Kyle Busch won both races at Bristol last year, but so far this year he hasn't made a top-ten finish.

- Think maybe Carl Edwards enjoyed having an off week after the Atlanta debacle? Had Bristol fallen the next weekend, the feeding frenzy would've been intense. It isn't going to go away completely, but the scrutiny won't be quite so intense.

- Edwards was the first beneficiary of the "have it, boys" era in NASCAR. He got a three-race probation. In NASCAR, probation is a synonym for "nothing."

- Asked where NASCAR would "draw the line" on its hands-off policy, president Mike Helton said "we see it when we see it." Thanks, Mike.

- Edwards and Brad Keselowski are scheduled for what is often referred to as "a come-to-Jesus meeting" with Helton and others at Bristol. What does that mean? See "Days of Thunder."

- Kyle Busch won both Bristol races a year ago. He doesn't have a top-10 finish so far this year.

- One effect of Kurt Busch's Atlanta victory - with his brother's former crew chief, Steve Addington, calling the shots - is additional pressure on Kyle's new crew chief, Dave Rogers.

- Ninety-six races have passed since Juan Pablo Montoya's lone Sprint Cup victory. He was ninth and 25th in the two Bristol races last year.

- Paul Menard is ninth in the Sprint Cup point standings. Scott Speed is 12th. If only there weren't 32 more races, or 22 between now and the Chase.

- It's important to remember that leading the points doesn't really make much difference until the Chase begins. In the regular season, what matters is being 12th or higher.

- Stewart Haas Racing's relatively slow start shouldn't surprise anyone. Tony Stewart is up to eighth in points, but Ryan Newman is only 29th. Guess what? At this point a year ago, he was 32nd ... and he still made the Chase.

Charlie Glotzbach with 1968 Dodge Charger.

One of NASCAR's records unlikely to be broken belongs to Charlie Glotzbach, who won the 1971 Volunteer 500 at what is now Bristol Motor Speedway. By today's standards, running a race at Bristol - or anywhere else for that matter - would be considered unimaginable. That's what happened at Bristol on July 11, 1971, when Glotzbach, in a Chevrolet, won by three laps over Bobby Allison, and averaged a record 101.074 mph, one of only two races (the other was won by Cale Yarborough in 1977) ever run at Bristol at an average speed of 100 mph or higher.

The only significant shift in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup season is a noticeable difference in the parenting style displayed by NASCAR's officials.

Most of the patterns that defined the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season remain in place. Four races into a 36-race season, the competitive balance hasn't shifted notably.

The best driver is still Jimmie Johnson. The best crew chief is still Chad Knaus. The best team is still Hendrick Motorsports. The best manufacturer is still Chevrolet. The prevailing trends haven't changed.

Jamie McMurray's Daytona 500 victory seemed surprising, but, after all, Daytona is a "restrictor-plate" track, and who won the previous plate race, on Nov. 1, 2009 at Talladega? Why, it was McMurray.

Johnson won the next two races. 'Nuf said. Kurt Busch won the March race at Atlanta, where ... Kurt Busch had won the year before.

What's changed? The tone of this season. Imagine NASCAR as parents, and the Sprint Cup Series as children being nurtured. (NASCAR loves this characterization, at least secretly, I imagine.) Where previously NASCAR raised its children strictly, now, all of sudden, they get to run wild and free. Where once they only got to ride their bicycles around the yard, now they get to ride all over town ... and come home after dark. Last year they were taking piano lesions. This year they're starting a garage band.

NASCAR decided to treat the kids like adults. It hopes they will take responsibility. So far, the freedom is too much. They're running wild. Perhaps this is just a stage.

Here's another change. A race (Atlanta) went 16 extra laps. It's the new and improved "green, yellow, green, yellow, green, white, checkered finish." This playoff's death isn't too sudden. On April 10, a 350-mile night race is going to be held at Phoenix International Raceway. It may end on April 11 back east.

