Young guns Joey Logano and Sergio Pena following qualifying for the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown, and later racing side by side. Logano won the event for the second year in a row and 16-year-old Pena finished second. (Photo: Getty Images)
- Felix Sabates had to issue a hasty apology after suggesting rather colorfully that Michigan's economic distress should cost it at least one of its Sprint Cup dates. Hmm. Sabates is affiliated with a ... Chevrolet team.
- The Budweiser Shootout is supposedly an all-star event, but some of the drivers in the field haven't been "all-stars" for quite some time.
- Could the replacement of the wing with the spoiler actually diminish the Hendrick Motorsports advantage? For a while, maybe. NASCAR's top team has plenty of time to get ready for the Chase.
- Oft times road racers who attempt to race stock cars are out of their element. The same was true, in reverse, with NASCAR drivers who competed in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
- Joey Logano became a repeat winner in the Toyota Showdown, a short-track spectacular held annually at Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway. But the big news was the impressive performance by the runner-up, 16-year-old Sergio Pena, a young man we shall get to know better.
- Danica Patrick's performance in the ARCA race will supposedly determine whether or not she gets a ride a week later in the Daytona Nationwide Series race. At present, her schedule provides for 12 Nationwide races this year.
- Most enduring image of the Rolex 24: watching Bobby Labonte have to work his way through an infield traffic jam to get back on pit road after running out of fuel.
- What if it rains on Saturday? The Super Bowl is on Sunday. The worst-case scenario would find Daytona running its three-event schedule - ARCA race, Daytona 500 front-row qualifying and Budweiser Shootout - beginning on Sunday morning so that it could be completed in advance of the big football game.
- The most impressive characteristic of the Sprint Cup champion revealed on HBO's Jimmie Johnson 24/7? His exercise regimen.
- It will be interesting to see how Kasey Kahne, whose past differences with Ford involved legal action, fares now that Richard Petty Motorsports is in the Dearborn camp.