The Cup caravan comes cruising through the Capital of the Confederacy this weekend. Richmond International Raceway will host the Sprint Cuppers on Saturday night, and the Nationwide Series on Friday night.

Short trackin', at night, will be a welcome relief after last week's Talladega debacle. Charlie Daniels sings the national anthem to kick off the Crown Royal 400 on Saturday.

Last week at Talladega, the action got a little too close to the crowd as Carl Edwards' car sailed into the catch fence along the front stretch. The fence repelled his car, but a shower of debris still shot into the stands.

A high school senior spent several days in the hospital earlier this week having her lower jaw restructured as a result of that accident. Her jaw will be wired shut for several weeks, and many other fans suffered minor injuries.

Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart, and Jimmie Johnson are all three-time winners at RIR. While Mike Waltrip has two top-10s to show for his 43 starts at the .75 mile, D shaped oval.

Mikey was also debuting on NBC's 'My Name is Earl' this week. Do NOT let him have the keys to the El Camino, Earl!

Mark Martin won at PIR, then came home dead last the next time out, at Dega. We'll see if a pattern develops this week at RIR. Brian Vickers holds the RIR track record that he set in 2004, in a Chevy.

Kyle Busch celebrates his 24th birthday during the race on Saturday. He has 6 top-5s in his 8 RIR starts, and his #18 will be sporting the Combos sponsorship this week.

Marcos Ambrose will be gassing and going with Bush's Baked Beans on his #47 at RIR. The #33 of Clint Bowyer will be banking on BB&T. Doubt that the Force will be with him, but David Stremme's #12 will feature the new Star Trek movie. I know, nerds, it's a Star Wars reference, not Star Trek.

AJ Allmendinger's wife and dog were wearing tee shirts last week at Talladega asking for AJ to be fan voted into the All-Star race later this month at LMS. AJ also gave away 250 pizzas to the rowdy Dega fans as part of his food-for-votes platform. Vote for AJ!

Four time national motorsports writer of the year, David Poole, suffered a fatal heart attack earlier this week. The 50 year old Poole wrote for the 'Charlotte Observer', that'sracin.com, and co-hosted a racing program on Sirius radio.

Poole seemed like a gruff, no nonsense type of guy, but he had a heart of gold. After writing a story about the little girl who gave Dale Earnhardt Sr a lucky penny, David started a charity for her family. Check it out....

www.penniesforwessa.org

General Motors announced earlier this week that is pulling the plug on their Pontiac brand. Pontiac sales dropped over 40% in the last year, and GM is undertaking a massive restructuring, mainly to insure that the government bailout pipeline stays open.

After cutting Oldsmobille loose last decade, and now Pontiac, GM will try and stay afloat with "four core brands". Those being Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, and GMC. Buick, you're next.

The first Pontiacs rolled off the assembly lines in 1926. The last ones are scheduled to roll off in late 2010.

A lot of car historians credit Pontiac with starting Detroit's muscle car era, with their 1964 GTO. Noted automotive visionary, John DeLorean, was Pontiac's GM at that time.

Pontiac had a long history in NASCAR, winning 155 Cup races over the years. Their first Cup win was in 1957, on the Daytona Beach Course, with Cotton Owens driving. Pontiac's last victory was at Darlington in March of 2003, with Ricky Craven winning a thriller. Tony Stewart won the last Sprint Cup championship for Pontiac, in 2002.

We enjoyed the usual NASCAR show from Talladega on Sunday. We saw the "Big One", and several smaller ones as well. A first time winner. The points lead changed hands. Dozens of leaders, and lead changes.

Brad Keselowski won on NASCAR's largest track, in just his fifth Cup start. He moved inside of Carl Edwards coming to the checkered flag, and when Edwards pulled down to block, Keselowski held his ground.

Edwards got turned around and became airborne, landing across the windshield of third-place Ryan Newman. Fortunately no one was injured... at least that's what Fox TV finally reported. It certainly took them long enough to report on Newman's condition, after his scary looking wreck.

While Edwards' wreck was terrifying, it's definitely time that someone stood their ground when being forced below the yellow line.

Last year in Talladega, Tony Stewart bluffed Reagan Smith below the yellow line on the last lap. This time around, another rookie driver, Keselowski, wasn't having any of that from the veteran driver, Edwards.

The yellow line rule is a joke anyway. If you go below it, you can't improve your position without suffering a penalty from NASCAR officials. Yet, NASCAR says  that even if you are forced below it, you will be penalized. Brilliant!

Are you tired of watching the lead car run off and hide? You know, like they've been doing for the last two months. The leader gets downforce out front, while the also rans fight it out in the dirty air.

Well, the largest lead this week will be one car length. We are in the Heart of Dixie, Talladager, ALA....BAMA! Three hours of three wide, white knuckle mayhem.

With his win at PIR last week, Mark Martin made it three in a row for HMS, among three different drivers. Jeff Gordon got it started in Texas. Then Jimmie Johnson followed up at Martinsville.

Can Dale Earnhardt Jr make it a record four in a row for Hendrick, by four different drivers?  I could answer that, but the Nation can't handle the truth.

Carl Edwards will be sniffling along with Claritin on his #99 on Sunday. Pedigree will be Kyle Busch's best friend on the JGR #18 this week. Sam Hornish will be trying to stay in the draft with the Penske Truck Rental #77.

Bobby Labonte gets a new crew chief as Ben Leslie takes over for Todd Parrot on the #96 Ford. Parrot gets reassigned to 'other duties' at Yates Racing. That means that Todd does not play well with others, and if any other team wants him, please take him.

RCR drivers, Casey Mears and Kevin Harvick swap teams after Talladega. This includes all personel, from crew chiefs to truck drivers. Uh, Richard... Mears' team has finished 5th and 3rd in points the last two years, with Clint Bowyer driving the car. Maybe you should look into swapping Mears, for...ANY driver on the planet.

Not piling on, but Mears also starts his six week probation, along with Dale Jr, this week. Both drivers bumped each other after the race at PIR last week.

Six week NASCAR probation = Mom saying, "You boys better think about what you just did." Wait, the probation may not be that harsh.

Did it seem like there were a LOT of commercials during the telecast from PIR last week? The race was on for 137 minutes, with 52 minutes of commercials. But, to paraphrase Mike Waltrip, "Digger was shown 31 times, so we got that going for us."

After jumping the shark 15 or 20 years ago, John Madden finally announced that he's leaving the NBC NFL lead analyst chair. About F-N time!

He's like your brain addled old Uncle Jerry at Thanksgiving, thinks it's still 1986, doesn't know what in the hell is going on, but still will not shut up.

Listening to Madden is comparable to watching a Dice Clay tape from 1989.....you wonder what in the hell you ever saw in either one of them.

I guess I can watch Sunday Night Football again since he's gone.  I couldn't watch MNF while he was blow harding on there, either.

Then ESPN screws us again by placing Kornheiser in that booth. Worse than Madden. How is that possible? Did they have open auditions around the country, ala American Idol?

NBC, Please promote Colinsworth to the lead analyst spot. Where he belongs. I know a lot of the couch jockeys think Chris is a know-it-all. He is!

An added bonus of Madden retiring is that maybe this will keep his man crush retired for good, also. Brett and John, please ride off into the sunset together. Buh Bye!