March Madness on minds of many drivers this week

Winter is officially off the calendar and so is the Sprint Cup Series this weekend.

This could only mean one thing: March Madness is upon us, a time when most Cup drivers forego their race day setups for brackets -- not rear-wing brackets, but basketball brackets.

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The NCAA Tournament, headquartered in my home city of Indianapolis, will dominate conversations around the water cooler for weeks to come; chatter of office pools will fill the air. No wonder the workplace takes an estimated $4 billion loss during March Madness, everyone is uber-obsessed about their picks to win and up late watching games in overtime.

The only thing to do is embrace the Madness, and Sprint Cup drivers do.

We got the low down on their Final Four picks and let me just say their "brackets" would likely be flagged for violations faster than Tony Eury Jr. in Darlington. They clearly don't know that basketball was born in Indiana, not North Carolina.

To further my point, let me remind you of all four Indiana teams coming to play: Indiana University, Purdue University, Butler University and the University of Notre Dame.

First, Indiana University will prevail despite the questionable loss of coach Kelvin Sampson. I'm not worried though; Chad Knaus got dinged for "cheating" and Jimmie Johnson still won the championship. And just because Purdue cooled off late in the season doesn't mean they won't come back; Matt Painter looks fabulous in gold by the way. Don't count out Butler University, the Martin Truex Jr. of college basketball. The Bulldogs won 13 of their last 14 games capping their run off by winning their postseason conference tournament. As for the Irish, they tied for second in the Big East Conference, one game back of Georgetown.

With many of the Cup drivers making North Carolina home, I can't blame them for picking the Tar Heels, but come on. You all are racers, why such safe and obvious picks?

For his Final Four, Clint Bowyer picked North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA and Memphis with Kansas prevailing to win it all.

"This is going to work out perfect," he said. "When Kansas beats Roy Williams and North Carolina on Saturday, I'll head to San Antonio after the Cup race in Texas for the national championship. It looks like Kansas was meant to beat Roy Williams and I was meant to go the national championship. I love it when I plan comes together."

Winner of last weekend's Cup race in Bristol, Jeff Burton is reading from Bowyer's playbook.

"As much as I would love to see my Duke Blue Devils pull it off, I don't think it's going to happen," he said. "I believe Kansas is going to win the championship. They have a great team and have played well over the last few games."

Penske Racing driver Kurt Busch has more of the same in the bracket but he's the only driver with Indiana teams somewhat on his mind. So maybe he really is becoming a nice guy and he did help our Purdue graduate Ryan Newman to his first Daytona 500.

"It'll be really interesting to see how far teams like Georgia, Drake and Butler can go," he said. "Of course I'm pulling for my Arizona Wildcats to make it as far as possible, but even if they win their opener against West Virginia [which they didn't], they have to get past Duke and Xavier just to get a shot at knocking off UCLA in the West. I don't see it happening.

"I'll go with Memphis winning it all, but I'll have to pull for my Pac-10 teams, even if it means cheering for UCLA. I watched some of the tournament games last weekend. Gotta go with North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA and Memphis making up the Final Four."

Kevin Harvick called on his wife DeLana for help picking his four teams: North Carolina, Georgetown, Memphis and UCLA.

"DeLana and I went to the Duke-Carolina game earlier this year and I was impressed by North Carolina's potential," he said. "I think they have a few veteran guys that could carry them a long way in the tournament."

Todd Bodine at Germain Racing picked North Carolina, Georgetown, UConn and Texas to make it.

"It's just a wild guess," he said. "I like to watch interesting competition and there is going to be a major upset somewhere."

Yeah, like Indiana sending North Carolina back to Chapel Hill in the second round.

Elliott Sadler at Gillett Evernham Motorsports said he is going with North Carolina all the way, but said, "I love it because one upset can mess up everyone's brackets for the rest of the tournament."

Well said, Sadler.

See you all in Martinsville and here's hoping your wing brackets are better than your NCAA brackets.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.