In The Groove is dedicated to bring you, the all-knowing Fox Sports Bloggers, a peek at the Highs and Lows of racing randomness. Welcome.

The High Groove

Running first in the High Groove is Jamie McMurray. Jamie McMurray brushed off Juan Pablo Montoya Friday morning in Martinsville and didn't care to listen to anything he had to say about their incident the prior week. Seems "Cupcake" is now more like the new Klondike bar with a thicker shell. Should we now call him the Klondike Cupcake? Bite me JPM!

Running second in the High Groove is Incredible Pizza Company for their "The Incredible Heroes" campaign. Incredible Pizza is the incredible sponsor for the Nationwide Series entry of CJM Racing's number 11 Toyota, with driver Scott Lagasse, Jr. The Incredible Heroes campaign is recognizing incredible people throughout the 2009 Nationwide series and coincides with cities along the racing circuit. The most recent recipient is a Dallas/Ft. Worth area gentleman who saved a man's life from his vehicle, which had crashed and was engulfed with flames.
Want to read the full story? Click here.

Running third in the High Groove is Marcos Ambrose. My love affair with this Aussie just gets stronger as this year progresses. I would say that this love affair is one-sided, but it would not be true. Ambrose respects and loves this sport and its fans, and gave a lot of his time this past weekend to us through Speed TV's Trackside program Friday night and Raceday on Sunday morning. I know now what fizzed up, screen, and tin tops are. Oh, and using some newly found Martinsville muscle, Marcos drove his butt off with NO brakes at 40 laps to go, plus no new tires. His finish position at this rough and tough short track? Fourteenth!

The Low Groove

P1 in the Low Groove is Kyle Busch's lack of maturity after the truck race yesterday. Running from the track? We are sorry that you had a bad weekend overall at this track, but Grow Up!!

P2 in the Low Groove is, unfortunately, Dave Blaney. Why is the Buckeye Bullet out there only running 50 laps of a 500 lap race? Yes, he led a lap. And? That's another $69,665.00 into the fleeing moth fund for Prism Motorsports.

P3 for the Low Groove goes to Obama, for sounding like Mr. Bill France. "It's my way or the highway."

And for the checkered flag we have In The Groove's thought for the day . . . will Jamie McMurray succeed in gaining access to his frozen accounts and pay his taxes by April 15th?

Quote of the week:  "Welcome to tear down, boys."

Can't sleep and I'm going to be inside all weekend with the rainy weather.  Ugh.

But, on to bigger and better things.

The storm is brewing, here, as is Smoke's desire to win as the first owner/driver since Ricky Rudd did it.  So, I thought I pass along some information about Tony Stewart heading into this weekend's race at Martinsville.

Tony has led a combined 1,193 laps at the paper clip track.  He has two wins here, his last win there coming in 2006.  He's due.

Additionally, here is some stats comparing his season thus far to his stats for the first five races last year in the #20 machine.

2008 Season:

Daytona 500 - finished 3rd; Auto Club 500 finished 7th; UAW-Dodge 400 finished 43rd (accident); Kobalt Tools 500 finished 2nd; and Food City 500 finished 14th

2009 Season:

Daytona 500 8th; Auto Club 500 8th; Shelby 427 finished 26th; Kobalt Tools 500 finished 8th; and Bristol, Food City 500 finished 17th

That has been three 8th place finishes so far this season.  Not too shabby.

Tony hasn't qualified worse than 15th this year and is standing stout in the seventh position in the points.  He hasn't had to use a champions provisional.  He's getting it done on the track and didn't have to sweat out qualifying this weekend either way. 

I just wanted to make one tiny clarification if I may.  A lot of people came out last year stating that he would fall flat on his face moving over the Haas.  He hasn't.  Now, a lot of people are stating that he is only succeeding because he is running HMS engines.  Well, yes, he is.  But come on now, wouldn't you?  Wouldn't you, really, continue Haas' alignment with Chevy and HMS engines if you could?  Wouldn't you accept 50 percent ownership in a team where, by all accounts, he has as much of a say as to what happens in that organization as anyone?

Thought so.  So, back off, and give him proper respect.  Because, regardless of running a "satellite HMS team" or not, Smoke still has IT.

Good luck this weekend, Smoke, hope you can have that hot dog in Victory Lane!

From,

Your Faithful Fans

A new weekly series (maybe) dedicated to bring you, the all-knowing Fox Sports Bloggers, a peek at the Highs and Lows of racing randomness. Welcome to In The Groove.

The High Groove

Running first in the High Groove is Andy Kane, the winner of the contest to name Kurt Busch's backwards victory lap. The winning name? "Unwind Lap." Thanks to KLVALUS for giving us the heads-up on the contest.

