Pressure of owners' points real for those balancing line

To steal a theme -- but not the line -- from my esteemed, award-winning colleague, Daytona Beach News-Journal columnist Ken Willis, down here in Daytona Beach on a wonderful Thursday morning:

"When the attention span is shorter than Tiger Woods' tee on No. 1 at Augusta National ..."

• As if qualifying for Friday night's Bashas' Supermarkets 200 at Phoenix won't be bad enough as it's the first race of the 2010 season in which the current car owners' points are used to lock in 30 starters, the race itself will present an intriguing, calculator-driven exercise, as well.

Coming to Phoenix, only 90 points separates 25th in the owners' standings from 35th; that's even more important to the teams who are scrambling to get back into the top 30 -- teams like K-Automotive Motorsports and MacDonald Motorsports, who haven't been there for quite a while and where only six points separate 29th from 33rd.

Roush Fenway Racing being outside the top 30 isn't new, since it has used musical-chairs driver lineups in its Nationwide cars for years; but the fact that its two rookie drivers have to qualify on speed might be a challenge for the next few races, if the evil race luck of Colin Braun and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. continues and they're unable to get back into the magical locked in territory.

→ Nationwide Series: Owner Standings

• NASCAR drivers never have been comprehensively known for being particularly quick on the uptake, but for the last time: "Have at it, boys" never meant it was open season on payback.

I think it was intended to be more along the lines of racing hard and not being afraid to show some personality. But getting personal is just plain catty -- though it is entertaining on a certain level -- and blatant payback deserves to be punished.

Of course, if your car or truck already is wrecked, whatever point penalty you'll receive by being parked is irrelevant enough at the time to be totally inconsequential and probation, obviously, is the limpest form of "time out."

→ Track Smack: Where's real punishment? (Continued)