That means, for the second straight season, NASCAR’s biggest star will be on the sidelines for the postseason.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

NASCAR revamped the entry qualifications for the Chase last year. Gone were the top 10 and anyone within 400 points of the leader; in came the flat, top-12-and-that’s-it rule.

The rule benefited no one more than Earnhardt (and more than a few speculated it was his absence that caused the rule change). A driver of his caliber is surely one of the top 12 in the series, no?

Not this year.

NASCAR must surely be disappointed that it’s brightest star will again be a non-factor for its championship.

It’s hard to see them changing the rules again. Junior will be at Hendrick next year and the expectations will be considerably higher. Missing the Chase would be a far greater disappointment than this year.

Plus, to revamp the rule a second time would essentially be admitting that they were tailoring the rules to Earnhardt. It wouldn’t be that much different than Notre Dame getting a big-name bowl berth just because it’s Notre Dame.

Hey, wait a sec…

• THE RUMBLINGS GROW LOUDER that Joe Gibbs Racing is headed off to Toyota. I would have sworn I saw an announcement for a JGR press conference next week in my inbox, but I can’t find it at the moment.

There are some serious questions about this switch, namely why.

Though Chevy hasn’t been the dominant force it was in the beginning of the year, they are still worlds away from Toyota, a first-year operation.

Toyota’s season has been nothing short of miserable. All of its top drivers have struggled to make races; the threat that the manufacturer outspend every other outfit and watch the success roll in has yet to materialize.

Consider that only one Toyota driver, Dave Blaney, is in the top 35 in points and guaranteed a spot in each race. Blaney, for what it’s worth, is 32nd.

The draw to JGR for Toyota is understandable. They need a top-level team with top-level drivers, and JGR has that.

The attraction from JGR is less understood. They’re a pretty solid No. 2 at Chevy, behind only Hendrick. Considering how loaded Chevy is, that’s a pretty lofty position.

When and if a press conference happens, we’ll be able to get a better grip on the whole thing. But for now, it seems like a very one-sided deal.

• UPDATE on the JGR situation: This missive, filed by AP writer Mike Harris this afternoon:

“While Joe Gibbs Racing officials remained mum Friday on the anticipated switch from Chevrolet to Toyota, Kyle Busch was more than happy to talk about it.

... “‘We were just always kept in the loop on what exactly was going to happen with that and, when they finally made their decision, they went ahead and called us,’ Busch said Friday at California Speedway, where he will race in Sunday’s Sharp Aquos 500 NASCAR Nextel Cup race.

“Asked what the call was about, he reiterated, “That they were going with Toyota.“‘

Thanks for that confirmation, Kyle!

(Photo by Darron Cummings/Associated Press)

5. Shane Hmiel. The former Busch Series and sometime-Cup driver was permanently suspended by NASCAR after failing his third drug test. While this list was mostly meant in jest, we really do hope Hmiel got the wake-up call he needed and has turned his life around in the year and a half since his suspension.

4. The AT&T logo. Jeff Burton is running a sponsor-less car these days, though AT&T has said it is still paying as if it were sponsoring the car. The ban is continuous, at least until the courts decide one way or another for the final time.

3. Sons of Confederate Veterans. NASCAR rarely says no to sponsorship unless 1) you compete against Nextel and 2) you plan to put a Confederate flag on a car. The Sons of Confederate Veterans planned to do just that years ago, and NASCAR said no.

2. Racing back to the yellow. This was an idea whose time had come back when the rule was instituted a few years ago. With the advent of computerized scoring — and the loops we hear so much about — it’s not that difficult a task to figure out who’s running where (though perhaps Robby Gordon might disagree). Cautions are thrown for a reason.

1. The Talladega 14. Fourteen fans were banned for life from Talladega Speedway, and all ISC tracks, for throwing debris onto the track after a win by Jeff Gordon. Good riddance.
*****

Well, what do you know. Last night, for the first time, I watched NASCAR in Primetime on ABC. Quite the production — and it just so happened to center on the spring race at Talladega.

They tailed Johnny Sauter and Tony Stewart to get their thoughts on racing there, talked to Humpy Wheeler about the history of the place, and trotted out fans of all ages, sizes and races to talk about how scary driving at Talladega is.

They followed a busload of fans making the trip from a small town in Michigan. Why, they even rented a hot tub to party with in the notorious Talladega infield. They showed women flashing and people of all sizes and races drinking up a storm.

“This is an adult party,” one woman said in a sit-down interview.

So, presumably, the drinking went on from Thursday to the green flag — and then some. And what came of all this imbibing?

Well, to watch the show, you’d think it was another innocuous win for Jeff Gordon. They didn’t bother mentioning the 14 banned fans or what got them banned in the first place.

Strangely, there’s no real link to the show on ABC’s Web site. I can’t imagine ABC News would have had any part in it, though it did seem to consider itself a documentary. ABC News has too fine a reputation to sully it by telling half the story.

I should know better. ABC has a vested interest in NASCAR — literally — so of course it’s going to play up the positives and play down the negatives. What’s their incentive to do differently?