Running second in the High Groove is Tony Stewart and the Tony Stewart Foundation for donating an undisclosed amount of money to cover surgery costs for a three-year old Shih Tzu with a broken back, and the cost of the dog's special "wheelchair" to make up for losing the use of his hind legs.

Running third in the High Groove is the Indy testing out at Barber Motorsports Park here in Alabama over the past weekend. Great weather, great speeds, and check out the great pics of Dario Franchitti's hair nowadays. Dude! Hopefully, our State officials, the track officials, and the entire experience of 20,000 fans showing up throughout the weekend will convince Mr. George to bring an Indy race here, soon!

The Low Groove

P1 in the Low Groove goes to Paul Menard this week. Daddy Menard, can you pretty-please stop the cash flow? Cut it off! Immediately! I know he apologized, but punting Morgan Shepherd in the Nationwide race at Bristol is just uncalled for. Hey Paul - Mr. Shepherd doesn't have unlimited resources like you and you messed up like one-third of his inventory. You've had your 15 minutes of LAME. But, he'll be praying for you, I'm sure. Additionally, Mr. Shepherd's news release about his Bristol weekend didn't even call Menard out. Bummer.

P2 in the Low Groove is NASCAR. Making changes to the All Star Race. Will it never end? I know, the answer is NO.

P3 in the Low Groove goes to Clint Bowyer for appearing on a show called The Biggest Loser. Why? Just because. It is ironic, isn't it?

In The Groove's thought for the day.... do the drivers Google themselves?

Rowdy Busch keys up his brother during the race with an emphatic "I love you, man."

Look at this battle up front for the win ... from catch can man last week to driver of the unsponsored #64 this week, Geoffrey Bodine versus his brother Todd Bodine, running in the #35!

Atlanta must have made some track surface improvements as there are now speed bumps in turn two. (Or is that just Digger and the crew?? Maybe the Aflac duck too?)

The most coveted accessory this week is.... a calculator!

Tony Stewart has a stout car all day and drops to the back of the field, for the second race in a row. Guess he doesn't want to show up his teammate.

Dale Jr. has an uneventful weekend with no media or autograph seekers hounding him 24/7. Have we become enlightened?

With the threat of rain, again, NASCAR decides to cover the track with truck loads of ShamWow. Amazing!

Judge orders Jimmie Johnson to stay in town for tax trial and not race on Sunday.

Kyle Busch makes announcement that he will only be racing at tracks he hasn't yet won at for the rest of the year.

Fans in the stands host a lottery for whomever picks the correct unlucky event to happen to The Biff this weekend.

RPM makes announcement that Dinger will be replacing Sorenson for the rest of the year in the fully sponsored ride.

Bobby Labonte decides not to tempt fate and bows out of this race since it is not one of his best tracks.

Par-tay in Victory Lane with Jeremy Mayfield.

Martin Truex gets stuck in Daytona for the SuperBike race and texts Morgan Shepherd to fill in for him.

Since Terrell Owens has some free time on his hands, he helps out Dale Jr.'s pit crew. Hey, he can't make them any worse.

It is well documented that sponsorship involvement and their dollars invested in NASCAR are ever evolving.  Gone, or almost gone, are the familiar drivers' names and associated sponsors.  One noteworthy change is DuPont - the longest active driver-sponsor relationship in the sport.  DuPont is scaling back its dollar commitment towards hospitality this year.  "Instead of entertaining the 17,000 guests it had at 37 races last year, DuPont will buy hospitality packages at just six races this season and will host fewer than 2,000 guests." (Credit: Michael Smith, Sports Business Journal, Feb. 23, 2009)  This of course means that Gordon will only be appearing in person at six events instead - did it really say 37, I thought there were only 36 races - of the full year.  I wonder what kooky things DuPont will make him do with his extra time now.

As Mr. Smith asks in his article, will this be the beginning of the end for Jeff Gordon and DuPont?  I say, we don't know yet.  But, DuPont is only signed on through 2010.  Maybe Jeffy-poo will just go ahead and retire at the end of 2010.  Probably.

So, I wanted to play a little game with all of you wonderful blawgers.

Let's come up with some new sponsors for Jeff Gordon, just in case the scenario is played out where DuPont is gone as a sponsor and Gordon does NOT retire at the end of 2010.

What company do you think Gordon could best represent?  What product reflects Gordon's personality the best?

I'll go first. I think it would be cute to see that COT out there painted up a pale green (green grape) color and have the logo say "Jeff Gordon Winery. The ultimate box (get it, box?) collection with a touch of sophistication."

I know y'all will have some funny ones.