Jack Roush was injured while a plane he was piloting crashed while landing at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisc. It was the second crash he’s survived. That’s akin to completing two tangoes with a T-Rex from “Jurassic Park.” 

It's early in the morning. I'm going through the mail. I'm thinking about what's going on in NASCAR World, which at times seems a little like Jurassic Park.

Things that flit through my mind as I flit through the releases:

- How many people have survived TWO plane crashes? Jack Roush has. His Fords have won 116 Cup races, but surviving two plane crashes seems even more amazing.

- Dover Motorsports is pulling out of Gateway International Raceway, its St. Louis-area track. The company announced it will "decline" NASCAR sanctions for what has been two Nationwide and one Camping World Truck races at the track. The company, which withdrew from its Memphis track earlier, also announced it is considering the possibility of a sale of Gateway.

- Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which sold $40 general-admission tickets for the Brickyard 400 on race day, will off them next year for $30 in advance, $35 on race day. The track has also cut selected reserved tickets by 20 percent.

- Daytona apparently won't be a part of the expected Sprint Cup schedule shift. Track president Robin Braig announced the track is happy with its Independence Weekend date and doesn't want to change, which means (a.) Braig already knows it isn't going to change, and (b.) the season finale will either remain in Homestead, Fla., or move to Las Vegas, Nev., which would be convenient since NASCAR holds its awards ceremonies there.

- It will be interesting to see if JTG Daugherty Racing gives Bobby Labonte the opportunity he needs to become competitive again. Marcos Ambrose announced he was leaving the No. 47 Toyota in 2011, and the team announced it would replace Ambrose with Labonte, the 2000 Winston Cup champion. Unannounced but rumored is an Ambrose move to Richard Petty Motorsports, where he would succeed Kasey Kahne.

- Kahne, by the way, is competing in Pocono Raceway's first Truck Series event on Saturday. Kahne has never lost in a truck. He won two races six days apart in 2004, and those are his only Truck races ... ever.

With new engines, many Ford drivers have had trouble getting through to Victory Lane. But Greg Biffle is still hopeful and the Washington native says he sees good things in the current situation. The former top rookie is proud of his guys and engine program, and likes the chassis design. (Photo: John Clark/NASCAR This Week) NASCAR This Week)

Greg Biffle's year to date has been disappointing because he hasn't yet won a race, but in the Ford camp, there's plenty of disappointment to go around.

Twenty races into a 36-race season, no Ford driver has won. Biffle's third-place finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Brickyard 400 left him and others with a bit of optimism for the future. It was his best finish of the season, surpassing a fourth at Bristol in the season's fifth race.

Ford's new engine, the FR9, is now fully implemented, and that, in Biffle's eyes, is another encouraging sign.

"I'm really proud of the guys and this engine program," he said. "This engine ran really good today, but I want to win one of these things. We had the fastest car, but the fastest car doesn't always win. We've just got to take some chances to win some of these races, I guess."

Noting that stock car racing has rewarded aggressiveness more than in past years, Biffle noted the impact of the current chassis design.

"These cars inherently take a little more abuse than the old car did," he said. This thing is built, I don't want to say like a battleship, but it's built a little tougher than the old car. The old car, if you got in the fence a little bit and scraped it up, you had problems. ... This car can take a little bit more and keep going."

Biffle, 40, is a native of Vancouver, Wash. He debuted at NASCAR's highest level on April 26, 2002, with a 13th-place finish at what is now Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. The first of 14 victories occurred on July 5, 2003, at Daytona.

Only Biffle and Johnny Benson have won championships in what are now known as the Camping World Truck and Nationwide series. Biffle was the Truck titlist in 2000 and the Nationwide champ in 2002.

Biffle is also a former Raybestos Rookie of the Year in both support series. In 2003, he finished second in the (now) Sprint Cup rookie standings to the driver who won the Brickyard 400, Jamie McMurray.

In 2005, Biffle finished second to Tony Stewart in the Cup standings, and in 2008, he finished third.

At present, Biffle stands 11th in the Cup point standings. Entering the final six regular-season races, he is 78 points ahead of 13th place. Only the top 12 make the series' championship-determining Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Racin' blogger extraordinarie Valli Hilaire with Tony Stewart on an interview earlier this year.

"It's been a little over a year since I last guest blogged here and some things have changed for me and The Fast and the Fabulous," Valli wrote back when NASCAR This Week emailed her to enquire on how things were going. "I was included in the first group of sites, 25 in total, to be a part of NASCAR's Citizen Journalist Media Corps. (CJMC). The CJMC began in July of 2009 as an initiative by NASCAR to recognize the changing media landscape and provide more access to independent media publishers."

