C’mon Kyle, it was only a painted white line on the racetrack but you crossed it today in Martinsville – that line of commitment to yourself, your sponsor, your fans and to the rules of the sport. NASCAR didn’t want you to engage in some mid-race bodywork by scrubbing the k-wall just to straighten out your rear fender after it was redesigned by Ron Hornaday’s Chevrolet with only a few laps remaining in the rain delayed Kroger 250. It looked like you were coming into the pits but you knew you only wanted to win, you wanted to stop your tire from rubbing, you wanted to maintain your points lead in the CAMPING WORLD Truck Series. You figured everyone, especially NASCAR, would understand your reason for doing so but after you received the penalty for the infraction and at the end of the race, got out of your truck, threw your helmet in the rear bed and literally ran across the track for sanctuary, you once again said you didn’t care what anyone thought of you.

There seems to be a disconnect between your behavior and what the MARS, Incorporated etiquette coaches have been trying to teach you all along, and it looks like you need to return to the classroom for a refresher course straight away.

It might just be another “that’s racin” situation, the overused catch-all phrase that explains and makes sense of racetrack aberrations that sometimes defy description or then again, it might be explained away in terms of the behavior exhibited by one who lacks a measurable amount of impulse control.

We’re on top of the world when we own hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place, your opponent is up to his neck in unpaid mortgages, besides being low on cash, and he just landed on your property late in the game. When the situation is reversed, we want to throw down our game piece, knock everything off the board and storm out of the room. I did that when I was 10 years old but I sure as hell didn’t do it when I was 23 years old.

It was interesting to hear the caller’s comments on today’s SIRIUS NASCAR Radio about Kyle Busch’s attitude and his “get out of the way” driving tactics. Busch the Younger supposedly went on record recently saying that he didn’t care whether he was liked or disliked, adding that he wasn’t prepared to assume the burden of being the most popular SPRINT Cup driver, having to live up to the expectations of the NASCAR Nation and all that. This seemed to grind the sensibilities of a lot of fans but do they have anything to really be upset about?

Those who initially considered Kyle a flash in the pan, slathered with beginner’s luck, now have to concede the fact that he truly is talented on the track. His public relations skills, on the other hand, leave considerable room for improvement by any measure of the stick. Even so, who can deny that there are many similarities between “The Wild Child” and Earnhardt Sr.? The “get out of the way” driving style was perfected and implemented by “The Intimidator” for years on end and now there’s a wunderkind doing the same thing? That’s not acceptable in the minds of many. If you look beneath the surface, the only difference: one is named Busch and the other is named Earnhardt.

What a difference a year makes. Who would have thought that: 1) tickets were going to be made available to the denizens of Thunder Valley for the first time in 13 years, and 2) Travis Kvapil’s loss of the Golden Corral sponsorship for his Yates Ford Fusion may be the first harbinger of the recessional malaise that’s beginning to tighten its grip upon those, whose performances fail to impress the keepers of the corporate bean vaults.

1. It’s beyond comprehension how any venue can sellout 160,000 seats for fifty-three straight events. Up until the last minute this year, Bristol wasn’t sure if it was going to make a Guinness Book record setting fifty-four straight but it did. The positive in all of this was that a significant number of corporate sponsors decided to do something else this weekend, thus making room for those that had been shut out the ticket competition for over a decade. A little bit of “corporate conscience”, either intended or unintended, goes a long way today.

2. Like it or not, NASCAR’s top 35 “lock-in” rule has taken on a whole new meaning following the Food City 500 because those that were assured a spot in the program for the first six races this year, based upon last year’s performance must now be in the top 35, based upon their performance in 2009. This means that some teams may be walking the proverbial plank of the ship scheduled to arrive in Martinsville next weekend. To make matters worse, drivers like Kvapil, Menard, Mayfield, Gilliland, LaBonte and Bodine are now faced with a no warranty situation that will not only not guarantee their place in the field but also threaten the commitment of sponsors who are jittery about supplying the funds necessary for them to continue anyway.

There’s competition amongst the rodents and there’s room for only one of them in town. It’s been twenty-nine years since so much attention has been heaped upon a member of the Geomyidae family. Mr. Gopher reigned supreme in “Caddyshack” but there are some new kids in town and they’ve taken up residence on the FOX-NASCAR Channel.

Digger, FOX’s gopher groundskeeper, maintains the grassy areas around the embedded raceway minicams and pops up making his presence known when there is a break in the action. He was a B-list attraction in 2008 but like most of his ilk, he’s managed to attract four additional groupies with names like; Lumpy Wheels, Marbles, Grampa and Annie aka Digette, catapulting himself and his pals to A-list status in 2009, as evidenced by the twenty-five or so licensed products that are now available for sale.

What began as just a mindless diversion, now has become a point of contention for many NASCAR devotees, who contend that cameo appearances of cartoon characters, during race broadcasts, have no place on, under or around the track.

What do you think?