we thought we would, but I watched basketball all day Thursday. They had a bunch of overtime games and it was awesome.

Of course, I'm a North Carolina Tar Heels fan, so I was particularly looking forward to those boys playing Florida State. It's fantastic they won the ACC championship and got the No. 1 seed and I'm looking forward to watching all the games this weekend -- in between what we have to do in Atlanta -- and keeping up with it for the rest of the month.

Of course, my brother Hermie and I did a basketball game as a fundraiser for the Autism Society of America previously. We're definitely going to do something again this year -- we just don't know what it will be.

We've been so busy with this being the first of the year and the start of the season, doing some other things that we haven't been able to put our heads together to figure out what we'll do as a benefit for the Autism community.

We usually try to mix it up and do something different to keep the fans interested, and to do something fresh and new for them. And for me, as a driver and a person, I like doing things a little differently.

I don't want to just do a golf tournament like everybody else does, we want to do something different that everyone will like and that will raise some money for the Autism Society of America and the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

So we are shuffling some things around and we'll let everyone know when we come up with it.

But I can tell you that March is one of the most fun months for me, as a fan of college sports. For the next couple weeks I'll definitely have a lot of that on my mind.

I'm also a huge fan of the Charlotte Bobcats, being as how they have three Tar Heels on their team: Raymond Felton, Sean May and Jeff McInnis. I try and make it to as many games as possible.

People ask if there are any parallels you can draw between our sport and basketball -- or any other team sport -- and I think there are. It's teamwork more than anything else.

My Evernham Motorsports guys on my pit crew have to work together -- the tire changers and the tire carriers -- to have a good pit stop. And when one has a weak moment or a slip, the others really have to pull together to make it up. Our pit crew had a great weekend in Vegas and I'm pumped about this weekend.

It's the same thing in college basketball. You've got to work together, box out around the basket and set good screens. Working together on good team defense wins a lot of games, so it's the same thing as it is in racing.

Of course, it's done differently in racing and it's a totally different dynamic -- but, in all reality you've got to know that you have your teammates there and they have your back and they're supporting you.

You know you all have that one common goal and that's to win. So I think there are a lot of parallels you can draw between the two sports.

But getting back to the NCAA. I definitely want to pick Carolina to win it all. With Tyler Hansbrough hurting and wearing the mask from that injury he got at the end of the season, he's definitely not comfortable, but he got more at ease with it in the ACC tournament.

I'm definitely pulling for those guys to make it a long way, and I hope right into the Final Four. I think if they play good team defense, as young as they are I think they've got a good chance.

Oh, man. The others? Ohio State and Kansas are the two teams right now that I think are hot. Kansas has really been blowing a lot of people out in the Big 12, which is a tough conference, but they've really been playing incredible basketball.

Ohio State has such a good threat inside with Greg Oden and they've got a couple good guards with senior leadership and things like that. It's those things that make it tough to play them.

They're used to this tournament; the pressure and they've been there before, so I would say right now that Ohio State and Kansas are the two teams that can go a long, long way in this tournament.

It's funny, but I haven't been with Evernham Motorsports in March before, so I don't know if they get up an office pool at the shop or not -- I'll be checking on that this week and if they do I want in on the fun.

Everybody does office pools and you pick different teams in different ones and it's so much fun to watch the games like that -- to see if you've been able to predict what could, or could not happen. We've always done them for fun because there's a lot of bragging rights in knowing who the NCAA basketball fan is in the office.

I just love everything about it. If you are a basketball fan, what happened last Thursday, with all the overtime games in the conference tournaments, was absolutely amazing, and just a taste of what we've got going as Madness continues.

As far as playing the game during the season, I don't know that many teams would have hoops outside the shops. I don't see how they could promote that because it would be real easy to come down on somebody else's foot and twist an ankle -- get a high ankle sprain and that would mess you up if you were an over-the-wall guy.

I'm thinking most teams would want to keep the guys on the ground when it comes to training, as much as they can.

For myself, playing ball is something I do a lot more in the off-season, when I go home to Emporia and practice with my old high school team and stuff like that.

But I might play a little bit. I'll go to the Charlotte Sports Center off I-77. I'll go in there sometimes and play some hoops -- but more than anything I'll do some drills that used to keep me in shape when I was in high school.

I do that now just to keep me in shape for racing, but I enjoy doing that part of it because it keeps me in touch with the game.

And that makes March a great time of the year if you're a fan, so I'm looking forward to keeping up with the tournament while I'm racing and seeing who's hot and who's not.

Dang, it's kind of what we're seeing in Nextel Cup racing these days, with everything coming down to that fifth race at Bristol, and who's going to be in the top 35 and who's not.

We'll just have to see what happens, just like with the NCAA tournament.

Elliott Sadler, now in his ninth full season in the Cup Series, shares weekly with NASCAR.COM readers life on the road through staff writer Dave Rodman.