"For me it meant achieving a long-held goal of mine which was obtaining a media hard card. I cannot tell you how much I love my hard card. I really wish that I could use it more often than I have this year. So my ultimate goal is still the same: to get to as many races as possible and, hopefully, get to all of them and make this blogging thing a full-time gig.

"Another huge deal for me this year was having the opportunity to interview NASCAR champion Tony Stewart. To me, the prospect of interviewing Tony was super intimidating so I wanted to make sure I brought my A-game when I met him for the first time this year in Charlotte. I came up with the idea to ask him the same 10 questions that James Lipton asks his guests on Bravo's interview show, Inside the Actor's Studio.

"I love those questions and I'm always interested in people's answers, so I thought it'd be the perfect "something different" thing to ask Tony. He ended up loving the questions so much that at the end of it all he asked if I had more of them! You can read all about my interview with Tony and read his answers over at The Fast and the Fabulous here.  

Valli's also used the same interview format with Elliott Sadler and A.J. Allmendinger.

We thought it might be fun to turn the tables and make the interviewer the interviwee, so we asked Valli the same 10 questions. Her responses follow.

What is your favorite word? Yes.

What is your least favorite word? No.

What turns you on? Music.

What turns you off? Arrogance.

What sound or noise do you love? Acoustic guitars.

What sound or noise do you hate? The sound of the ambulance in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." It's horrible.

What is your favorite curse word? Jackass.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Actor.

What profession would you not like to do? Anything in the medical field, I'm not interested in having another person's life in my hands, or their breast implants.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Yep, I exist.

Valli wiht Elliott Sadler on an interview before the race at Infineon earlier this year.

On June 26, 2008, Brian France, chairman of NASCAR, made the following comments in an address to Associated Press Sports Editors:

"We feel like our popularity distinguishes us from many other sports. But we also want to distinguish ourselves in another way, by striving to make NASCAR easier to cover.

"We think all sports should be easy to cover.

"We also think we're different from other sports because of the amount of assistance we want to provide the media. I can guarantee that we have a more media-friendly approach than you might find with other sports."

That sort of depends on how one defines the term "media-friendly." If it includes accountability, openness and integrity, NASCAR falls somewhere between Wile E. Coyote and the Law Firm of Scotch & Waters.

The Associated Press reported on Monday that Imperial NASCAR has been caught with its hands in the pockets of at least a couple of its drivers. Perhaps it's the latest version of the iNASCAR. According to the report, the iNASCAR has secretly fined its drivers hefty amounts - $50,000 is one number bandied about - for speaking their minds. The report called it "comments disparaging to the sport."

Mimicking all good members of the Nixon White House, the response seems to consist not of defending the actions but claiming that everyone else does it. From the AP report:

"The decision to fine competitors for critical comments puts NASCAR in line with many other professional sports leagues. The NFL and NBA both routinely issue fines for criticism of officiating."

Speaking out against rumored changes in the Chase format isn't the same as publicly accusing a ref of blowing a call.

Another item: "It also backs up NASCAR's season-long campaign to rebuild the slumping sport through an improved on-track product and off-track promotion from its drivers."

Apparently "off-track promotion" means saying only what NASCAR wants to promote.

What's more, when the National Basketball Association fines a coach for hinting darkly that the refs are prejudiced or crooked, it doesn't hide it. The actions are announced.

Hints were hanging everywhere in the hot Indianapolis air, where previously outspoken drivers suddenly sounded as if they were reading talking points from a Teleprompter. A lot of whispering was going on. A lot of "You didn't hear it here, but ..." Thanks to all those sources no one could hear, pinning down the story was apparently quite difficult. Rumors are easy. On the record is hard.

Enlightened by the standards of a Propaganda Ministry ... media-friendly to media that happens to be friendly ... as accessible as Alcatraz in the old days.

So they fine people and don't announce it. Wonder how many fines they announce don't exist? Or penalties? Or debris in turn three?

When a guy finds out someone has been hiding something, he naturally starts to wonder what else has been hidden. Or if what isn't hidden is real.

NASCAR brags about its "town meetings" with its drivers. Apparently they're similar to meetings of the Harper Valley PTA.
 

INDIANAPOLIS - A fan wrote that he has been watching NASCAR races for over 30 years and had never seen as many empty seats as he saw watching the Brickyard 400 on television Sunday. Another wrote, "The cars look the same, the drivers look the same, and half the tracks look the same. I believe that in the name of 'growing the sport,' as NASCAR puts it, they have shot (themselves) in the foot."