In a couple weeks, apparently (official announcement pending), all of the cars are going to get their wings clipped. Or, rather, spoiled. Spoilers are back. In other sports, the terms implies upsets. In NASCAR, it's just a flat plate on the back of the car.

Some think it will spoil the Hendrick edge. Keep dreaming.

How much will a weekend off the track cool down the tiff between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski?

Wonder what the effect of an off week is on the Conflict of Carl and Kez?

To recap briefly, Carl Edwards drew a lenient judge - or at least NASCAR was in a lenient mood - after he intentionally wrecked Brad Keselowski near the end of the Kobalt Tools 500 on March 7 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The main difference between three races' probation in NASCAR and probation in the real world is that Edwards isn't going to have to check in with his parole officer.

But, if Bristol's Food City 500 was Sunday and not a week away, then the pressure, particularly on Edwards, would be intense. It won't be tepid when Edwards and Keselowski arrive at NASCAR's most frantic track.

But the world can't fixate on this forever.

Can it?

* * *

WHAT ELSE?--The Atlanta tire controversy, largely obscured by Edwards and Keselowski (not to mention NASCAR), will die down at least until the next time tire failures plague a race. It varies track-to-track and is unlikely to recur at Bristol.

Bristol Motor Speedway has narrowed its surface - three feet are significant at tight tracks like Bristol and Darlington - to accommodate additional SAFER barriers. Most drivers seem to think it will require some adjustment but don't seem overly concerned.

Most expect NASCAR to replace wings with spoilers on the rear of the Sprint Cup cars at Martinsville on March 28. The effect will be minimal at the Virginia short track ... and if the change somehow affects the balance of power, it might not be detectable until Texas on April 18.

* * *

THUMPING THE TUB--Speaking of Texas Motor Speedway, opportunistic president and general manager Eddie Gossage has attempted to use the Edwards-Keselowski incident to boost ticket sales.

Billboards started appearing in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex with depictions of the Atlanta crash accompanied with the slogan "have at it, boys!" and an "approved" stamp.

This may shed some light on Gossage's sympathetic view of Edwards' light sentence from NASCAR.

* * *

HOME OFFICE--Rick Humphrey, once a Gazette staffer, has been promoted to new duties at International Speedway Corporation.

Formerly president of Talladega Superspeedway, Humphrey, 41, will become Managing Director of Business Operations at ISC, working under Joie Chitwood III. The new job description lists Humphrey as "responsible for driving operational excellence across all ISC race tracks ..."

It gets pretty raucous late at night. A pattern has developed in which I usually go on first and last. Early in the night, people are there for dinner, kids running around and sometime coming up to sing. When I play early, I usually open with a cover -- last night it was "Corpus Christi Bay" -- then do several songs of mine. Last night, let's see, definitely "Your Independence Day" and "There You Are." I can't remember the other now. (Did I mention that they have beer?)

Late at night is when I hit notes I wouldn't try sober. By then, the crowd is rowdy and wants rowdy songs. I don't even have to make this decision. They request them. They've only heard them there, in most cases, but they remember enough that I know what they're talking about. Last night I was planning on opening with Townes Van Zandt's "Rex's Blues" but somehow never got there. It was off to the races with "Tattooed Gal," then "Wake & Bake," then its companion, "Stoned at the Crack of Dawn" and "Inferior Buzz." I think there was one more in there, too, but, as mentioned before, they have beer.

By the end, what began as a mixed audience -- Presbyterian College kids, families, people getting off work and in the mood for a few beers -- is mostly a PC party (and by that I do not mean "politically correct; au contraire). Last night after I got through, I borrowed out my guitar and ... got stuck there for quite a while as the two guys playing guitar ended up holding an impromptu, and at times not very pretty, karaokethon (karaokepalooza? karaokegate? hiking the karaoke trail?) for and with their buddies. It wasn't musically stimulating, in some instances, but it was highly amusing.

