After seven years of planning, NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow finally debuted last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, a debut that was a typical Bristol affair when you got beneath the hype surrounding the new machines. But you didn't have to dig deep to get what winner Kyle Busch felt about the Nextel Cup Series' new toy.

“I’m still not a very big fan of these things,” Busch said after he held off a charging Jeff Burton on the final lap to win the Food City 500. “I can’t stand to drive them. They suck.”

Considering personalities are at a premium among most NASCAR drivers these days, I found this to be absolutely hilarious and expected an itchy-trigger response from NASCAR, which has poured untold amounts of money and time into the project. That response hasn't come yet, thankfully. And it turns out that the younger Busch brother isn't the only one to feel the same way about the COT. But there's also a group that's willing to defend it.

Those who hoped for an equalized playing field were sorely disappointed as two Hendrick cars (Busch and Jeff Gordon), two Richard Childress Racing cars (Burton and Kevin Harvick) and a Roush-Fenway Racing (Greg Biffle) car made up the top five. But on the flip side, drivers gave the COT a thumbs-up when it came to safety, particularly Dale Jarrett after he got punted into the wall by Matt Kenseth early in the race.

But all in all, it really was just another race at Bristol, full of close-quarter racing, bent sheet metal, and bruised egos. The Car of Tomorrow will take some getting used to and it'll get tougher this weekend at the half-mile in Martinsville, Va. The flat, paper-clip shape of the track, plus the COT's truck-like handling (as in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series), will make for a hard challenge at every turn.

But the world has not ended. NASCAR's Daytona Beach headquarters hasn't been burned to the ground (I don’t think, anyway). And the best stock car drivers in the world will continue to learn about this newfangled Car of Tomorrow.

C'est la vie. Such is life.

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The IndyCar Series season opener on Saturday was a stinker in almost every sense of the word. Blame Dan Wheldon for that. In front of 35,000 fans at Homestead Miami Speedway, the 2005 Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series champ tore the field apart as his No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda beat teammate Scott Dixon to the checkered flag by more than six seconds. The Englishman led 179 of 200 laps under the lights and lapped all but five of the 20 cars in the field.

However, there were some people who were happy with the XM Satellite Radio Indy 300 besides TCGR. Ethanol officials were on hand at Saturday night's race, which was the first IndyCar Series event to have 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol fueling each car. It's also the first time a renewable resource has been used as fuel in motorsports.

The IndyCar Series' switch to ethanol has generated some decent press, including a recent segment on ABC World News Tonight. And it’s not the only one trying to help the planet. The American Le Mans Series is racing this year with alternative fuels from clean diesel to E10 ethanol-enriched gasoline. NASCAR is behind the curve, having only recently switched from leaded to unleaded fuel. But it's still an improvement, so I'll let you decide if they get proverbial cake.

I refer you to RACER Magazine's David Phillips' piece on his quest to find the "real" cars of tomorrow, which features his takes on all three series and their stances on going green. I'd be lying to you if this environmental and technological revolution in racing hasn't gotten me to be more aware about the world around us. I won't turn into Al Gore or anything, but for a race fan, it's something to keep an eye on.

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THE WEEK AHEAD:

NASCAR Nextel Cup -- Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway (.524-mile oval, 12 degrees banking), Martinsville, Va.; Sun., 1:30 p.m., Ch. 25.

NASCAR Busch Series -- Off week.

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series -- Kroger 250 at Martinsville; Sat., 3 p.m., Ch. 25.

IndyCar Series -- Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. (1.8-mile, 14-turn street course); Sun., 2:30 p.m., ESPN.

Indy Pro Series -- Miami 100 at Homestead Miami Speedway (1.5-mile oval); tape-delay broadcast; Today, 5 p.m., ESPN2.

Champ Car World Series -- Season opener April 8.

Formula One -- Off week.