One of the reasons for so many empty seats, of course, is that Indianapolis Motor Speedway has so many of them. But there's no getting around the fact that the Brickyard 400 now draws little more than half what it drew three years ago.

The reason why Jamie McMurray's historic victory is being overshadowed by a cataclysmic droop in attendance is that it was so glaring. The empty seats cast a pall. Fans of sports in general got up Saturday morning and saw graphics on ESPN "Sportscenter" proclaiming that 250,000 fans would be on hand at a track that seats 257,000. Then they turned on the TV and saw, quite obviously, that it wasn't so.

Indy was an extreme example, but by the measure of attendance and television ratings, NASCAR is undeniably slumping. The overall numbers are much milder overall, but the sport is trending downward.

Even by NASCAR's dubious estimates - one can at least compare those estimates year to year -- attendance has fallen in 15 of the season's first 20 Sprint Cup races. Average attendance is down 15 percent since 2007. Anyone who watches the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series knows the decline is even greater in the support series.

Where are those fans? Apparently, they aren't watching on TV. Television ratings were lower than 2008 in each of the first 19 races and lower than 2009 in 15 of them. Fox, which televised the first 13 races, received overall ratings that were off 6 percent, while TNT, over the next six, declined by nearly 12 percent (as measured by ratings points).

Some of it is the economy. Some of it is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s struggles. Some is the inability of anyone else to force Jimmie Johnson to share the wealth. Some feel the sport has left them behind. At Indy, much of it is lingering bad will two years after "Tiregate 2008," when thousands of fans left the great speedway feeling cheated by a race that was a travesty and officials who seemed arrogant and unfeeling.

NASCAR officials are responsive now. They've been changing the sport at a willy-nilly pace, and the knee-jerk response at the moment seems to be changing it some more.

What no one seems willing to examine is the notion that stock car racing has been changed too much already. Perhaps the Chase doesn't need to morph further toward "rasslin' matches" and reality shows.

NASCAR chairman Brian France has all but guaranteed more changes. Come 2011, the Chase for the Sprint Cup may be administered by the Publisher's Clearinghouse, or at least copied along its lines.

Why not just stay the course, for once? Why not ride out this slump and quit tinkering?

Jamie McMurray celebrates his Brickyard 400 victory with his No. 1 Earnhardt Ganassi team in Victory Lane at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. McMurray is the third driver to win the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 in the same season. (Photo: Getty Images)

- Cite the economy. Cite the 2008 tire disaster. But in the past three years, by the estimate attendance figures on the NASCAR race reports, attendance at the Brickyard 400 has fallen by 130,000. This year's estimate was 140,000. It was generous.

- It should, of course, be noted that such a crowd is larger than most of the country's other major sporting events, but the seating capacity of Indianapolis Motor Speedway is 257,000.

- The continuing inability of Juan Pablo Montoya to "close the deal" is inexplicable. This obviously talented driver has won one of his 129 career Sprint Cup starts.

- With six races to go in the regular season, no Ford driver has won a race, but three - Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle -- are in position to make the Chase.

- Jamie McMurray became the third driver to win the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 in the same season. The others were Dale Jarrett (1996) and Jimmie Johnson (2006).

- Chip Ganassi became the first owner to capture victories in the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 (Dario Franchitti) and Brickyard 400, and he did it all in the same year.

- Montoya has led a majority of the laps in each of the last two Brickyard 400s, yet his average finish in those two races was 21.5.

- Jeff Gordon and Johnson, who between them have won at Indianapolis seven times, finished outside the top 20 in this one.

- NASCAR chairman Brian France indicated that the 2011 Sprint Cup schedule will be announced "soon" but that possible changes in the Chase are far from being approved.

- Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski have both been placed on probation until season's end. Edwards lost 60 Nationwide Series points and was fined $25,000 for the incidents involving the two at a race at Gateway International Raceway on July 17. Why was Keselowski placed on probation? To eliminate any incentive to keep the spat going.

Jamie McMurray and Kevin Harvick lead the field during the final restart of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. McMurray went on to win. (Photo: Getty Images)

INDIANAPOLIS - The Man Who Would Be King didn't win the Brickyard 400. It was his teammate, who probably should have been the one considered the king at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing all along.

Jamie McMurray, once of Joplin, Mo., didn't start on the pole, as Juan Pablo Montoya, once of Bogota, Colombia, did. He didn't lead 86 laps. Montoya did.