The staff of El Jalisco sort of tried to put a hint across by stacking up the chairs upside down on the tables in the back, but they seemed unwilling to actually say, "hey, gringoes, lights out." It wasn't any of my business, but I finally asked one of the owners if he wanted me to help (or try to help) shut it down.

He sure did.

Calling upon my experience as emcee of Pawlessfest, I tactfully suggested that one more song would be it. I was in a good bargaining position because they were dependent on my guitar.

I enjoyed everything about it, having a personality that wishes it was 21 again. (Hell, I'd settle for 40.)

I am a tad worried, though, that it's getting a bit out of hand. We've got a good thing going in Clinton, S.C., right now. The danger? Is it getting too good? It's great right now. I'm unaware of anyone there who didn't have a great time. Here's hoping it isn't fleeting. When I'm around, I really enjoy playing my songs locally.

We don't all have to be alike. It takes all kinds.

Sometimes it bothers me when I see, in some subtle way, sameness being encouraged and even enforced. I hate to see some little kid medicated because he likes to run around wide open. I hate to see someone lose his (or her) temper and then have others say he (or she) needs "anger management."

In fact, as a general rule, I mutter something rude every time I hear it said that someone "has issues." Does that mean he's weeping uncontrollably and no one knows why? Then perhaps he should have "tissues."

I don't mean to demean physicians of various kinds. Or counselors. Or clergy. They're experts at what they do, and my opinions are most certainly amateur by comparison. I just think it's sad, though, when a person reaches some stage at which medication is prescribed to "adjust" or "modify" behavior.

It gives me the willies. Or a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest flashback.

My family is full of eccentricities. The matriarch was a workaholic. She went into a funk when she wasn't working, and when she finally had to retire, it spurred a downward spiral in her health that killed her in a tragically short period of time.

I tried to tell her she had to stay active, but if she listened, you couldn't prove it. Another recurring strain in the family psyche is being hardheaded.

One relative works extremely hard at times to avoid telling the truth, or at least anything resembling "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." I don't think she's ever been on a witness stand, but I'd sort of like to see her repeat that swearing-in litany. I know she'd at least have to pause and gulp or something. It's not as serious as it seems. She just doesn't like bad news and hides it until too late.

One sibling's hands get clammy. One relative forgot how to match clothes when he reached 65, and within a year, he'd gotten to where he absolutely delighted in matching plaids with stripes and stripes with polka dots.

Me? I'm absentminded. I'm way too fat. I don't get angry very often, but when I do, it's a doozie. I sometimes crack jokes that others consider a bit too irreverent. People say "hey, that's not funny!" but it's funny to me. Sometimes people are laughing when they say it's not funny, which is ... funny itself.

I suspect that most football coaches, if required to undergo "anger management," are also going to have to manage a few more losses. I'm glad the men who landed on the beaches at Normandy hadn't undergone "anger management" before they charged into the surf.

Life just works better if somehow we manage to solve our own problems. And it's happier once we accept the weaknesses we can't change ... and live with them.

Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman and Brad Keselowski have all gone airborne on the curved front straights of tri-oval tracks.

On Tuesday, NASCAR president Mike Helton said he was far more concerned with Brad Keselowski's Dodge taking flight than he was with the boot from Carl Edwards' Ford that sent it sailing.

OK. What makes race cars fly?

1. Cars designed to stick to the pavement going frontwards are often prone to losing touch with it going backwards. NASCAR thought it had this problem solved with roof flaps. Apparently not.

2. While it's true that a wing designed to push down pointed one way will likewise push up headed the other, the same is true, to some extent, with spoilers. Race cars took off and flipped before the wings, too.

