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.

Kasey Kahne is the defending champion at Texas. You remember Kasey Kahne, don't you? He won six races last season. He won six poles last year. He finished eighth in the 2006 Chase. He made a lot of TV commercials. Currently he is 34th in points with just one top-10 finish, a seventh at Daytona. In the past five races his finishes are startling; 38th, 35th, 39th, 19th and 25th. It is simply amazing.

While the Evernham guys are struggling, Richard Childress Racing is flying. Despite the disappointments for Kevin Harvick, RCR still has three cars in the top 10 in points, led by Jeff Burton. Burton certainly could have pulled off the bump-and-win at Bristol but made it clear on his radio and with his reputation, that is not his style. Still in six races this season, he has five finishes of sixth or better, including the second-place run at Bristol, third in the Daytona 500, two fourth-place finishes, sixth at Martinsville and 15th at Vegas.

How good is Burton going to be this season after his impressive 2006? Well, let's use a Texas-sized yardstick to find out. Burton hasn't had a top-five finish in Fort Worth since 2000 (second), his only top-five in the past 11 races there. He did finish sixth at Texas this past spring, but that is his only top-10 there in the last eight races. When guys are hot, you watch to see how they run on tracks where you know they have been successful. When guys are good, you watch to see how they finish at places where they have not been that successful. Of course, Burton won the very first race at Texas Motor Speedway in 1997. Keep an eye on Burton when we get to Texas.

Burton's teammate Clint Bowyer has just two Nextel Cup starts at Texas, both coming last season. He finished 19th in the spring and fifth in the fall. Bowyer has three top-10s in the six races this season, and has finished 11th or better in the last four races. The 11th at Martinsville and eighth at Bristol are the most impressive numbers to me. Sure, he's suppose to be good on the short tracks, but to get out of those two places with good finishes shows patience and maturity. OK, and some racing luck.

Harvick has a lot of talent lined up behind him in the championship standings. He also has back-to-back top-five finishes at Texas. Harvick has just two finishes better than 15th this season, the win in the Daytona 500 and a fourth-place run at Bristol. Everything else is 17th or worse. He had all kinds of issues at Martinsville, costing him five positions in the points race. Harvick needs a track on which to get well and Texas could be just the place to do it.

With the six races already completed, there is time to wonder about a handful of drivers that you might have thought would be in the top five, or top 10, or even the top 15 right now, but aren't. It is amazing how quickly fortunes change in racing, and in all of sports. How good will the Detroit Tigers be this year?

And who will be the Detroit Tigers of 2007?

Kurt Busch, his teammate Ryan Newman and Roush Fenway driver Greg Biffle are all outside the top 15. In the 18 combined starts, the three have a total of just one top-five finish. Scott Riggs, Dale Jarrett and Dave Blaney have started all six races, but are outside the top 35 in driver points. Mark Martin has started four races; he is 15th in points.

Rookie Juan Montoya has one top-five finish, fifth in Atlanta, but apparently not too many friends on the track. He will make some new friends.

And then there is Michael Waltrip. He has made just one race, and his is -27 in points.

A week off from racing, and there are a lot of things to think about.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.