The way some drivers and owners have talked about the Car of Tomorrow, you would think that a motorized monstrosity akin to Godzilla is about to be unleashed onto NASCAR Nation. The stock car chassis of the future finally makes its much-hyped debut this weekend at the Bristol Motor Speedway's Food City 500 (Sun., 1:30 p.m., Ch. 25) and despite extensive COT testing at the half-mile track over the winter, the machine remains a mystery to many wheelmen on the circuit. All those drivers know is that, to them, it's ugly, it's jacking up the cost of racing short-term, and it sure won't bring single-car outfits like Morgan-McClure Motorsports (No. 4 with driver Ward Burton) up to par with the mighty Hendricks and Roush-Fenways of the world.

To which I say: Be quiet and take your medicine.

We've known about the Car of Tomorrow for several years now and this date has been earmarked for some time. Yes, there are plenty of questions. How will the new rear wing and front bumper splitter hold up for 500 miles at a high-banked blender of a track that's known for twisted metal and short tempers? How will the boxy machine handle in traffic and in the draft? This race may very well go down as the most glorified test session that American motorsports will ever see. So why do I say be quiet and take your medicine?

Simple. To hear the NASCAR spinsters say it, these guys are "the world's best drivers." We all know that until NASCAR decides to throw in some more road courses -- at least one in the Chase for the Nextel Cup -- that this notion is debatable. They are the most popular drivers, but the best? I say, prove it. It's a new car with new tricks and secrets to discover, no different from when open-wheelers have tried stock cars and vice-versa. This COT project has been around for almost a decade, so prep time is not a problem. Don't tell me that the "world's best drivers" are scared of this, lest NASCAR wants another black eye after its Daytona cheat-fest.

I remember going to the doctor when I was a kid and I'd always take that nasty Robitussin and get my arm pricked by booster shots. Those are facts of life and we need to take these things to be healthy. But while the Car of Tomorrow's potential as NASCAR's future is still in doubt, it is now a fact of life and it can at least guarantee short-term health (i.e. a Nextel Cup title).

Open your mouth, NASCAR. Here comes the medicine. Hold your nose if you must.

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Sunday afternoon belongs to NASCAR, but Saturday night belongs to the IndyCar Series as it begin its 2007 campaign at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Those that will tune in to the XM Satellite Radio Indy 300 (Sat., 8 p.m., ESPN2) will be keen on seeing if the new year brings better competition than one year ago, when the Team Penske and Target Chip Ganassi Racing teams turned the championship battle into a two-team, four-car affair.

The Penske bunch of defending Indy 500/series champion Sam Hornish Jr. and two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves remained strong throughout winter testing at Homestead and on the Daytona International Speedway's road course. The TCGR team of '05 Indy 500/series champion Dan Wheldon and 2003 series champion Scott Dixon were also at the top of the charts. But the winter also revealed that Andretti-Green Racing has peeled itself off the canvas after a dismal 2006.

After dominating the series with titles from Tony Kanaan in 2004 and Wheldon in 2005, AGR suffered as its powerplant advantage from Honda became moot when the Japanese manufacturer became sole engine supplier to the series. Their only two wins in 2006 came on a road course (Marco Andretti at Sonoma, Calif.) and on a short oval (Tony Kanaan at Milwaukee), but Andretti, Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and newcomer Danica Patrick look poised to contend on the all-important superspeedways once again. The evolution of the 20-year-old Andretti into a championship contender and Patrick's quest for her first IndyCar victory will be major storylines; Kanaan and Franchitti are hungry veterans and they, too, will be forces.

Another team to keep an eye on is the Panther Racing group with drivers Vitor Meira and Kosuke Matsuura. After finishing fifth in the points last season with Meira as a single-car team with no primary sponsor, Panther has expanded to two cars. Meira now has Delphi sponsorship and Matsuura's familiar Panasonic colors now grace the team in a second machine. The big story, though, will be on Meira as he attempts to win his first race in 59 IndyCar starts. It's not for lack of trying. The man once called "the best kept secret in American motorsports" by noted open-wheel scribe Robin Miller has had seven second-place finishes in his career -- three of them came last year.

Dreyer and Reinbold Racing looks set to ascend in the standings with the addition of 2004 Indy 500 champ Buddy Rice and the full-time return of the IndyCar Series' first female star in Sarah Fisher after a two-year sojourn in the stock car world. Vision Racing, which improved tremendously in 2006, will expand to three cars this season for drivers Tomas Scheckter, Ed Carpenter and new guy A.J. Foyt IV, grandson of the four-time Indy 500 winner A.J. Foyt.

Foyt, a car owner in the series, will attempt to resurrect his mediocre operation in this, his 50th year of Indy-car racing. He has British pilot Darren Manning in his No. 14 machine this year, a combination that one Milwaukee reporter says "[goes] together like tea and Cheetos." Meanwhile, Boston College grad Jeff Simmons gets a mentor in 39-year-old veteran Scott Sharp at a two-car Rahal Letterman Racing group.

Joining the series in a part-time capacity beginning this weekend is Toronto racer Marty Roth and former IndyCar driver Alex Barron, who starts on Saturday for owner Greg Beck. There's also been reports that a third female driver, Venezuelan sports car pilot Milka Duno, will join the IndyCars later in the year, as will Davey Hamilton, who hasn't raced since 2001.

UPDATE: Duno announced this morning that she will contest 10 IndyCar Series races in 2007, starting with the Kansas City round in late April. Her schedule also includes the Indianapolis 500.

Because I was covering one of the Super 8 hockey games last Sunday in Lowell, I was only able to hear about that day's Nextel Cup event on SportsCenter the next morning. I really wasn't surprised at what transpired at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. A totally new track created a ton of wrecks. Some of the drivers lashed out at Goodyear and track GM Chris Powell some more. Jimmie Johnson won again, his third straight victory in Sin City. Nothing earth-shaking at all.

I couldn't help but notice, also, that one of the feel-good stories of the season was still alive. Mark Martin slipped through the mayhem and grabbed his second consecutive fifth-place finish at Vegas, and he's grabbed top-five finishes in the first three races of the season. It's made everyone in the paddock and in the media wonder if the Batesville, Ark. native will trade in his “part-time” deal with Ginn Racing for a full-season shot at his first Nextel Cup in 24 years of competition.

Martin has stated time and again that he is happy with his part-time 23-race schedule in the No. 01 Army Chevy. Last week, he told NASCAR.com's Joe Menzer: "I've said it before and I'll say it again -- at this point in my life, [the points race] just doesn't mean that much to me. But driving a great racecar does. And I want to tell you, that was a great racecar I drove [last Sunday]."

Something tells me though that he's thinking it about it more than he's letting on. Going back to the Menzer piece, he also says: "Here's the thing: I thought I was getting too old to do this stuff. And now I have found out that my car wasn't as sharp as it needed to be. It wasn't me. There's still some racing left in me. I really thought my ability was diminishing."

He can easily go back to the less hectic schedule of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and be an instant contender for wins like he was in 2006 (six victories in 14 CTS starts). However, I think that even though he's universally respected as one of the best drivers in NASCAR's modern era, that missing space in his mantle for the Nextel Cup will be too much for him to resist. He was already kept from being immortalized as a Daytona 500 champion by two one-hundredths of a second this year. Combine that with the stoutness of his team and his cars so far and it's a no-brainer. This may very well be his last shot at the Cup and I think he'll take it.

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While that matter is settled, motorsport's biggest soap opera begins anew in Australia this weekend as Formula One starts the 2007 season at Albert Park in Melbourne. With no Michael Schumacher around for the first time in many a moon, you would think that would set the stage for a massive title run by Spain's Fernando Alonso, the current two-time defending World Champion. He's jumped over to a McLaren squad revitalized by his presence, new sponsor Vodafone, and another potential superstar in rookie teammate Lewis Hamilton.

But Schumacher's former team in Ferrari is not ready to give up just yet. Finland's Kimi Raikkonen has jumped from McLaren himself to the red rockets alongside Felipe Massa of Brazil, who's actually been tipped by F1 kingpin Bernie Ecclestone as the man to beat (it's a bit of an honor in the series). Massa, Raikkonen, and the Scuderia were the fastest team throughout the winter testing sessions and they seem bent on showing that Herr Schumacher's domination was just as much Ferrari as it was him.

But what of defending World Champion constructor Renault? With Alonso defecting to the “Silver Arrows,” the team is now contesting the championship with new No. 1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella and longtime Renault prospect Heikki Kovalainen jumping into the second seat. Now awash in the orange and white of banking giant and new sponsor ING, the Renault gang looked like a solid No. 3 in testing. However, Kovalainen has said that a solid final winter test in Bahrain has his squad equal to McLaren and closer to Ferrari.

He also mentions the BMW team (formerly Sauber) as a team to watch out for. While that may be true as the season wears on, we're currently watching the Beamer bunch for other reasons. Their 2007 challenger has been plagued by technical problems this winter, the biggest being with their new seamless shift gearbox (for his part, team boss Mario Thiessen isn't worried about it). Also, look for some growing pains as the team switches from Michelin to Bridgestone tires. Still, teammates Robert Kubica, of Poland, and Germany's Nick Heidfeld have had impressive testing this winter and some are calling BMW as this year's breakthrough team.

As for the rest, Honda's in big trouble as its new '07 car is off the pace, making for a very unhappy driver in 2006 Hungarian GP winner Jenson Button. Williams, Toyota, Red Bull Racing, and Scuderia Toro Rosso (RBR's junior squad that employs American driver Scott Speed) will look for week-to-week progress and the lower reaches of the points. Rounding out the grid will be the backmarker Spyker and Super Aguri teams.

In every sport, there are those that fit the description of “larger than life,” people whose talents and charisma come together to make a combination that is memorable for years and years. Most of the time, those types are the on-field stars. But sometimes you find these characters behind the scenes and working the levers.

Such is the case with Bruton Smith, the billionaire owner of race tracks and car dealerships and Southern-fried firebrand. As the leader of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., he operates six of NASCAR's top tracks, including this week's stop on the Nextel Cup circuit, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. LVMS's 1.5-mile oval has been in existence since 1996 and while it hasn't always been the most exciting of race tracks, it had also been a perfectly good one with its modest 12 degrees of banking and smooth asphalt surface.

But here's the difference with Smith. In his eyes, perfectly good isn't good enough at all. As Tom Jensen of SPEEDTV.com writes, "His world is the American dream on human growth hormones -- bigger, louder, flashier and more bodacious than anyone else...At an age when most men care only about a favorite chair, staying regular and watching sitcoms, he’s still looking for the Next Big Thing, something brilliant and audacious to bring to NASCAR."

And so he has. In his quest to create the finest speedway in the world, Smith's gang pretty much erased the old track from existence and built a new one on the same spot. Twelve degrees in the turns? Now it's 20 at the peak of its progressive banks. The rest of the track? Replaced by a new surface that has created speeds near 189 miles per hour. The infield? Ripped to shreds save for one solitary building. Pit lane? Torn up and moved closer to the front stretch for the fans.

Las Vegas 2.0 now features a "neon garage" with a multi-level viewing area for the fans. According to the track's web site www.lvms.com, the diamond-shaped garage features team haulers on the outside and the fans on the inside as they look down from the roof onto the stalls for the cars and crews. A new media center is also ready to go and features corporate hospitality suites, a drivers' meeting area and a full-service spa for the drivers and their families. The bill for the facelift: A cool $300 million.

That's a pretty good chunk of Smith's net worth ($1.4 billion according to last year's list of Forbes' 400 Richest Americans), but if you look at his 160,000+ seat “racing stadium” at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, his Lone Star palace in Texas Motor Speedway (the second-biggest sporting facility in the country), and of course, his SMI flagship in Lowe's Motor Speedway (Charlotte, N.C.), you can't help but believe that $300 million is a mere pittance in the 79-year-old's mind. The bigger his fantasies become, the bigger the payoff is for the fans.

