Stewart-Haas-Hendrick Motorsports Racing

The Allstar race on Saturday night was awesome and I want to give congrats to Tony Stewart for achieving his first owner-driver race win. With that said a question keeps popping up in my head that really has me thinking. Has Rick Hendrick figured out a way to have up to an 8 car stable? By supplying an engine package and technical support to Stewart-Haas racing Rick may have found a way around the four car team limit. When Tony wins his first points race as a owner-driver I won't be surprised at all when he says some thing to the effect of " The number 14 Office Depot/Old Spice car was great tonight, I'd like to thank Gene Haas for all of his support and I'd like to thank Rick Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports for the motor package they lease us and their continuing technical support." I think my theory will only become closer to being fact if we see Brad Keslowski ending up over at Stewart-Haas Racing, driving a third car for the team.

This theory could be endless Dale Jr. could start his own cup team with Hendrick engine packages with full tech support, making it a 12 car stable. Jack Roush could do something similar with Carl Edwards or Matt Kennseth by having one of them acquire 50% of a team like Yates or the Woods Bros. of course for a rock bottom price ,with the promise of Roush engine packages and full technical support. Or what about something like Hamlin-Nemco Motorsports with Gibbs engine packages and tech support. It's only a theory but it's really something to think about, NASCAR could end up with a number of teams that are still controlled by a few.

By saying all of this I'm not taking anything away from Tony as a driver, I think he's one of the greatest drivers there is. What I am saying though is it seems that Stewart's Allstar race win was more of a Hendrick Motorsports win than a Stewart-Hass Racing win.

Who's Jason Keller?

Well I'm really looking forward to the racin' this weekend, Darlington's one of my favorite tracks, the track itself brings out some good old skool racing, everybody gets to scrape up against the wall at least once. Guys like Biffle,Stewart, big Busch and little Busch all have a good chance of winning at Darlington but I think the guy to watch will be Jeff Gordon, He's hungy, he already has 5 wins at Darlington which ties him with Cale Yarbourgh for most wins at the track, Jeff will be trying to beat that record and I think he'd like to put a bit of a cushion on his point lead. Biffle will be hungry, he's had a couple of wins at Darlington and I think he would like to rack up a win for the Rousch team. The racing there is always great, lots of rubbin' and bumpin', and lots of lead changes with tires and fuel always playing a major role in the outcome of the race.

Going into the Nationwide race on Friday night I'd like to give a thumbs up to Jason Keller, people don't hear a whole lot about Jason but he's been a mainstay of the Busch / Nationwide series for 19 years, has 10 wins, 82 top 5's, and 169 top 10 finishes in 466 starts which is also the most starts of any Nationwide driver. In the 11 years that he ran a full season he's only finished outside of the top 10 in points twice and this being his 19th season he is currently sitting in 7th after 9 races. According to Jayskis.com Jason also holds some other pretty impressive records at Darlington, Keller holds the Nationwide record for most laps completed at Darlington-3598 and after Friday nights race he will have logged 5000+ miles on the track. While some drivers are overrated I think Jason is one driver who is highly underrated and I often wonder what he could do if he drove Nationwide for one of the bigger teams like Hendricks, Rousch or Gibbs. So my hat's off to you Jason, and good luck Friday night at Darlington.

Happy race viewing to all this weekend and may my favorite driver finish ahead of everyone else's.