3. Here's an aspect seldom considered: the shape of the tracks. Eleven Sprint Cup tracks have curved front straights. One of the reasons stock cars tumble into catch fences (in fairness, rarely) is that they roar down the front straights pointed, at an angle, toward the grandstands. On so-called "true ovals" (a term, by the way, about as silly as "true freshmen" in colleges), the cars come off the turns parallel to the grandstands. Sometimes cars leave the ground on the back straights of these 11 tracks, but it's practically unheard-of for them to tumble to the outside (into the grandstand fencing). There may be an example, but I can't think of it.

So-called "tri-ovals" or "D-shaped" tracks are popular because they afford better sight lines for fans. It does make sitting in those grandstands just a bit more dangerous, though.

What makes NASCAR concerned about its race cars taking flight is the possibility of the unthinkable: a disaster resulting from a car, or parts of it, injuring dozens of spectators. Carnage in the grandstands could shut down the sport.

No drivers have been injured recently. The car is doing its job. The catch fence did its job nearly a year ago at Talladega, though some fans were injured by debris and part of the fence was destroyed while, uh, doing its job. The importance of protecting fans with those fences is more crucial to the future of the sport than anything else.

Here's the worst-case scenario: What if, somehow, two or more cars sailed into the fencing at virtually the same time? Even though it's unlikely, it isn't impossible. And it's scary.

The tracks can't make these fences too strong. They can't study the dynamics of protection too much. They can't take too many precautions.

Helton, at least, sounded like a man who realized this.

While NASCAR drivers figure out how much license they have to play rough on their oval playground, the ruling elders of NASCAR take a rather lax approach to letting them know.

What I assumed, when NASCAR made its "have at 'em" pronouncements in January, was basically that the officials had decided to "let 'em play." The way it works in basketball, right? No more rinky-dink fouls.

It's one of the more common remarks of coaches at courtside.

"Hey! Hey! Let 'em play, will ya?"

Apparently, though, what NASCAR meant was that there would really be no officiating at all. The Sprint Cup Series is like "shirts and skins," with fouls called under some sort of informal honor system.

"Foul!"

"Aw, man, I didn't touch you!"

"Yeah, you did, dummy, 'cause I called a foul."

Once upon a time, NASCAR decided it was too difficult to keep different kinds of cars competitive with one another, so it decided to make the cars all alike. Now NASCAR has decided it's difficult to officiate what goes on, so it's decided to ... literally ... "have at it" ... and ... "let 'em race."

It's astonishing. It's outrageous. But it's consistent. When NASCAR officials decided they were going to let drivers work their difficulties out among themselves, they weren't kidding. Had Judge Roy Bean, and not Mike Helton, been announcing the decision on Tuesday, he wouldn't have changed many words.

Carl Edwards admitted he used his Ford as a battering ram and turned the Dodge of Brad Keselowski during Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500. The race was probably a success for the sponsor since, within the garage, tools, Kobalt and otherwise, were really important. It was a showcase for the entire tool industry.

He got three weeks' probation, which for the entire time I've written about NASCAR, has been a synonym for "nothing."

Old timers can talk all they want about "the good old days," but if you check the records, the moonshiners of the 1940s and '50s never wrecked nearly as often as the upwardly mobile dandies of today. That's because they needed those old Fords to make a moonshine run down to Chattanooga on Monday night. The drivers of today don't have to fix or pay for what they tear up. It shows.

I am not unsympathetic to Edwards' plight. He, like most men who choose to race automobiles for a living, is excitable, competitive and spirited. At some level, Edwards must have cast himself as Will Kane and Keselowski as Frank Miller. In "High Noon" (1952), Kane was the sheriff left all alone to face Miller, who was out to get him.

Kane, of course, had a badge, at least, when he decided "enough is enough" and took on Miller and his gang. Edwards took the law into his own hands.

Another classic movie, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," defines NASCAR's current view of law enforcement.

"Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"
 

Kurt Busch picked up his first win of the season in Atlanta. It was also the second straight win in the spring Atlanta race for the Dodge driver, this time with Steve Addington, his brother's former crew chief. (Photo: John Clark/NASCAR This Week)

At least for now, Kurt Busch has the upper hand in the family.

