Weekend That Was: MIS (cont'd)

"I think, going forward, we're just going to sit down. Were going through a process with all of our technical guys, figuring out where we need to be. GM, I think, just got a verbal agreement with Hendrick -- the first team to kind of re-sign for next year. We're kind of in the same phase as I think a lot of the teams are. In the next several weeks, we're going to have to really figure out where our future is and our direction."

It was a classic non-answer answer, learned no doubt at the knee of his daddy, who long ago received his master's degree in non-speak coachspeak.

You've got to believe that it was given because JGR simply is attempting to squeeze every dime possible from the GM racing operation, which would be foolish not to match whatever Toyota might be offering. You've got to believe that Gibbs is keeping Toyota in play only to give his family's racing operation the leverage it needs to get what it wants from GM.

Otherwise, it makes no sense. Toyota has proven it is willing to throw around as much or more money than the other more established Nextel Cup manufacturers, and the results this season haven't come close to justifying the investment.

But it would be quite a coup for the upstart entry into the Cup manufacturer sweepstakes to enter into a long-term agreement with a heretofore all-American operation such as Joe Gibbs Racing, and JGR no doubt would do more with Toyota dollars than any other organization has to date. (Call me crazy, but methinks JGR would spend a little more wisely than, say, Michael Waltrip Racing).

Kyle Busch admitted he heard the rumors about Gibbs possibly making the switch to Toyota before agreeing to sign with them. He decided to take the plunge while claming not to know how it's going to play out, although, again, the smart money seems to be on Gibbs staying with Chevy.

"I took it into consideration," Busch said. "But as I looked at it and thought about it, I thought, `Well, Joe Gibbs Racing, they've done pretty well at what they've done so far.' I feel like they'll make the right decision in choosing the company that steers their company in the right direction.

"Do I feel like Toyota has struggled a little bit this year? Sure, I have. Do I feel like Joe Gibbs and everybody here can try to turn that around? Certainly. If they're looking in that direction, more power to them."

Maybe so, but can anyone really see Tony Stewart making the switch from Chevys to Toyotas -- under any circumstances? No way the guy trades in his Schlitz beer for Sapporo.

No surprise

You would have had to have been living in a cave to register surprise at the "news" Teresa Earnhardt has refused to part with the No. 8 car her stepson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., has made famous. Earnhardt himself certainly wasn't surprised negotiations over the No. 8 broke down.

"I've been in these negotiations with her before, and they've never worked out in our favor," he told reporters at the Michigan track. "I knew this was how it was going to be."

So did most of the rest of us. But at the same time, Earnhardt had to be admired for telling all those fans of his who have a No. 8 tattoo carved into their skin to hold off getting them removed. He said he was thinking of making it easier on them by looking into a driving a car with a number in the 80s when he joins Hendrick Motorsports next season.

No apologies

Driver Casey Mears received a commemorative ring worth an estimated $7,500 from Lowe's Motor Speedway for winning last May's Coca-Cola 600 (watch video).

"I always thought it was a big race. Now that I know it's a ring race, I know it's a big race," Mears said.

Mears also addressed those who criticized his first and to date only career Cup victory because it came as the result of managing his fuel mileage better than the rest of the field.

"Well, a win is a win. Obviously you want to win a race outright; you want to pass a guy on the last lap and make that big move and win that way. But the thing I was happy about that night was that we were a top-five car all night," Mears said. "We ran second for a while there, we ran third for a while. We were a competitive, fast racecar all night.

"And there were about five or six of us that made that decision [to stay on the track toward the end when most of the field pitted]. So everybody had the same opportunity to do the same thing we did; we just took a little bit of a gamble and it paid off. It would have been one thing if we had been running 15th or 20th and took a gamble and won the race out of the blue. We were competitive all night long and then made the right decision at the end. That's what happened."

Pit stops

• Mears had another decent day at Michigan, starting 29th and finishing 11th. No driver has gained more spots in the points standings than him since the Coca-Cola 600.

• If you ask Humpy Wheeler, president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway, he is quick to say that it won't be long before Toyota gets its act together. Wheeler also said last week that he believes it won't be long before other foreign manufacturers, namely Honda and BMW, eventually work their way into NASCAR's racing series.

• Kudos to Ward Burton, who actually led four laps at Michigan in his No. 4 Chevrolet and finished a respectable 20th after starting 27th on Tuesday. On a limited budget in equipment that is considerably less than virtually everyone else running at the Cup level, Burton is hanging in there. Burton hadn't run at MIS since 2004, when he finished 30th there -- twice. And Tuesday's finish comes after he started 40th and finished 14th in the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard just three races earlier.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer