Former Rahal Letterman Racing driver and Boston College graduate Jeff Simmons will attempt a one-off return to the IndyCar Series with A.J. Foyt Racing.

IndyCar.com is reporting that Simmons will drive the No. 41 machine for the four-time Indy 500 champion's team. Alongside Darren Manning in the No. 14 car, the Foyt duo will try to qualify for the race this weekend. Positions 12-33 are up for grabs after rain canceled the second day of qualifying on Sunday.

Simmons replaced the late Paul Dana in the No. 17 IndyCar for RLR starting at Twin Ring Motegi in 2006. After 23 starts and 11 top-10 finishes for the team, he lost his ride in July of 2007. He was replaced by Ryan Hunter-Reay.

This year, Simmons has raced in the Firestone Indy Lights development league. He has notched two top-10s in three starts.

Since open-wheel unification, things have been looking up for the IndyCar Series. Granted, they've got miles to go in order to catch up to NASCAR, but the general consensus is that open-wheel racing just might have a decent future after all.

The IndyCars certainly have plenty of momentum heading into the 92nd Indianapolis 500 on May 25. Historic victories by 19-year-old Graham Rahal and female trailblazer Danica Patrick have focused attention on the IRL (even though most of it remains focused on Patrick and not the other drivers). New teams and drivers coming over from the Champ Car World Series could have made for all sorts of chaos in their attempts to learn oval racing, but they've done a marvelous job. TV ratings are also starting to slowly creep upward as well.

However, there are plenty of questions in the near future that IndyCar must answer to. One of the bigger ones is the 2009 schedule: Will the IRL remain an oval-based series? Will they go for an even 50-50 split between speedways and road/street courses? Will they lean the series toward road racing in response to the many Champ Car events left out in the cold with unificiation? It's a daunting matter, indeed.

Look for New Hampshire Motor Speedway to get into the mix as a potential new venue for the series. In 1998, the IndyCars left Loudon two years following the open-wheel split between the IRL and CART. Now, the track's new management in Speedway Motorsports Inc. has been looking at a potential third open-wheel weekend to balance out its two NASCAR festivals.

Today's New Hampshire Union Leader reports that track vice president and general manager Jerry Gappens will be heading to Indy during the month in hopes of talking with officials about an '09 race date. In the meantime, IRL commercial division boss Terry Angstadt told the UL's Kevin Provencher that while New England isn't easy to break, it's a market the series is trying to hit and the track's status as an oval gives it cache after unification:

"Ovals are a bit of a scarcity.With the [Champ Car] schedule being all roads and street courses, those have been more plentiful. The fact [that New Hampshire is] an oval is an absolute plus."

New England certainly carries a strong open-wheel heritage with the popular modified circuits, but could the IRL make good on a second chance should they return to Loudon? While racing isn't on the sports radar of most people here, the fact that NHMS has racked up 27 straight sellouts of their NASCAR Sprint Cup events shows that there's plenty of fans.

SMI's acquisition of the "Magic Mile" last year also bodes well for open-wheel hopefuls in these parts. There are two big speedway companies in this country: SMI and the International Speedway Corporation, which is owned by NASCAR's France family. For both of these groups, NASCAR is their bread and butter.

But only SMI appears to put any semblance of promotion into the IRL for their events at Texas Motor Speedway (which gets the highest attendance in the series outside of the Indy 500) and Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. ISC, on the other hand, promotes its NASCAR events on a much larger scale than open-wheel. It also helps that Gappens is a native of Indiana and a fan of the Indy 500; at the very least, he's learned a bit about the sport through osmosis.

As far as sponsorship goes, unification has opened the door for many companies that were unsure about which horse to back in the open-wheel war. So far, Coca-Cola, DirecTV and the National Guard are some of the new sponsors in the IndyCar Series this season. There's plenty more out there and there's some big fish here too: Bank of America, Gillette, Liberty Mutual, New Balance, etc. Any one of these companies could play a major role in the event.

It would take a lot of effort from SMI in terms of marketing the event to corporations and promoting it to the fans. But if they can do that, I don't see why IndyCar couldn't carve out a niche for themselves here in the Northeast. It may not be as popular as the twin stock car events, but even crowds of forty or fifty thousand fans would be a success considering where the sport has been over the last 12 years.

Certainly, IndyCar wants to get as far away from that as they can. NHMS just might be able to help them out.

If it were any other driver that Kyle Busch got into during the final stages of Saturday night's Sprint Cup event at Richmond, Va., he probably would have gotten off relatively easy.

But it wasn't just any other driver that "Rowdy" had a run-in with. As soon as Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw his best chance for victory this season end up in the SAFER Barrier as a result of spinning out thanks to Kyle with three laps left, his legions of fans got a new villain to hate. Junior said it best after the race:

"Whether it's fair or not, [Kyle] is going to need some security."

David Newton of ESPN.com reports that fans started throwing debris onto the track in retaliation. In addition, Lee Spencer of Fox Sports says that many of them gave the one-fingered salute on their way out of the track.

So there we go. The Earnhardt Nation is officially at war with Kyle Busch.

This is not an unexpected development; as most of us know, Earnhardt commands the most loyal and rabid fan base of any driver in American motorsports. They have long memories. They have longer grudges (see Jeff Gordon). And they will be out in full force screaming bloody murder at the No. 18 car from now until at least the time Junior finally wins one at Hendrick Motorsports.

However, is it really a big deal as some are making it? It's been known for some time that Busch is an aggressive driver. When he was dumped by Hendrick to make room for Earnhardt, that only motivated him more. It's helped make him into one of the more entertaining figures this season on the Sprint Cup circuit.