Yes, he's a little pompous. During the Nextel Cup media tour, he said that Europe would need a "mental enema" to cleanse its pro-road racing mentality before he'd think of building an oval track there. And he's not exactly politically correct. According to ESPN.com's Terry Blount, when asked about the possibility of building said track in Europe, Smith replied to the Frankfurt, Germany-based journalist: "Oh, I've been [to Frankfurt]. Not when the bombing was going on, but I've been there."

But being loud, bold, and brazen is Smith's trademark. It's in his personality and it's in his tracks. As the drivers attempt to handle the lightning-fast speeds with a smaller fuel tank (13 gallons) following January's wreck-fest of a test session at Vegas, all eyes will be on Smith as he prepares to roll the dice once again. Eyes from NASCAR. Eyes from Smith's speedway rival in International Speedway Corporation. Eyes from tracks trying to hang on to a race date. You think Smith would blow $300 million on Vegas for one Nextel Cup race a year? Please.

I can see it now. The 79-year-old with a Las Vegas showgirl on each arm and high rollers surrounding the table. And he's got the two red dice in his hands.

Sevens? Snake eyes? We'll find out this Sunday.

Teammates, rookie etiquette, and conventional wisdom be damned.

In the end, Juan Pablo Montoya, the former Formula One star turned NASCAR newcomer, would not be denied yesterday as he proved to NASCAR fans that he is indeed one of the greatest driving talents on the planet.

The 2007 TelCel Motorola 200 in Mexico City may go down as the stuff that legends are made of. Not that Montoya wasn't already a legend, what with his 1999 CART title, 2000 Indy 500 victory, and seven Formula One race wins. But after being placed 21st thanks to a fuel-hose gaffe, his electrifying charge from 16th to the win in the final 23 circuits -- a charge that was punctuated by his spinning out of teammate Scott Pruett for the lead with eight laps left -- may be his most amazing accomplishment so far.

Of course, he ticked off a lot of drivers on his way to the front. Pruett dubbed Montoya's move as "no good, low, nasty, dirty driving" after the race. ESPN.com's David Newton got several drivers griping about the Colombian driver, including Denny Hamlin and Boris Said alleging that Montoya jumped restarts and was allowed to get in the middle of the pack illegally after pitting under caution with 27 laps left.

But if you've followed Montoya throughout his career, this was simply another classic case of who he is. While this may go as blasphemy for some who dare not place these three drivers together, Montoya comes from a hallowed line of racetrack "black hats" like Dale Earnhardt and A.J. Foyt. They were people who took nothing from no one and did their own thing, regardless of logic, reasoning, or consequence. To these people, the risk they take pales in comparison to the reward waiting in Victory Lane. They don't wait for the right opportunity to make their moves -- they just plain make the opportunities. Whether they make them in a clean or controversial way is their choice.

Like his team owner Chip Ganassi said afterwards to ESPN.com's Terry Blount, "That was vintage Montoya. How can I be surprised?"

And you can bet your lucky stars that NASCAR and the folks running the Mexico City event are jubilant that Montoya made his opportunity yesterday. He's the cornerstone of NASCAR's plan to finally seize the Spanish-speaking Hispanic market and all the economic power it holds. He's also part of NASCAR's ongoing quest for globalization (see the other Busch Series event in Montreal this August). And if you don't think that Montoya's victory won't help raise publicity for the other Latino drivers racing in the NASCAR Mexico Corona Series -- a series that NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston has stated is "changing the motorsports landscape in Mexico from open wheel to stock car" -- then you're just not paying attention.

So while NASCAR decides whether to keep its Mexican Busch Series race in Mexico City or move to Monterrey in 2008, they realize that the dilemma is a good one to have. Yesterday's victory by Montoya, who became just the second non-American to win a NASCAR Busch Series race, about sealed NASCAR's fate as a viable motorsports entity south of the border and may have been the key that unlocks a whole new world for stock car racing. We have seen this sport grow by leaps and bounds recently. But something tells me we haven't seen anything yet.