It's the night before the 2008 Daytona 500 and my pulse is quick, my breathing is quicker and small beads of sweat are showing on my forehead. But that's just because I'm watching some "adult entertainment" here on the old pc.

At around 3:30pm ET on Sunday, February 17, the green flag will wave to start the 50th edition of the Daytona 500 and at that moment, 43 cars will theoretically have a chance of winning the race, but only 10 or 15 will realistically have a chance of winning the race. And there are some very interesting possibilities this year.

What about Michael Waltrip? Disgraced last season by a cheating scandal, Waltrip, being a very effective PR person, made us forget all about that scandal by getting loaded and shrewdly wrecking his SUV on a rural North Carolina road.

But Michael Waltrip Racing is back and looking strong this year. Michael put the 55 on the outside front row, while MWR drivers Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann gained entry to the race during Thursday's qualifying races. It could easily be argued that both Waltrip and Jarrett have a good chance of winning the 500, but it's doubtful, simply because they won't get much help from the rest of the field. Their only real allies are the Joe Gibbs Racing drivers, and that group have already made clear they're only interested in helping each other.

Speaking of JGR, this is a motley bunch, isn't it? You have Tony Stewart, already firmly established as a guy lots of people love to hate. Add in Kyle Busch, a guy almost universally disliked, and Denny Hamlin, a likable guy who seems to go out of his way to be disliked, and you have a very volatile mix. All three are very good drivers, but they're also very stubborn, short tempered and ultra competitive.

It's very possible that one of the JGR drivers will win the 500. Denny took the win in their qualifying race and all three have looked good in practice, but the question is how well will they work together at the end of the race? We could see the three of them run nose to tail coming to the checkers, then wreck the hell out of each other when they all spread out and go for the win. Tony's already punched one of the Busch brothers this season and it could be two before the day is over.

And then there's the group at Hendrick Motorsports. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are perennial favorites in pretty much any race they enter and they'll have to be considered favorites this weekend as well. Both have run well in practice and JJ is starting on the pole.

There's a newcomer at HMS this season by the name of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Not much is known about him because he doesn't get much mention in the press, but the word is that he's a pretty decent restrictor plate racer, which would be helpful if they were racing restrictor plates. But they're not; they're racing cars. Luckily, he appears to have some ability in that area as well. I just hope that someone will get busy and write about this guy so he won't be such a mystery to us.

There are other possibilites as far as eventual winners of the race, but the odds are that the winning car will be either a Chevy or a Toyota and it will be piloted by a driver mentioned somewhere in this article.

That is, unless Derrike Cope gets a last minute ride, and then all bets are off.