With three laps left at Richmond, he had the inside line on Earnhardt heading into Turn 3. Earnhardt wasn't going to move an inch for Busch with the win on the line. Busch washed up the track and bumped into him. They were fighting for a piece of real estate and both ended up paying for it, giving the win to Clint Bowyer.

To sum it up, it was one of those racin' deals. That, however, is no solace to many who have been waiting and praying for Earnhardt to break a two-year winless streak.

However, this is huge in terms of dispelling the recent notion that NASCAR had grown dull and stale. Ironically, Busch is channeling a bit of Dale Sr. nowadays and has put on the black hat to become a "bad guy" that the sport has desperately needed for some time. No matter how much people tried to peg Gordon or Jimmie Johnson as the enemy, let's face it: They will never strike folks as "bad guys."

Saturday night, Busch sounded like he could care less about what people think about him, rattling off a brilliant one-liner:

"Everyone is driving around the racetrack scared to death of wrecking Dale Earnhardt Jr., so why would I be any different?"

Thankfully, people are noticing that this type of flavor has been missing in the sport and are happy to have it back. Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee hits it on the head:

"The general public doesn't much care about tire makes, oil lids, allegedly stolen parts, and the other stories that have dominated the first third of this season. But a punk kid upending the most popular driver in the game? Now that's something everybody can understand. Rowdy has given us a ready-made good-versus-evil storyline for the rest of the season."

Eventually, I feel more people will come around on this topic, including some of Junior's fans. As for the rest of them, chances are they may hate Kyle Busch until they are old and gray.

But while the Earnhardt Nation is at war with him, I don't expect him to return the favor. As long as he's the man standing with the checkered flag at the end of the race, he could care less.

The nightmare is over. Twelve years after it began, the split era of American open-wheel racing is finally just a memory.

February's unification of the sport forced both the IRL's Indy Japan 300 and the Champ Cars' Grand Prix of Long Beach to run on the same weekend. And now that both races -- and Champ Car itself -- have ended in historic wins from Danica Patrick in Japan and Will Power in Southern California, the unified IndyCar can now look forward to the future.

While this weekend temporarily split the series again, it also served to continue the unified series' momentum it had built up with a successful season opener in March at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Graham Rahal's headline-grabbing win at St. Petersburg, Fla. earlier this month.

Patrick may not have been the fastest car on the track at Twin Ring Motegi, but it takes more than a lead foot to win a race. It takes smarts. When Patrick cruised by Helio Castroneves with three laps to go, she and her strategist Kyle Moyer became geniuses.

On Lap 148 -- five laps after the leaders had pitted en masse -- Patrick, Castroneves and Ed Carpenter went back into pit road under caution to grab another splash of fuel in hopes of moving to the front when the rest of the field would have to make their last stops in the final laps.

Surprisingly, Carpenter was the first to blink on Lap 195, a victim of bad fuel mileage. Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon and Tony Kanaan followed, and with three laps left, Castroneves was in the lead. But while the two-time Indy 500 winner was running low on fuel, he didn't know that Danica was fighting for position when she passed him on the high side heading into Turn 3. At least, not until he saw the scoring pylon.

After the race, he admitted that he was told by his team to let her go by. Sure enough, some fans have seized on that as proof that the IRL somehow orchestrated Patrick's win.

Give me a break. Helio may not have known about Danica's pass being for the lead, but his Team Penske crew did. To tell him that it was a lead pass with three to go would have been a disaster.

Had he been told to go after Patrick, he would have run out of fuel. Why do you think he finished six seconds behind her? He had to about coast to finish second and bank those valuable championship points. If he ran out, he'd probably be out of the top five in the standings. Big difference, especially when the IndyCars get to Chicago for their season finale in September.

Team Penske did the only thing they could do for Helio. Their man was toast, but at least he didn't become burnt toast. Yet people are whooping up on Castroneves for "laying down" as well as deeming Patrick's victory as fake since she won it on fuel mileage, not with a wheel-to-wheel duel against another car.

If these fans need to put the proverbial blade to somebody, they should go after Team Penske for missing the fuel strategy -- and even that's dubious since they still made the right decision in the long-term for Castroneves' championship hopes. To go after him is unfair and to go after Patrick for winning the race is even worse.

Fortunately, the debate over the Champ Cars' final race is much more tranquil -- albeit for the fact that it was buried in the wake of Patrick's victory.

ESPN2 tape delayed the broadcast to 5:30 p.m. ET last night (the race started at 4) and then devoted the final stint of the race to an interview with Patrick, shoving the racing action to a small box on-screen. Yes, her victory is a big deal, but this was a new low for them in their already abysmal open-wheel coverage. Champ Car fans deserved a better send-off for their series than that.

The race wasn't much better. Power showed that he was not going to be stopped right from the get-go. On the standing start, he rocketed from third position past Alex Tagliani on the outside and then beat polesitter Justin Wilson on the inside to Turn 1. When Wilson fell out of the race after 12 laps -- he figured it was an engine failure -- the Grand Prix was effectively sealed for Power, who led 81 of 83 laps.

But there were many positives too. Second-place driver Franck Montagny may have put himself on the radar of several team owners for a future ride after a dazzling American open-wheel debut. Also, third-place man Mario Dominguez is appearing set to become a full-time IndyCar driver with his Pacific Coast Motorsports team beginning at Indianapolis.

The biggest positive though is that the Grand Prix of Long Beach was given a new lease on life with an extension that will see the race go off until at least 2015. Next year will be the first GPLB with the unified IRL, a new era for the biggest street race in North America.

That's what matters the most. While it's bittersweet to see such a venerable series fade away, open-wheel racing has a chance to build a better future now with unification.

"The future is very bright," said Dominguez, a two-time race winner in Champ Car. "I think there has to be only one series; that was proven before.

"Even though I'm very, very sad that Champ Car is finishing, is ending, at the same time I'm happy, because I'm sure in the end the fans are going to be the winners when they're going to be watching one IndyCar race all the time with all the stars, with all the great teams, with all the great names out there in one same race."

Great words for a great day. A new day in IndyCar racing.

The nightmare is over. At last.

This had all the ingredients of a disaster.

Open-wheel unification had given the IndyCar Series nine new cars from the old Champ Car World Series. But seven of the drivers in those machines had never driven on an oval in their careers leading up to Saturday night's GAINSCO Auto Insurance Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The ones that did have oval experience -- Oriol Servia, Bruno Junqueira and Will Power -- hadn't raced on a speedway in several years.

Considering that Saturday's event was the first race after the two open-wheel series unified under the Indy Racing League banner, a wreck-fest probably wouldn't have helped the IndyCar Series' attempt to increase its stature in mainstream America beyond the exploits of their two big stars, Danica Patrick and Helio Castroneves. But fortunately for the league, the 300-miler went off relatively cleanly.

One of the new guys, HVM Racing's Ernesto Viso, did play a role in the outcome when he crashed his car and then tagged the oncoming machine of race leader Tony Kanaan on Lap 193. With his right-front wheel bent skyward, Kanaan was forced to give up the lead to eventual winner Scott Dixon on the restart with three laps left.

But beyond that and contact on Lap 24 between Justin Wilson and Will Power that sent the latter out of the race with damaged suspension on his car, the transition drivers did a solid job in their first time out as IndyCar competitors. As they bring lots of road and street course experience from their Champ Car days, they should feel more at home next week when the IRL invades the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.

With the help of the month-long preparation for May's Indianapolis 500, the former Champ Car pilots should be up to snuff by mid-season. Once they do, the league should have a more equal field from top to bottom and that's a good thing for a series that's trying to capture the hearts of fans and sponsors.

As far as notable performances go, there were several in Saturday's race. Three-time Homestead winner Dan Wheldon crashed his car in Friday qualifying, but charged from the back during the race and finished third in a backup machine. The Vision Racing team of Ed Carpenter and A.J. Foyt IV also had to start from the rear due to a rear-wing infraction found after qualifying, but they both fought back to finish in the top ten (Carpenter in fifth; Foyt IV in ninth).

But in my eyes, Servia had the best one as he finished 12th to lead the new teams. After a month of frenzied preparation, the fact that the Spaniard was able to bring the car home in one piece for his KV Racing Technology team is a major victory.

Finally, the hard luck award goes to Ryan Briscoe of Team Penske, who saw a potential top-5 run end after he was collected by Milka Duno in a two-car crash on Lap 128. Briscoe, who replaces Sam Hornish Jr. this season in the No. 6 Dallara, has good talent and equipment to help him not just on road courses, but on ovals as well.

He'll get a chance to make up ground this weekend on the St. Pete street circuit, and if he can rack up points on the speedways, he will be a dark horse in the IndyCar championship race. Keep an eye on him this weekend.

Another guy to watch for is Graham Rahal, who will be making his IndyCar debut this weekend. The son of Indy 500 winner and IRL team owner Bobby Rahal was unable to compete on Saturday after his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team was unable to fix his car in time after he crashed it in a test session last week.

Graham didn't fall far from the tree in terms of talent, and after his rookie season last year in Champ Car, he should be licking his chops at having his first IndyCar race be on a street course. He'll be ready to go.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- There was no way The Exhaust Circuit was going to miss this one. The Indy Racing League's season opening Gainsco Auto Insurance 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway wasn't just any race, after all.

We're talking about the Reunification of Open-Wheel Racing in America, people.

(Or should we put that in all caps?)

We're talking about the REUNIFICATION OF OPEN-WHEEL RACING IN AMERICA, people.

So that's why there seemed to be a bit of festive South Beach atmosphere at Homestead.

After a bitter 12-year internecine squabble between the IRL and the Champ Car World Series was finally declared a no-win situation for either side _ with the future economic viability of the sport looking grim if both sides remained at odds _ Tony George, IRL founder and CEO, and Kevin Kalkhoven, Champ Car co-owner, settled their differences, hugged it out, and signed on the dotted line of a truce that unified open-wheel racing, once and for all.

Which was why The Exhaust Circuit found it a bit odd that the IRL powers that be didn't seem to express some sentiment about the historic nature of this race, which was won by Scott Dixon, who finished ahead of runner-up Marco Andretti. Dixon's teammate, Dan Wheldon, a three-time winner of the IRL opener at Homestead, finished third.

Certainly, after working hard the last 30 days to bring about an accord with Champ Car, you would have expected to spot Tony George doing cartwheels up and down pit road at Homestead during Friday's first practice session, happily chanting all along the way, ``We're unified! We're unified! We're unified!''

But that was not the case. George remained completely subdued.

When asked to describe how meaningful it was for him to finally see the IRL stage its first ``unified'' practice session, and how meaningful it would be to see this momentous race go green, George replied, thusly: ``It was certainly gratifying. I was kind of envious of these guys. They've been down here watching them test this week. In the last month, especially the last two weeks, it seems like it's been two months, you know, waiting for the start of the season.

``I'm just really -- I couldn't get down here soon enough. I wanted to watch these teams come out and test. I haven't been around to really see any of them yet. I've said hello to a few people, but perhaps [Saturday] morning I'll get a chance to visit a little bit.''

OK then, perhaps, they would observe the moment during pre-race ceremonies, with a bit of pomp and circumstance that would be apropos for the REUNIFICATION OF OPEN-WHEEL RACING IN AMERICA.

Perhaps, the IRL would have Mari Hulman George, the matriarch of Indianapolis Motor Speedway who gives the most famous command in all of motorsports every year at the Indy 500, do the same for Saturday night's race.

Or, perhaps, the IRL would tab car owners Roger Penske and Paul Newman, who came together and co-signed an open letter to former Indy 500 ticket-holders inviting them to come back to the fabled Brickyard in May, stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the flagstand and serve as co-honorary starters.

Seemed to make sense, no?

It did to everyone except the IRL officials who allowed the momentous occasion to pass by having the five-members of the rock band 3 Doors Down give the starting command and have race sponsor Gainsco to hold a promotion and randomly select Jaime Menendez, of Hollywood, Fla., as the honorary starter.

Somehow, it seemed, the REUNIFICATION OF OPEN-WHEEL RACING IN AMERICA was deserving of something much better.

But that's how it goes sometimes on The Exhaust Circuit.

There are plenty of reasons behind why NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Bristol Motor Speedway remain one of the toughest tickets in all of racing to acquire.

The 160,000-seat racing cathedral in the mountains of East Tennessee always provides some of the craziest action of the season and last Sunday was no exception. Just when it looked like Denny Hamlin was going to give Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota their second straight victory, his teammate Tony Stewart ends up the victim of a two-laps-to-go crash with Kevin Harvick. Forced to handle a green-white-checkered overtime session, Hamlin was foiled by a fuel pickup problem as the Richard Childress posse finished 1-2-3 with Jeff Burton going home with the checkers.

You could see the frustration on the faces of Hamlin, Stewart, Harvick and well, almost everybody else amongst those who played a role in the finish. On the other hand, you had Burton take a popular win. It's been known for some time that he's emerged as the voice of the garage and a fan favorite as well. While many partisans likely hated the fact that their favorite driver got upended in the final laps, chances are they don't hate that Burton won.

Such are the extremes in emotion that go with the outcome of a close race. But due to its very nature, Bristol always sees those contrasts amplify. Frustration ticks upward at Bristol. Jubilation, the same thing. It's one of the most unique shows in racing and one of the best. Bristol exemplifies the very aspects of the sport that allowed it to morph into a nationwide phenomenon and a tradition for untold numbers of families across the South. Again, there's a reason why that even though it's 160,000-seats strong, Bristol remains the toughest ticket in racing today.

Sunday was also a good day for three drivers in particular. Although 1999 Cup champion Dale Jarrett was forced to finish his final NASCAR points race in 37th, he still received a lot of well-deserved kudos on a fine career from his fellow drivers and from his father Ned, who waved the green flag to start his son's last points race.

I also have to give a thumbs-up to Dale Earnhardt, Inc.'s Aric Almirola, who certainly knocked off the rust in his first race since November 2007. Almirola, who began his substitute schedule of 12 events for normal No. 8 pilot Mark Martin last week, drove to an eighth-place run on a track that not many people would like to drive after such a long layoff.

Finally, a shout-out to Sam Hornish Jr., who managed to climb into the top 35 in owner's points with his 29th place effort at Bristol -- which locks him into the next Sprint Cup race in two weeks at Martinsville, Va. As ESPN.com's David Newton notes, that's not as thrilling as his Indy 500 win in 2006. But at least Hornish has the edge over his fellow open-wheel expatriates. Reigning IRL/Indy 500 champ Dario Franchitti is now part of the "go-or-go-home" crowd as he's in 39th on the owner's chart, while former Champ Car star Patrick Carpentier is 46th. Ouch.

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We're now ten days away from the start of the IndyCar Series season in Homestead, Fla., but plenty of teams and drivers are still getting in some last-minute testing before the season begins.

The transitioning teams coming over from the Champ Car World Series will take part in their first of two Open Tests starting today at Sebring International Raceway in Florida. Five teams were expected to take part in the two-day test session at the 1.7-mile road course, but Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing has announced that they won't be there due to a shortage of parts for its two new Dallara chassis.

NHLR and their drivers Graham Rahal and Justin Wilson are still expected to be at the Homestead-Miami Speedway test next week, which is also meant for the new IRL squads -- NHLR, HVM Racing (driver to be announced), KV Racing Technology (drivers Will Power and Oriol Servia), Dale Coyne Racing (drivers to be announced) and Conquest Racing (drivers Franck Perera and Enrique Bernoldi). Meanwhile, Target Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon and Team Penske driver Ryan Briscoe will also be doing some testing today. They'll be in Richmond, Va. putting in laps for Firestone.

Finally, word came yesterday that Michael Andretti's promotions group has signed a letter of intent to purchase the assets of the Toronto Grand Prix, which was canceled for 2008 after last month's unification of American open-wheel racing. Andretti Green Promotions, an offshoot of Andretti Green Racing, has some time to think about going through with the deal, but if they do, I think we can safely assume that one of Canada's biggest sporting events will be reborn in 2009 as an IndyCar Series race.

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I didn't watch Sunday's Formula One season opener at Melbourne, Australia, which was won by Lewis Hamilton of McLaren. But after reading about Sebastien Bourdais' stellar debut on Sunday, I certainly wish I had decided to get out of bed in the early morning and watch the show.

Bourdais, whose four straight Champ Car titles finally got him his long-overdue shot at F1 this year with Scuderia Toro Rosso, roared from the 17th starting position and was running in fourth position when his engine blew up just two laps from the finish.

His finish has STR boss Gerhard Berger saying that the Frenchman has proven himself worthy of F1, but Bourdais had proven that to plenty of American fans long before Sunday. He was an absolute terror in the Champ Cars and was in a class by himself. I'm tempted to trot out an analogy involving Tiger Woods here. That's how good Bourdais was in his five-year American racing career. He deserved to be in F1 much sooner than 2008.

The Edmonton Journal's Dan Barnes saw Bourdais' march through the field in Melbourne as a victory and a "rude awakening" for the smug elitists that rule Formula One. While I'm pretty sure most F1 owners/bosses can spot true driving talent quicker than most people, I agree with Barnes' assertion that everybody who didn't snap up this guy sooner were basically made to look like fools on Sunday.