Kurt and his younger brother, Kyle, are both legitimate stars in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series. Kurt won the 2004 (now Sprint, then) Nextel Cup championship, and his second consecutive victory in Atlanta Motor Speedway's Kobalt Tools 500 was the 21st of his career. Kyle, nearly seven years younger, has won 16 times in the sport's premier level.

There's another notable connection. Kurt Busch's crew chief, Steve Addington, was Kyle Busch's crew chief until this season. After Kyle fell short of making the Chase in 2009, Dave Rogers replaced Addington ... and Kurt hired him.

Kurt Busch made the Chase last year, finishing fourth in the final point standings. Crew chief Pat Tryson moved to Team Red Bull and driver Martin Truex Jr. at season's end.

"I'll tell one thing that changed, and it changed for the better," said Kurt. "Steve Addington has taught me how to drive cars differently, how to look at them differently ... When you get 'up on the wheel' for somebody like Steve, good things happen."

"I'm still great friends with Kyle," said Addington, "but it's a good feeling. It's a relief in a certain way."

Kurt Busch said his latest victory was particularly satisfying.

"I feel like we won the race outright," he said. "No doubt we did our job on pit road. No doubt we did our job on long runs, and I think we hit the right combination for restarts. That's what I'm proudest of."

Thanks to NASCAR's new overtime policies and several late crashes, the race ran 16 extra laps. Addington said there was no strategy capable of preparing for such a scenario.

"We tried to keep the balance on our car," he said. "We were good on fuel for all three green-white-checkered restarts, even if we went to (the limit of) three.

"We just stuck with what we'd been doing all day."

But Kurt Busch said this was no time to relax.

"We need to have some more consistency," he said. "We've been competitive in three out of the four races so far, and the race we weren't as competitive as the others was our best finish (before Atlanta).

"That's what a championship team does."

HAMPTON, Ga. - What happened at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday was predictable and understandable, but that doesn't mean Carl Edwards shouldn't have to pay some penalty for "dumping" Brad Keselowski near the end of the Kobalt Tools 500.

Why is it understandable? Edwards thought, in the supercharged atmosphere of his cockpit, that Keselowski had it coming. He's not alone in that view. Late last year, Denny Hamlin made no bones about it when he spun out Keselowski. He'd vowed to do it a week earlier.

There were two differences. One was that Keselowski's Dodge turned over at Atlanta Motor Speedway after Edwards' Ford bumped and drove through it. The other was that, unlike Hamlin, Edwards said he was sorry.

Sorry, of course, doesn't cut it, as any number of miscreants could attest.

But there's no need to crucify Edwards, either. He's a racer, not an accountant. The heady experience of roaring around and around, on the edge of out of control, lap after lap, isn't particularly conducive to turning a cheek instead of a fender.

Not every driver takes matters into his own hands, but most have done it, to one extent or another, and every driver has thought seriously about it. The vigilante creed of the Sprint Cup Series is a more dangerous version of the Golden Rule: "Drive unto others as they drive unto you."

One of Edwards' virtues was honesty. He didn't deny that he meant to spin Keselowski out. He denied that he meant for Keselowski to bounce off the wall and turn upside down. I believe him.

But circumstances do count.

Edwards is basically a good guy. A little over-enthused at times, but once again, he is, after all, a racer. Keselowski's also a little over-enthused at times, and he's a newcomer to the Sprint Cup club. A good many members question whether or not he's paid his dues.

In the long run, this will probably benefit both parties. The rivalry will eventually morph into grudging acceptance of each by the other. This may not be a smooth transition, but a transition will occur. It always does. Feuds don't last forever. The one between Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott didn't. The one between Richard Petty and Bobby Allison didn't.

Edwards and Keselowski will have to get along because, ultimately, there's no other practical choice.