McMurray, though, led the final 11 laps (and a total of 16).. In the Daytona 500, he led only the final two. McMurray won both races. Montoya hasn't won in more than three years.

"We didn't have the best car," said McMurray. "When Kevin (Harvick) got by me a few laps (15) from the end, I thought it was over."

Charles Dickens could've written the story of Chip Ganassi's team because the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities was the ending of the Brickyard 400: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

In one sense, the worst led to the best. Montoya, who had dominated, lost track position when he pitted for tires while others were changing two. As a result, Montoya took the green flag in seventh place instead of first on lap 143. Two laps later, McMurray lost the lead to Harvick. Two laps after that, Montoya, who had lost ground instead of gaining it, lost control exiting turn four, bounced off the wall and barred the path of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Chevy, which crashed into him.

That caution flag led to McMurray's victory because it gave him a chance to regain the lead from Harvick on the final restart.

Meanwhile, as McMurray was basking in the glory of winning two iconic races - the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 - in the same year, Montoya was fleeing the track and declining comment. His frustration was understandable. Over the past two years, he has led 202 of a possible 320 laps and left this city with an average finish of 21.5.

Within the framework of the season as a whole, McMurray's success in the two monster races remains a bit of an anomaly. His season earnings, $4,687,502, are the best in the Sprint Cup Series, but his points, 2,295, rank him 16th. He has two victories and three poles but only seven top-10 finishes in 20 races.

"I'm running the last 10 laps of this race and just praying every lap there isn't going to be a caution (period) and that my car was going to have to grip it needed," said McMurray. "It's remarkable to be put in this position, and honestly, I'm in shock right now.

"Man, when it's your day, it's your day."

The 17th Brickyard 400, attended by 130,000 fewer fans than three years earlier, began with a 10-car pile-up on the second turn of the first lap. Then, for some reason, the race had barely resumed when one driver after another began reporting overheating problems, which eventually subsided as quickly as they arose.

From lap 15 to lap 140, the chief talking points involved empty seats and debris cautions, but the surprises arose again as the checkered flag beckoned.

Ganassi, whose NASCAR effort is a partnership with Teresa Earnhardt and Felix Sabates, also won the Indianapolis 500 with Dario Franchitti in one of his entries. Somehow the unprecedented achievement of winning Indy 500, Brickyard 400 and Daytona 500 in the same year morphed into what broadcasters immediately deemed a Triple Crown, even though no such proper noun existed before the weekend began.

"I'm a big believer in fate," said McMurray, "and this was just meant to be."

After leading a race-high 86 laps, Juan Pablo Montoya lost the lead on pit road on Lap 140. Six laps later, he lost control of his car and was involved in an accident that ended his day. (Photo: Getty Images)

INDIANAPOLIS - Four years into the great experiment of Juan Pablo Montoya, the mystery remains. Why can't he win? It can't all be luck. He can obviously, to borrow the favorite cliché of one Barney Hall, "drive the wheels off that car."

Something always happens. What the late Jerry Reed wrote about automobiles in general almost applies to the ones Montoya drives on the great speedways of the land. To paraphrase, if he's not out of gas in a driving rain, he's changing a flat in a hurricane.

Comparatively speaking, that is. More accurately, if Montoya isn't running too fast down pit road, he's spinning out trying to make up for a bad strategic decision.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway may be Montoya's Waterloo, but he has missed opportunities to win at many. It's a valued gift when a driver can win at every kind of track. Montoya could do that. He just hasn't. One of the more talented drivers on the planet has competed in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series 129 times and won once. His winning percentage (.008) is a fraction usually reserved for a description of the amount of mercury in groundwater or some such.

A year ago, he made the Chase but didn't win. This year he is more likely to win than make the Chase simply because almost anything is easier than making up 325 points in the next six races.

The No. 42 Chevy he drives is fast almost everywhere. Montoya drives it impressively almost everywhere. Either he's come out on the wrong end of a deal with the Devil, or his failures are somehow more than coincidental. It's difficult to tell what he's doing wrong by watching, though.

Excuses are gradually being stripped away. The notion used to be that Chip Ganassi's team was substandard, which can be disputed merely by noting that three drivers - Jamie McMurray, Casey Mears and Reed Sorenson - have done better driving for Ganassi and partners than with other teams, and the notion becomes even more dubious when one realizes that two of those other teams are owned by Rick Hendrick and Jack Roush.

Consistency remains an issue because neither Montoya nor McMurray is likely to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Consistency was, however, Montoya's hallmark when he made the Chase a year ago.