I'll be sure to watch this week's Grand Prix in Malaysia. Having a chance to see Bourdais work his magic again is worth staying up late (Sun., 2:30 a.m., SPEED) and brewing some coffee for the race.

(Note: I apologize for the erratic schedule for my posts. But when I finally get home from covering late games and doubleheaders for the MIAA state tournament -- like I have been doing for the past couple of weeks -- the thing I need to see is a bed and not another computer. Still, I'll try to do better in sticking to once-a-week posts in the future. -- CE)

Today, I got up at 7 a.m. to the sounds of WBUR, which is the norm whenever I crash at my girlfriend's apartment. Pulling some fresh clothes out of my backpack, I got dressed and left the apartment. Grabbing the 39 bus back to Northeastern, I brushed my teeth and took two T trains to the Globe. I also tucked into a couple bowls of Cheerios from the cafeteria and went about the normal morning tasks: getting mail, filling the archives, etc.

Why do I share this, my normal morning routine, with you?

Because it's been 15 or 16 hours since Toyota, the Japanese auto manufacturer and the supposed scourge of those who believe in an All-American NASCAR, won its first Sprint Cup Series race in Hampton, Ga.

And somehow, someway, the world is still standing. People are still doing their normal 9-to-5 jobs. Nothing has fallen off its axis. Well, except the anti-Toyota brigade, who probably fell flat on their backs after Kyle Busch took the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry to Victory Lane at Atlanta Motor Speedway yesterday.

In a race that saw Carl Edwards' bid for three straight wins fall to engine failure and Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. ripping into Goodyear for their apparently dodgy tire, Busch's victory will go down in the history books. But while his win will be remembered as the first NASCAR victory for a foreign car brand since 1954 (Al Linden in a Jaguar at Linden, N.J.), it should also be noted as a comeback of sorts for his car, the No. 18.

It wasn't too long ago that the No. 18, driven by Bobby Labonte from 1995 to 2005, was a true contender. He won the 2000 Sprint Cup (then Winston Cup) title in that car and he also won six victories at Atlanta Motor Speedway in that green Interstate Batteries machine. As a young Dale Earnhardt fan in the late 1990s, I'd cringe a little when the NASCAR circus headed to Atlanta, because at that time, the track was Labonte territory.

If anybody was going to win there -- Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, anybody -- they were going to have to dust the No. 18 to do it. At that time, they couldn't.

So while the "I hate Toyota" legion will probably be crying tears in their beers all day today, I'll look back on Kyle Busch's win on Sunday with a bit of schadenfreude and some nostalgia.

In a world that's still standing. In a world that's still normal.

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In the past two weeks, the IndyCar Series regulars have taken part in Open Tests on the Homestead Miami Speedway oval and the Sebring International Raceway road course in Florida. The usual suspects -- Team Penske, Andretti Green Racing and Target Chip Ganassi Racing -- were on top in both tests and look to be the teams to beat again this season.

The oval tests saw three-time defending Homestead champion Dan Wheldon lead the first day, while AGR's Danica Patrick led the second day while dealing with a flu bug that knocked her out of the previous day's events (teammate Marco Andretti had to shake down her No. 7 machine in her absence). The series then moved to Sebring last week for four days of testing on a 1.7-mile, modified version of the track.

The teams were split into two groups and each group got two days of track time. Group 1 saw AGR's Tony Kanaan take the top spot in both days, a feat that saw Kanaan take P1 from new teammate Hideki Mutoh in the final minutes of Day 2. Days 3 and 4 saw the second group led by new Penske driver Ryan Briscoe, who takes over for NASCAR neophyte Sam Hornish Jr. in the No. 6 Dallara. Following him on both days was his teammate, two-time Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves.

As for the new teams coming over from the dearly departed Champ Car World Series, that count stands at three. Newman/Haas/Lanigan, KV Racing, and Conquest Racing will bring two cars apiece, making six new machines for the grid. But a pair of teams that were expected to go over to the unified series will not be there.

Forsythe Championship Racing will close down after the Long Beach Grand Prix in April, which will be run under IRL sanction but use Champ Car equipment in a "farewell party" of sorts. And just this weekend, Derrick Walker announced that his squad, which has run under the Team Australia banner for several years in the CCWS, will be shutting down immediately.

But how's this for a possible kicker? Apparently, the hot rumor is that Craig Gore, Walker's former partner in the Team Australia project, is now gonna move over to KV Racing -- which is led by fellow Aussie and former Champ Car series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven. And there's supposedly a bill of $1.5 million that Gore needs to pay to Walker.

With Walker's closedown, his drivers Will Power and Simon Pagenaud are free agents -- and if The Indianapolis Star's telling the truth, Power's set to go to KV. Connect the dots and it looks like Kalkhoven has effectively jacked Walker of his sponsor and his top pilot.

In any case, that sticks the IndyCar Series two cars short of the 8-10 cars they were expecting with unification. The rest of the CCWS teams -- Dale Coyne Racing, Rocketsports, Minardi Team USA and Pacific Coast Motorsports -- have been a bit silent lately. Could we see two more cars from that bunch soon?

We should know more when the Champ Car squads have their first Open Tests as IndyCar Series teams on March 18-20 at Sebring and March 24-25 at Homestead. The season begins March 29.

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Formula One finally gets its 2008 campaign under way this weekend in Melbourne, Australia. But while Melbourne has been the site of the F1 season-opener for many years, the city may not be in that position for much longer.

Melbourne's contract with F1 ends in 2010 and with Bernie Ecclestone putting heat on the Aussies to move their grand prix to a night-time start, it appears they'll be appeasing him -- and TV watchers throughout Europe -- by moving the start time to twilight in 2009. Bloomberg reports that it will cost almost $40 million to install a lighting system at Melbourne's Albert Park.

F1 will make its debut "under the stars" this year on Sept. 28 with the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix.

To borrow one of the catch phrases from ESPN's Stuart Scott, Gillian Zucker needs a hug.

Actually, everyone that works at California Speedway, er, Auto Club Speedway, could use a hug. Or better yet, a break. Because even though their Fontana, Calif.-based facility has never been a favorite of mine, last night's descent into weeper-driven madness is starting to make me wonder if the racing gods have it in for the two-mile oval. And I'm starting to feel for them.

In case you passed out last night, rain delayed the start of the Auto Club 500 for about two-and-a-half hours, and the race ended up having two water-assisted crashes in the first 21 laps -- the second one putting the race under a red flag for an hour and change. Sixty-six laps of green-flag racing ensued after that, but the rains came back.

When track officials were unable to dry out the speedway, NASCAR postponed the Sprint Cup race to 1 p.m. today (Ch. 25) and the Nationwide Series event to approx. 4 p.m. today (ESPN2). Their final announcement came around 2 a.m. ET.

No rain is expected in today's forecast, so expect the weepers -- tiny streams of water that seep through the seams between the asphalt track -- to be gone. But for Zucker, the Fontana track president, the troubles appear to be continuing.

Zucker has a thankless job. First and foremost, she's trying to sell auto racing in a market that can easily survive without her track's exploits. Not only that, as ESPN The Magazine's Ryan McGee points out, she has plenty more problems to deal with. What if Bruton Smith gets that second NASCAR Cup date he craves for his Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a place that isn't too far from California and a place he has poured obscene amounts of cash into?

But to me, I think there's also some supernatural forces at play. Traditionalists are still honked off at how California's second Cup date came to be. In 2004, the Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C., one of the cornerstone events of the sport, was seemingly sacrificed in the name of progress and moved to the Fontana track, leaving the "Lady in Black" with just one Cup event in May. Since then, California's once-solid attendance in its one-race days has plummeted while its reputation for a lack of side-by-side racing has remained intact.

Yesterday's events just continued the wave of bad hits this track has taken. And considering that this incident stands as the most freakish of the lot (witness the near-unison opinion among the drivers that NASCAR started the race too early), I'm starting to think that the racing gods may be taking overdue revenge for what they and a lot of flesh-and-blood stock car fans see as a crime against tradition.

UPDATE (3:15 p.m.): Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards has won the Auto Club 500 in Fontana, Calif. under caution after Dale Jarrett wrecked on the final lap. Edwards made the race-winning pass with 14 laps to go, when he chased down and got by second-place finisher Jimmie Johnson. Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top five.

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Two days after signing an agreement in principle to unify American open-wheel racing for the 2008 season, Indy Racing League founder Tony George and Champ Car co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven were complimentary of one another in an interview last night on SPEED Channel's motorsports talk show, "Wind Tunnel."

George, who was interviewed from Florida, and Kalkhoven, who was in California, took questions from both co-hosts Dave Despain and Robin Miller, as well as a couple of e-mail and call-in questions from fans. While there weren't many new developments that were revealed in the interview, it appears that based on George's comments, he has all but decided to go with running both the Long Beach Grand Prix and the Indy Japan 300 under IRL sanction on the Apr. 19-20 weekend.

“The whole thing with this thing coming together now is that it’s coming very late and it’s not going to be, you know, a utopia," George said. "We are definitely looking at splitting the weekend between Japan and Long Beach and we’re gonna do our best to put on a world-class event in both locations. But it’s gonna be tough and those are things we’re gonna start working on."

As for the matter of which Champ Car teams will be making the switch to IndyCar, representatives from several CC squads are expected to take part in an IRL orientation meeting today at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

But Kalkhoven said he wasn't sure which ones were actually going to move.

"I know of a few teams that have committed to do it, and I know some others who are seriously considering it," he said. "They’ve got issues with their drivers whom they’ve contracted who are gonna run road courses, so there are some things to go through. But overall, we’ll say the mood is positive and I believe that there really is goodwill to try and get this thing done.”

Despain asked him if his own PKV Racing team was going to be one of the new squads, but Kalkhoven artfully dodged the question.

“I think we have to wait until [the press conference] on Wednesday," he said.

The IRL will undergo an Open Test this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, then move to Sebring International Raceway for a second Open Test in the first week of March. New teams will have the opportunity to test at both tracks as well during March. The season begins at Homestead on March 29.

UPDATE (2:51 p.m.): The first new team to join the unified IndyCar Series has surfaced. Conquest Racing, which has raced in Champ Car for five years and last raced in the IRL in 2002, will bring two cars to Homestead. One of them will be piloted by Franck Perera, a Frenchman that won last year's Rookie of the Year title in the Champ Car Atlantics division. A second driver will be announced at a later date.

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The final pre-season test of the Formula One season is underway in Barcelona and it's been kicked off in grand style with retired superstar Michael Schumacher taking a spin in Ferrari's 2008 challenger. All teams save for Super Aguri will take part in the three-day test at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Barcelona test was also deemed the perfect time for Force India to unleash its VJM01 machine onto the track for the first time. Force India is the new team that has risen from the ashes of last year's Spyker squad under the management of Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya.

The Indy Racing League today issued a release saying that the owners of Champ Car and the IRL had completed an agreement in principle in Indianapolis that will unify the sport for 2008.

Gerald Forsythe, co-owner of Champ Car, signed an agreement in principle in Chicago, joining his partner Kevin Kalkhoven and Indy Racing League founder and CEO Tony George who had signed late Thursday in Indianapolis.

Details of a press conference about the agreement will be forthcoming.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- Helloooo, Newman.

