Five races doesn't make a season, but you learn a lot

Five races does not a season make.

But five races can provide a snapshot into at least some of the storylines that will dominate the 36-race Sprint Cup Series season. So with last Sunday's Food City 500 from Bristol Motor Speedway in the books, here are five things we've learned from the first five races of the 2008 Cup campaign:

This isn't last year

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Five races in, and still no race victories for Hendrick Motorsports. It was right about this time last year when Kyle Busch, who now drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, won at Bristol to give Hendrick its third win in a row as an organization. That spawned all the talk of Hendrick's domination in the sport, and the accompanying questions: Was it healthy for the series? How long would it go on? Could anyone possibly ramp up to compete with them?

Team owners such as Jack Roush and Richard Childress and even Rick Hendrick himself warned that the sport was cyclical, that other teams -- such as Roush and Childress and Gibbs -- had previously gone through stretches where they, too, seemed invincible. Hendrick insisted that his drivers couldn't stay on top forever; the other owners insisted that they would do whatever they could to catch up.

And now, five races into 2008, Carl Edwards and the No. 99 Ford he drives for Roush Fenway Racing has two victories; Ryan Newman and the No. 12 Dodge he drives for Penske Racing has one, the season-opening Daytona 500; Kyle Busch, now wheeling the No. 18 Toyota for JGR, has one; and Jeff Burton finally got Chevrolet on the board by leading a one-two-three charge for Richard Childress Racing at Bristol.

Does it mean Hendrick's reign is over? Hardly. Any organization that employs drivers such as Johnson, four-time points champion Jeff Gordon, the surging Dale Earnhardt Jr. and even the underrated, snakebitten Casey Mears can't be counted out. The fact of the matter is, however, that others have caught up and the "new car" appears to have leveled the playing field. Those aren't bad things for the sport overall.

Toyota is better, but ...

They've still got work to do, as Denny Hamlin's fuel-pump problems, which cost him the Bristol victory that fell to Burton instead, clearly indicate. And this came after Hamlin had other mechanical issues earlier in the season and after Busch's own power-steering failure also knocked him out of the lead in the Bristol race.

Rarely in the long and storied history of Cup racing has there been a more controversial entry into the ranks than that of the Toyota manufacturer. Defend their right to be here in the slightest and you run the risk of being buried under the avalanche of hundreds of e-mails that will question everything from your patriotism to your intelligence to the rights of any descendents of participants in World War II to put the hatred of the past behind us all and move on (I know all of this from first-hand experience, trust me).

Fact is, Toyota is here to stay. Some have embraced it; some have begrudgingly acknowledged it and are slowly coming to accept it; some want to wallow in misery largely of their own creation and blame all their troubles on it, in one form or another. Like the other three manufacturers, Toyota is in it to win it. But they aren't in it to drive every other competitor, and their manufacturers, out of it. What good would that do?

I stand by my earlier claim that folks need to get over the Fear Factor with Toyota, and use the manufacturer's presence as motivation to better their own game -- which Roush Fenway Racing and others appear to be doing, even as Jack Roush complains about it. Toyota will win some races; that doesn't mean they will dominate. (And remember our first point. "Domination" in this sport is cyclical anyhow, meaning it rarely lasts for long no matter who, or what, you are).

'Old girl' returns

After being called "boring" and "ruined", David Caraviello says Bristol was back to its old tricks.

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Bristol is back

After some races that, well, just didn't seem all that much like traditional Bristol Motor Speedway mayhem, last Sunday's tussle reminded everyone why it always has been, and still can be, a special place to race. It wasn't completely like the old days -- but the finish was good enough to make most everyone forget the raging debate over whether or not it was boring at Bristol in the last race there the previous August.

This one had a little bit of everything down the stretch -- including Kevin Harvick turning his supposedly good buddy, Tony Stewart, sideways with two laps to go. In two of the greatest upsets in recent memory, the two then took turns apologizing to each other and trying to take the blame for it. (Who knew they could be so sensitive? These were definitely NOT a typical Bristol moments).

In the end, it became obvious the wreck was Harvick's fault. But he still went on to finish second and was all smiles after the race. The same couldn't be said for Stewart, who has now led something like a billion laps in the last three Bristol races without a victory to show for it.

More than anything, that one incident and a few others -- including Hamlin's battle with his own fuel pump -- reassured most of us who were beginning to wonder if Bristol still has some of its old bite, no matter what they've done to the surface there or what kind of car they're running on it now and for the foreseeable future. And that's comforting.

Junior vs. Shrub

Yet another recent irate e-mailer challenged me to write one column without mentioning Dale Earnhardt Jr., citing overkill on the subject. Since Junior already was mentioned earlier in this piece, it's too late this time. Besides, love him or hate him (more seem to love than hate, but few are left in between), Junior remains one of the most compelling stories of 2008.

He hasn't won a points race since his much-celebrated switch from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports, but he's run consistently up front and is fifth in points. He's running the fine line between wanting to take chances to get to Victory Lane and protecting his favorable spot well within the 12-driver cutoff for the Chase to the Sprint Cup championship.

Note to Junior: it's too early and it's been too long since you've been to Victory Lane to play it safe when you've got a choice. Take some chances.

The storyline involving Junior doesn't end there, though. Remember, Rick Hendrick essentially swapped out Kyle Busch for Junior in his driver pool after last season. At the time, those few who wondered if Hendrick might not have made the best trade -- at least talent-wise -- were ridiculed.

The fact is, both young men are quality drivers who will win more races in their careers. But Kyle Busch, nicknamed "Shrub" or "Rowdy" depending on whom you talk to, is starting to look like he might be something really special. He's currently first in points to Junior's fifth, and it will be interesting to see who actually wins more races and finishes higher in the points over the long haul of the season -- and who wins more races over the next several seasons. The better bet might be Busch.

As easy as ...

The one-two-three finish of Jeff Burton, Harvick and Clint Bowyer at Bristol gave Richard Childress Racing the first such finish in its history. The organization has been running races since 1969 and fielding a three-car team since 2002, giving one an idea of how difficult it is to have everything fall into place for such a momentous occasion.

It brought to mind the determination and focus all the RCR folks seemed to display during a January visit to their shop in Welcome, N.C. It was then that Harvick, Burton and Childress talked more openly about working their tails off to catch Hendrick than anyone else who opened their mouths on the four-day Lowe's Motor Speedway media tour.

They didn't whine about Toyota possibly coming of age, or claim that the Hendrick cars couldn't be beaten. They simply talked about what they had done -- and needed to continue to do -- to get better.

Then they went out and competed. Their dogged approach paid off last Sunday, when Burton kept himself in position to win a race that it didn't look as if he had any chance of winning. Other teams should have been taking notes, if they weren't already.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer