SCENE & HEARD

It's amazing, when you're busy covering a sport for a season, how much a child can grow -- and seeing Juan Montoya's little boy and girl back in the garage just before the start of the Ford 400 is proof.

The neatest thing is how much they resemble each other, to the point that, the best giveaway -- other than Sebastian being a little bigger in stature than his sister -- was her pink shoes.

Enjoy the race, Thanksgiving and the offseason!
-- Dave Rodman

At the final drivers' meeting of every season, business sometimes takes a back seat to ceremony. That was the case Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, which was full of introductions, special remarks, and one standing ovation.

Boxing champ Lenox Lewis was on hand, as was the reigning Miss Florida, and too many corporate executives to name. Former New York mayor and current Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, making his third trip to a Nextel Cup event this year, saluted the France family. "It's been a difficult year, but you've gotten through it," he told members of a family that lost patriarch Bill France Jr. as well as Dr. Bruce Kennedy, husband of International Speedway Corp. president Lesa France Kennedy. "You have our prayers and support."

Officials also saluted car owner Robert Yates, who will retire after this season. The gathered competitors gave Yates a standing ovation. "I'll probably cry for a little bit," Yates said afterward, "and then I'll wake up [Monday] morning and find something fun to do."
-- David Caraviello

... to pull off a "bun." Was just inside the door to the media center and someone said, "What's Lennox Lewis doing here?" Peered around the corner and saw a tall -- though not particularly bulky -- black man coming toward the door. He had a Seattle's Best Coffee muffin-sized bun at the back of his head, which I guess was the giveaway.

I held the door open, for which he thanked me. And for the record, the former Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Heavyweight champion is going to be part of pre-race ceremonies, including greeting each Nextel Cup driver.

Unfortunately he was at the wrong end of the facility for the drivers' meeting, which he needed to attend about 15 minutes later.
-- Dave Rodman

Walk out of the infield media center five hours before the green flag of the Ford 400 and two hours after the Nextel Cup garage opened, and an absolute cauldron of engine noise is pouring over from the Cup garage, 150 yards away, as teams work through their pre-race checklists.

You can only hope all the tour groups that are about to go in there -- whether they're two people or 100 -- have their ear protection in place.
-- Dave Rodman

If you need to reconfirm the athleticism of over-the-wall NASCAR crewmen, find a way to access the clip of Homestead pit stops just before halfway of the Ford 300, in which Kelly Bires' Wood Brothers/JTG Racing jackman had to jump over Aric Almirola's car's left-front fender to not get taken out when Almirola skimmed past Bires' stopped car on his way to his pit stall.
-- Dave Rodman

A few stalls away, in stark contrast to Manion and Buskirk's labors, was the sight of Richard Childress Racing crew chiefs Todd Berrier, of Kevin Harvick's No. 29 Chevrolet, and Gil Martin, of Clint Bowyer's No. 07 Monte Carlo, sitting on a set of tires and having a casual conversation.

Their demeanor and smiles led you to believe they were discussing Thanksgiving Day plans rather than race-day strategy.
-- Dave Rodman

Martin Truex Jr.'s garage stall was a beehive of activity after Happy Hour, since Truex, who was experimenting with a high line, had scuffed the outside wall and rearranged most of the right side, including both fenders and the exhaust pipes.

Outside the stall were toolboxes and parts and pieces, including a replacement rear-end housing, complete with truck arms. A crewman was reshaping the exhaust headers, which had been taken off to facilitate the repair.

But the best sight, for anyone who loves a hands-on crew chief, was chief mechanic Kevin Manion and DEI's R&D director Kevin Buskirk with their heads together at the back of the car, plotting its repair, before Manion actually grabbed some of the parts and pitched back in with their re-shaping.
-- Dave Rodman

If you're on the DEI No. 01 team, it's Mark Martin's Chevrolet sitting nose-out in its garage stall, 75 minutes before Happy Hour, with not a soul anywhere near it wrenching it, polishing it or even frowning as they contemplated Ford 400 setups.

Martin setting the 10th-best time in the one-hour session was the ultimate payoff.
-- Dave Rodman

There are a lot of smiling faces in both NASCAR garages on Saturday. You wonder if it's because they're in sunny South Florida on a beautifully warm day, there's a lot of nice scenery at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it's the last race of the season -- or could it be a combination of all three?
-- Dave Rodman

... were those guys from? They rode up to the gate of the Busch Series garage on four-wheelers -- yeah, the kind you'd ride off-road and in the woods -- and seemed shocked and miffed when the blue-uniformed guard wouldn't let them ride the vehicles into the garage, which was awash with crewman hustling to work on cars and bystanders observing them.
-- Dave Rodman

How are Phoenix and Homestead similar? There's a back road into each facility, through relatively remote areas; and apparently local idiots take advantage of that to dump gobs of trash along the roadside -- everything from beds, mattresses and other pieces of furniture to bags of trash and heaps of yard waste.

It's too bad that ignorance apparently thrives from coast to coast.
-- Dave Rodman

One more reason to love the Craftsman Truck Series, where men are men: As the post-race championship news conference with Ron Hornaday droned on and on, Hornaday finally took a stand.

"Could we please wrap it up here? My beer is getting hot," he said Friday night.

You gotta love that.
-- Joe Menzer