Ryan Newman won the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500 Sunday night in a stirring fight to the finish over Penske teammate Kurt Busch giving car owner Roger Penske, dominant at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with 14 wins, his first restrictor-plate triumph in NASCAR's season-opening race.

After Casey Mears brought out the race's final caution with five to go, Newman surged to the lead ahead of race leader Tony Stewart going into Turn 3 of the final lap. With drafting support from his teammate Busch, Newman got a huge push and went into the lead and never surrendered it as he snapped a three-year drought that dated back to a Sept. 9, 2005, triumph at Loudon, New Hampshire.

``Kurt Busch and Penske Racing, without Kurt it wouldn't have been possible,'' said Newman, a native of South Bend, Ind., whose previous best finish in the Daytona was a third in 2006. ``He could've made it three-wide, but he didn't. These guys on the team deserve it for sure, but I couldn't have done it without Kurt Busch. Tony tried to block me hard and he thought he had help from Kyle, but Kurt really helped me out.''

Stewart, who had promised the media the opportunity to snip locks of his shaggy hair if he won the race, wound up finishing third in his No. 20 Toyota after leading with one to go.

``I thought we were going to have a fun haircutting party here with you guys,'' Stewart said. ``It's just hard to explain. It's one of the most disappointing moments in my race career. But I just want to take a second and congratulate Ryan Newman, a fellow Indiana boy. I'm happy for Ryan. He's a great guy and a good friend and he deserved it.''

The Top 10 at the finish:
1. Ryan Newman
2. Kurt Busch
3. Tony Stewart
4. Kyle Busch
5. Reed Sorenson
6. Elliott Sadler
7. Kasey Kahne
8. Robby Gordon
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
10. Greg Biffle

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- Roush Fenway Racing saw two of its cars drop off the pace on Lap 161 when David Ragan's No. 6 car got loose and side-swiped the No. 17 car of teammate Matt Kenseth, shoving it against the wall as the field came steaming out of Turn 4.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. stayed out when the field pitted under caution and picked up valuable track position, inheriting the lead from Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle.

Jeff Gordon re-emerged from the garage and rejoined the fray, 10 laps down, when racing resumed on Lap 165.

We're 34 laps from the finish. We'll get back to you then.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- There's 50 laps to go in the Daytona 500. We're under caution for the second time in the race for debris. Kyle Busch was listed as the leader while Clint Bowyer, who crossed the finish line of last year's race on his roof and his car on fire, was listed in the second position.

Until, that is, the field pitted under caution, reshuffling the leaderboard.

Michael Waltrip committed a big mistake when he came steaming into pit road, sliding through his pit stall.

Denny Hamlin had an extended stay in the pits to have body work done on a his left rear quarter panel which had peeled back and needed to be smoothed down, per NASCAR's orders.

Jeff Gordon was forced to take his car behind the wall for extensive work to repair a bent control arm, dropping him to 33d.

Roush Fenway Racing driver Greg Biffle was listed as the leader when the race restarted on Lap 155.

The running order: 1. Biffle; 2. Kyle Busch, 3. Tony Stewart, 4. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 5. Matt Kenseth.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- Kyle Busch, twice a runner-up in Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series opener and in Saturday's Nationwide Series opener, crossed the start-finish line in first at the midway point (100 laps) of the 50th Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.

The last time the leader at the halfway point went on to win the race was Davey Allison in 1992.

The running order with 102 laps complete:

1. Kyle Busch. 2. Ryan Newman, 3. Greg Biffle, 4. Denny Hamlin, 5. Jeff Gordon.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- We're 81 laps into the 50th Daytona 500. The race, which went without caution for the first 79 laps, slowed from its 182-m.p.h. pace when the race's first caution (for debris) on Lap 80.

The running order: 1. Reed Sorenson (who stayed out and didn't pit); 2. Kurt Busch, 3. Kyle Busch, 4. Jeff Gordon; 5. Denny Hamlin.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- The 50th Daytona 500 is underway. We're green, green, green!

There were four different leaders through the first six laps: Michael Waltrip (Laps 1-2), Jimmie Johnson (Lap 3), Denny Hamlin (Laps 4-5) and Tony Stewart (Lap 6).

With 31 laps complete, we've settled into a bit of a smooth rhythm. Denny Hamlin is leading the pack right now. So far there's been seven lead changes among five different drivers.

We'll try to get back to you with updates at the 100-mile intervals.

The running order: 1. Denny Hamlin, 2. Jeff Gordon, 3. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 4. Jimmie Johnson, 5. Kyle Busch.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- One of the neat things about being here for the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500 is all the former winners who have made a stop on The Exhaust Cirucit.

It was great to visit with Marvin Panch, who, at 81, remains the oldest living winner of the Daytona 500.

Panch, who, much to the chagrin of the bigwigs at Pontiac, won the 1961 Daytona 500 in a year-old Pontiac that was rotting away in Smokey Yunick's famed garage here at Daytona.

His earnings? ``When I won here it paid $21,050 and I had a 40 percent deal to drive for Smokey,'' Marvin said. (We're on a first-name basis with Marvin here at The Exhaust Circuit).

``After the race, Smokey said, `Anybody good enough to win the race is worth 50 percent,' '' Marvin recalled. ``But I'm very jealous. They make money now.''

So much so, they now pay 20 times what Marvin earned -- to finish last.

Then there was Pete Hamilton, the 1970 winner of the Daytona 500. Pete (We're on a first-name basis with him, too) holds a special place in The Exhaust Circuit as the only winner to hail from Massachusetts, Pete being a Needham boy, and all.

``For me, it's the place where I had the biggest race win that I ever had while driving Richard Petty's car here in 1970.''

We first met Pete last summer when the Speedway held a reunion of the 24 living winners of the Daytona 500. The one man who was not present then was Cale Yarborough.

