Looking back, ahead and wondering after six races

Well, 30 races left in the season. Twenty races remain before the new 12-man Chase for the Nextel Cup begins. What has caught your eye? I have always looked at this week as a time to recharge and re-evaluate. The teams recharge. The fans re-evaluate. Only this week, the teams have the Car of Tomorrow test in Richmond. A lot of guys are not happy about the test session, and a lot of guys are not happy with the COT. How do you make the car better? Test. It's a Catch-22.

Certainly you have to be impressed with the performance of Hendrick Motorsports. Jimmie Johnson has won three of the first six races. Jeff Gordon leads the championship standings. Kyle Busch has a win and four top-10 finishes. He is fifth in points so Hendrick has three of the top five slots in the championship standings and four wins in six races. That could make them tough to beat.

Bill Weber

But have you asked yourself, "If winning paid a 100-point bonus or a 190-point bonus would there have been a different outcome at Martinsville? Or Bristol?" Since it's a hypothetical question there is no wrong answer. I believe drivers when they say they can't drive any harder no matter how big you make the prize at the finish line. But if you make the reward of winning that much greater than the prize for finishing second, you might see some added excitement in the closing laps.

There is a long list of interesting stories. You've probably already discussed many of them with your friends. So how would you rank them?

It took Dale Earnhardt Jr. six races to get a top-five finish. That's not a good ratio. He certainly has fond memories of Texas Motor Speedway. He got the win there in 2000. In nine races there he has seven top-10 finishes. He wrecked there in 2002 and finished 42nd. In the other eight races, nothing worse than 12th. But in the past five races at Texas, Junior has led just five laps. And just one lap in the past four races there.

After six races, Earnhardt is 11th in points. That's 49 points behind eighth-place Tony Stewart. Stewart also has just one top-five finish and is looking for his first win of the season. His last victory came at ... Texas in November of last year. He has three consecutive finishes of sixth or better at Texas and top-10 finishes in four of the past five races there. Stewart missed the Chase last year, a motivating factor in 2007; not that he would ever need one. (Continued)