Within the Earnhardt Ganassi hierarchy, McMurray, with victories in two of the sport's signature races, is outperforming Montoya in virtually every statistical category: wins, poles, points and money.

What's still clear is that Montoya is destined to be the next Gordon. The question is whether it's Jeff or Robby.
 

The Brickyard 400 got off to a slow start, with 10 cars spinning in the second turn followed by an opening-lap crash that involved 11 cars, six cars overheating within the first six laps and Robby Gordon cutting a tire (above). (Photo: Getty Images)

INDIANAPOLIS - The crowd was astonishingly small, and the start was astonishingly slow.

The 17th running of Indianapolis Motor Speedway's Brickyard 400 began with some of the best seats in the house empty, most of the worst seats empty, and 10 cars spinning wildly in the second turn.

The good news? Well, at least it was only a yellow flag and not a red one.

A massive opening-lap crash began with a slip-up by Kyle Busch, who reportedly said there was a slick spot on the track. His Toyota's contact with Sam Hornish Jr.'s Dodge touched off a crash that embroiled cars driven by Elliott Sadler, David Reutimann, Reed Sorenson, Bobby Labonte, Michael McDowell, Todd Bodine, Marcos Ambrose and Joey Logano. Most eventually resumed the chase.

Action resumed on lap eight with Juan Pablo Montoya leading.

* * *

BUT ... THAT'S NOT ALL--Over the next half-dozen laps, Carl Edwards' Ford, Brad Keselowski's Dodge, Denny Hamlin's Toyota and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Chevy all suffered overheating problems, Robby Gordon's Toyota blew a right-front tire and Max Papis's exploded in flames.

One view, expressed by Robby Gordon, was that the overheating resulted from cars having to skid through high grass on the inside of the track to avoid the opening-lap melee. For some reason, grass all over the facility was ankle-deep this week, from the inside of the track to the parking lots.

Otherwise, it was fairly uneventful.

* * *

TRENDING DOWNWARD--Attendance was about 120,000, by this estimate. The Indianapolis Star, which estimated the 2009 attendance here at 180,000, called the crowd 150,000.

The front-straight grandstands were no more than two-thirds full. Stands in the third and fourth turns were mostly empty, as were the grandstands on the inside of pit road. The track's seating capacity is 257,000.

* * *

CHANGES OF SOME SORT-- NASCAR chairman Brian France whispered mostly sweet nothings during a press conference shortly before the race began. He suggested that the 2011 Sprint Cup schedule will be announced "here shortly" and that there will be noteworthy changes.

France said changes in the Chase will take more time.

"Whatever we do, it will be with the industry having lots of chances to weigh in, and us, in the end, thinking this is something that we can build around that enhances winning, enhances the championship, gives more of a playoff field than we currently have now, if that's where we end up," he said.
 

"God didn't make little green apples, and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime."

Those are words from a song by Bobby Russell, and a version by O.C. Smith charted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968.

NASCAR wasn't even racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway then. Was it hot at the Brickyard on Thursday? Well, let's just say there were camels lined up at the Dasani stand. Shirts were wetting from perspiration and drying from the sun ... at the same time. One could see the shirt fabric getting darker and then lighter. Stripes kept appearing and disappearing. And appearing again ...

Among others who recorded "Little Green Apples" were Roger Miller, Patti Page, Burl Ives, Tony Joe White, Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Dean Martin, the Temptations, Peter Tosh, Tony Bennett, Ben E. King, Johnny Mathis, Frankie Laine, Jim Nabors, Louis Prima, Monica Zetterlund, Bobby Goldsboro and A.J. Marshall.

The Brickyard 400 has been won by Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Jarrett, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Bobby Labonte, Ricky Rudd, Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott. The first four have won it more than once.

The song also expresses whimsical disbelief in Dr. Seuss, Disneyland, Mother Goose and nursery rhymes, but that's not important.

What is important is that it not rain in Indianapolis on race day. Bobby Russell's myths played well for quite some time. He also wrote "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" and "Honey."

He was a mighty fine songwriter. For the race, here's hoping he's a fair prognosticator, too. Nostradamus, equally dead and of much longer duration, worried about the big picture. Russell thought little things mean a lot. A NASCAR race is little compared to, oh, the rise of Hitler and the end of the world.

Some folks live in little worlds, though, and NASCAR is one of them.

There's a 40 percent chance of thunderstorms. Maybe everyone can look at the heavens and just whisper privately, soulfully, "Bobby Russell rocks."

And all will be right in the little, bitty world.