We got to meet him Friday. What a gas that was for The Exhaust Circuit.

Still trim and fit and looking very spry for his age (he'll be 69 in March) , Cale was the one guy among the inactive 500 winners who looked like he could still climb behind the wheel and give these young whipper-snappers an honest-to-goodness thumpin'.

We're talking about a man who once played halfback on his high school football team, but first had to milk the cows before school, then plow the field after football practice, before working on his race car. Who knows what kind of ride football might've taken Cale on if he had not eschewed a football scholarship to Clemson University to pursuit a career in racing.

Legendary Clemson coach Frank Howard was so incensed with Cale's decision, he threw him off the team but not before admonishing him the warning, ``Boy, you're gonna starve.''

Of course that was before Cale went on to become Cale Yarborough.

And if you crossed Cale on the track, then be prepared to catch a beatin'. Boy, wouldn't it be great to see him cuff around one of today's snot-nosed stars?

Ahh, but we digress.

Seeing Cale sitting next to Dale Earnhardt Jr. during a panel discussion Friday at the Speedway _``Cale meet Dale; Dale meet Cale'' _ got our wheels turning: ``Wouldn't it be great if someone like Junior put Cale in one of his Nationwide Series cars, as a one-off deal?''

Talk about NASCAR getting back to its roots. If 72-year-old James Hylton was capable of coming back for a run at Daytona last year, then Cale would certainly whip up the masses if he were invited back to do more than just serve as a grand marshal.

So it tempted us to pose the question to Cale: ``Would you get back in a car if someone like Junior offered a ride?''

Cale pursed his lips. His jaw tightened. Then a Cheshire's cat smile creased his face.

``I just might,'' he said, laughing. ``I just might.''

We can only hope on The Exhaust Circuit.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Inhale. Exhale. There now. Doesn't the warm Florida air feel better on the lungs?

Maybe not on The Exhaust Circuit.

While pondering whether the waters of Lake Lloyd were Shark-infested, we've spent the better part of Speedweeks 2008 hunched over a laptop -- sometimes till the wee hours of the morning -- trying to chronicle all the news that's fit to print. Or is that what they say at The Mother Ship in Times Square?

Ah, but we digress. Certainly, our attention this week has been focused on the phenomenon of Dale Earnhardt Jr.; Jimmie Johnson's pole victory and Michael Waltrip's improbable run to the outside pole; the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500; Mark Martin's quixotic bid for a win at Daytona; the Gatorade Duels, Todd Bodine's win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series opener; Toyota's impressive resurgence; and the wager that Toyota driver Tony Stewart made with the media after his win in Saturday's Nationwide Series opener, promising to allow media members to cut his shaggy locks of hair if he wins the Daytona 500.

A better wager would be if Marc Spiegel, the shaggy-haired PR rep for Toyota, stepped up and offered to have his locks coiffed by the members of the fourth estate. No dice. ``I have better hair,'' Spiegel said, shaking his locks like a some slinky-haired supermodel in a shampoo commercial.

Certainly, it was suggested by The Exhaust Circuit, Spiegel's 'do wasn't as high maintence as Stewart's. ``Actually, it's NO maintenence,'' Speigel reported, which was all the more reason for him to man up like his driver, Stewart.

The fact that he didn't seemed to suggest that the good folk at Toyota are expecting a return engagement to Victory Lane at Daytona after Denny Hamlin's victory Thursday in the second heat of the Gatorade Duels (which was Toyota's first ever in the Cup Series), Bodine's triumph in a Toyota Tundra in Friday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series opener, and Stewart's impressive gallop in Saturday's Nationwide Series opener.

Our antennae was raised Friday when none other than Lee White, senior vice president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development, USA, a man with a damn handsome head of (white) hair, uttered the following prediction about the race: ``I think from start to finish, with everyone figuring stuff out, the last 50 laps of this race on Sunday are going to be something to see and I think you're all going to be writing about history.''

Toyota's already staked its reputation on the outcome, so why not join Stewart and pony up a few locks of hair?

Ahh, but we digress on The Exhaust Circuit.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. _ The teamwork of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch helped propel Stewart and Toyota to Victory Lane in the Camping World 300, the Nationwide Series opener today at Daytona International Speedway.

Stewart, who started from the pole position, got timely drafting (and blocking) support from Busch in the last two laps of this 120-lap affair, which enabled Stewart to keep at bay the Chevrolet of third-place finisher Dale Earnhardt Jr.

``This Toyota was unreal,'' said Stewart, who surged past Busch for the lead with three to go. ``Kyle's car handled better than ours did, but ours went in a straight line faster. We worked with each other the whole race and we learned that from the Hendrick guys and it just shows that if you can get two guys working together it helps.''

Busch finished runner-up for the second time in as many races during Speedweeks after he finished runner-up to winner Todd Bodine in Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

``If I win tomorrow I'm the happiest man alive,'' Busch said. ``So I'm saving my win for [the Daytona 500].''

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Todd Bodine, the younger brother of 1986 Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine, won the season-opening NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race Friday night at Daytona International Speedway.

Bodine, driving the No. 30 Lumber Liquidators Toyota Tundra, held off a hard charge in the last 100 yards of this 100-lapper from runner-up Kyle Busch and from third-place finisher Johnny Benson.

Erin Crocker, of Wilbraham, Mass., was running 8th with one lap to go, but wound up finishing 14th.

``This is my 20th year coming to the Speedway,'' said Bodine, who was joined by his brother Geoff in his Victory Lane celebration. ``I spent three years as a crew member and 17 as a driver. I've finished second, third and crashed hard here a couple of times, but it took 17 years to get here.

``Geoff's been here before, and Brett deserved to be here, but I finally got here.''