A future without U.S. carmakers: Never, but ...

Last weekend at Michigan and Kentucky was a whirlwind, both on and off the race track. Kyle Busch was in the middle of a lot of it and far away from the rest, which is good.

But then we had that crazy finish to the LifeLock 400 and the director went to one of the end game's key players, fifth-place finisher Greg Biffle.

Restructuring

General Motors is cutting factory support for Chevrolet teams competing in the Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck Series

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• Sound Off: Reactions to GM
• Open to foreign manufacturers
• Menzer: Much-needed GM win

Right off the bat, Biff, you confused the heck outta me.

The race had just ended and it was bad enough my fantasy team's lead guy had outraced you and the 20 other cars on the lead lap, before he ran out of gas within yards of the white flag.

No confusion there. You knew that had 22nd-place written all over it when Jimmie Johnson's latest fuel mileage failure flourished.

But Biff, you said your Roush Fenway Ford got great fuel mileage. I might grant you that, but if it did then it was even bigger of you to man-up, even if by default, because you ran out of gas with less than a mile to go.

That means you screwed it up, man -- though as a fan on this day I loved yah for it, pal; because you went for the win -- fuming-out be damned.

But then you confused me again because you said something like, "go to your Ford dealer and drive one of those Ford Fusions -- they get great mileage, too."

No. 1, Greg, a Chevy won by getting better mileage. I would've gone Impala shopping early Monday morning to beat the lines. And No. 2, your Fusion's got a danged carburetor.

Try asking a dealer if you can road test one of those. After he stops laughing, he might send you to Jack's place -- that's right, your shop -- in Concord, N.C., to test drive one of the show car fleet.

But to get serious for a moment, I guess that's the point this week: Confusion and impact.

The latter is what the manufacturers get from NASCAR racing and you can be sure there'll always be involved as much as they can be, because of the payback.

But the former is the more troubling, coming from the latest still-breaking wave in the storm of bankruptcy. GM began to reveal its entire motorsports program was under review, first; which would probably lead to across the board cuts in the near future.

That seemed to lead to more confusion. Best I could tell, GM Racing made no public statement about cuts, but some race teams sure didn't wait to say the cord had been pulled. Others were waiting and seeing.

Whether it was Le Mans, Sprint Cup, Nationwide or even the evergreen Truck Series, amidst the uncertainty there was definitely a certain amount of desperation, which is what happens when you're looking at cutting perks, programs, personnel and elements that are certainly seen as paramount to performance.

It's taking people a while to get it. But if you can wait that long, check with Richard Childress or Rick Hendrick or Chip Ganassi this weekend in Sonoma; or Rusty Wallace if he's in Milwaukee.

They're sure to have a little more insight by then. And make no mistake about it, because the droves of empty seats we're seeing each week at every NASCAR venue prove the fans are already getting it. The landscape's not changing -- it's already changed, and not necessarily for the better.

Here's one thing that's dead certain. NASCAR has gone through manufacturer withdrawals before, though the landscape in the 1970s was certainly a lot different than it is today. Things are going to change, there's no doubt about that.

But one thing's remained static. These are racers we're talking about, and racers are going to find a way to race, they're going to find money to race and they'll cut corners and find ways to apply all the technology they can to race better.

It's hard to imagine salaries being cut, but everything levels off to an equivalent height, that might not be all bad -- though it'll be an adjustment.

But race fans have already had to do plenty of that. The manufacturers' environment in NASCAR as the months move on will just be one more thing fans will have to adjust to.

Fuel no friend of JJ's

Is it just me, or does anyone else suspect the 48 team doesn't do so well at fuel mileage races? That's actually a statement of praise for Chad Knaus, Jimmie and the boys, because the fact they're in contention so much just points out the times they've had to pit for gas or just flat run out while trying to make it. It just seems like it happens a lot.

No Labonte, no good

With all the hullabaloo about ringers and what they bring to the table at each road course event, it's almost gone unnoticed that this weekend is the first Sonoma Cup race -- ever -- without Terry Labonte in the field. It's not quite worthy of a moment of silence, but considering Labonte's prowess on a road course, breaking that 20-year skein leaves a significant gap, indeed.

And in researching that very quickly, on an unrelated note, it was interesting to see that Jeremy Mayfield had a couple Sonoma top-10s on his resume back when he was building "his" No. 19 team at Evernham Motorsports, if anyone doubted his versatility.

Carpentier's shot

You can only hope the genial Canadian makes the most of his one-off ride in Michael Waltrip's No. 55 Cup car. A good run Sunday would mean another shot at Watkins Glen for Carpentier, who's already signed to drive Waltrip Racing's No. 99 Nationwide car later this season in Montreal.

Kyle Busch Victory Watch

Busch

The PAM crowd (that's pissers & moaners for those not up on acronyms) has been all over keeping any kind of tally on KB -- but you can't NOT like a guy who skips any idea of going to a race track, then has to chopper in, run from place to place to get dressed and into his car -- though they didn't take into account the five-minute clock that would've bought him that much extra time if his number in the qualifying draw had come up -- and then puts it on the pole, though his teammate bumped him off.

Busch was ultra-competitive in two out of three outings last weekend, he finished second twice and you just know that at any moment, he could uncork a couple weekend sweeps. Given Busch's consistent competitiveness, even though he's fallen off his stunning 2008 NASCAR record pace for victories in a season, he could still eclipse his total of 21 wins (8 Cup, 10 Nationwide, 3 Truck).

After witnessing a couple down-in-the-mouth post-race interviews it's still 9 down, 13 to go. His 2008 win total at this point was 10; so he didn't lose any more ground last weekend; and as defending champion at Sonoma and contender at Milwaukee, it'll be two more interesting post-races this weekend, no doubt.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.