Boring? You ain't watching the same races that I am (cont'd)

As much as the dreaded top 35 is the bane of the sport, that gives you something else to keep track of through various periods in the race, using NASCAR.COM's live point standings. Monitoring who's in and who's out of the top 35, depending on what happens to them on the racetrack and where they happen to be running, leads to few dull moments.

The same thing, with obviously different consequences, is going on at the other end of the standings. As you watch Jeff Burton tick off another top finish, in the back of your mind you have to be wondering if this season will be any different than any of the last few, where the amiable veteran also contended before falling short.

That ought to keep you enthralled through the end of the season, for sure.

Pit strategy, tire management and even how a driver is going to deal with the equally dreaded "aero push" has just gotta make your ears tingle. I know Jimmie Johnson just said he was riding around because he was too nervous to race much, and his paltry number of green-flag passes, 19, proved it.

It was odd that Texas race winner Carl Edwards had the next-fewest number of green-flag passes, 36, to Johnson's, but comforting that everyone else in the top 10 Sunday had at least 52, except for Matt Kenseth, who had a respectable 47.

But wait -- if you extrapolated that over 500 miles, that's only passing one car every 10 miles -- so I guess that is pretty boring, at least for freeway driving.

But we're not talking about freeway driving. This is racing -- and someone's always going to be the best at it. You can't be bored with that, even if you despise the guy who's winning.

Edwards' comments have been beaten to death, but I don't see how you could not get charged up by his description of what it took to defeat NASCAR's new car, Texas Motor Speedway and the 42 other guys who were trying to do the same thing.

From week to week, who's gonna succeed and who's gonna fail -- and how they're gonna do it -- could never be construed as boring, to me.

What WAS boring was being forced to view repeat screenings of Michael McDowell's accident, after you saw it two or three times to confirm that he probably over-corrected to snap the car into the outside wall, and then to count how many times he barrel-rolled (want to see it again?).

Beyond that, seeing McDowell moving behind the window net -- and immediately after the car stopped -- through a crack that had opened up in the roof, was enough for me. So let's file that one and move on.

Hate to say my computer just ate half this column -- so you want boring? That ain't it.

Let me try to recreate the end. How could you be bored in the face of Edwards' pure heart, spirit and enthusiasm?

Edwards got out of his car and said he'd just participated in "a spectacle." He said he was excited to win and that his hands hurt -- much as Kyle Busch had said after winning at Atlanta.

Gang, that ain't boring -- that's a display.

When Edwards says "spectacle," God bless him, I think of Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur. Chariot races, man -- the ultimate in hard tires, and no downforce.

You don't want to go to McDowell's extreme -- and we never want to get too complacent about how safe we think these cars are -- because racing is only ever going to be "relatively safe," and the next "McDowell" might be the one that's too many.

And that was where Edwards proved how the ultimate in emotion can never allow you to be bored around auto racing, when he paid homage to a home-state friend from Missouri whom he accompanied to Texas Motor Speedway on Edwards' first trip there, and a fellow racer's last trip anywhere.

"To win here, it means a lot," Edwards said. "My first trip here was with Tony Roper ... he was a great guy and it always means a lot to come back here, and to run well and to win these races is very special to me."

Darn it -- I had a great ending written once, but it got eaten. Sorry, I know that's pretty boring.

But if you want to get recharged about racing, you can always anticipate -- at least for the next couple months -- the next appearance of the Ditch Cam. Now, that's entertainment.

At least someone thinks so.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.