Integrity, perhaps?

The fan reaction to Gordon’s win — which tied him with Dale Earnhardt — was almost as much a story as the race itself. There was fallout, and it was covered by all manner of news organizations.

So when you look back, how is that not part of the story?

We expect better than that from ABC and ESPN. We’ve been let down plenty in the past for having the gall of such high expectations, but that doesn’t mean we’ll change our standards.

Tell the whole story.

(Photo by Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)

So, if you find yourself in need of Z’s, perhaps this Sunday is the day to catch up. The series is back in California, a track that has a reputation for boring races.

With that as a backdrop, take a look at the story in Scene Daily. California Speedway President Gillian Zucker (at right, with Kevin Harvick) has hired event promoter Brian Bolthouse to get some buzz for this weekend’s race. That includes a pre-race party — Bolthouse says it will be like some of the Grammy parties he’s put together — that caters to celebs, rich folks and current and potential sponsors.
Perhaps it will work and put the race on the calendar for SoCal. But Zucker is in an unenviable position, serving two distinct fan bases, neither of which has sung her praises.
First, there’s the SoCal market.

Scene Daily paraphrases a scenario that has played out several times. People tell Zucker they’ve heard the race was coming and ask her when; then she’s forced to tell them it was last weekend.

NASCAR’s goal of penetration into the country’s largest markets has mostly been successful. But Southern California remains a challenge; and as the country’s No. 2 market, that’s a pretty significant problem. NASCAR competes with all the other entertainment options that SoCal has to offer — Angels, Dodgers, films in the region that makes them — and has yet to find a good foothold.

So it’s a laudable strategy to go after the big names and hope the masses will follow.

But Zucker faces an institutional problem that really isn’t her problem, and one that resonates with the more hardcore fan: The races at California just haven’t been that good.

Maybe that’s less of a problem for the SoCal market, which Zucker is correct in saying it’s still pretty immature. For the casual fan, and particularly those who can drop the money to attend Bolthouse’s shindig, the quality of racing might not matter.

It is, however, a problem for the rest of us who expect better. Zucker feels our wrath (or, perhaps even worse, our antipathy) because the product just isn’t that good, though that’s really not her fault. She has to deal with the fallout when she can’t sell out her tickets or can’t get good TV numbers or get a disinterested watch from those who do tune in — like those who employ the NASCAR Nap.
The product just isn’t that good; Zucker, of course, can’t come out and say that, but she must at least be aware that a lot people are saying just that (you could also make that argument for the larger NASCAR world, but that’s for another time).

So Zucker is tasked with prettying up something that isn’t very pretty, all while hearing the jeers — or not hearing a peep — from the people she’s supposed to put on a good show for.

It’s a thankless job. Best of luck to her succeeding.

• WE’LL LET THOSE WHO SAW the Bristol race debate how good it was, if it was any good at all.

Dustin Long surveys the net to find opinions; he found a couple positive, some neutral and a few negative. For what it’s worth, even the writer from NASCAR.com made an unfavorable comparison. (And the exact link to that post is being picky, but you can find it near the top of the page here.)

But Long gets the nod for the best line: “Nearly 100,000 seats haven’t been added in the past decade because fans want to visit the Tri-Cities.”

He went on to point out that it’s the action at Bristol and the ever-present possibility you’ll see a driver lose his cool that keeps (kept?) the fans coming back.

I don’t think the aspect of the race’s proximity to the start of the Chase has gotten enough due. With the top 12 drivers playing it conservative — and since it’s a good bet most of those drivers will be somewhere in the front of the pack at most any track — the racing suffers.

• WE’RE ANTICIPATING HAVING AN OFF DAY tomorrow, but we should be back on Thursday. We’ll start looking ahead to just what the Chase will look like.

(Photo courtesy of California Speedway)

There were some in the press box who wondered if it was the first NFL game to be ended early because of weather. Obviously, this happens in NASCAR and baseball far more frequently.

And that’s understandable on both fronts. Baseball requires a grip on objects that, in rain, could potentially be slippery. Me, personally, I wouldn’t want Mets closer and flamethrower Billy Wagner on the mound losing his grip and watching one of his 100-mph fastballs sail toward my head. (If we want to be truly honest about it, I’d be scared enough to stand in against him on a sunny day.)

NASCAR is a no-brainer. Their slick tires simply aren’t capable of handling adverse weather, and you’d literally be putting people’s lives on the line to race in the rain. Certainly, sports cars can and do race in inclement weather, but they’ve also got the proper tires, working headlights and windshield wipers.

Football and soccer are different. There’s nothing to grip in soccer. In football, the players are sufficiently padded enough that if they get hit by a strongly-thrown ball, it’s not going to bother them in the least.

So that’s why it was weird to sit there on Saturday night and have to wait out a delay. It wasn’t necessarily for the rain, but for all the lightning in the area.

In NASCAR and MLB, it’s more expected — the Cup series alone has had five races affected by weather already this year. Richmond, Dover and Darlington were all postponed by a day; Michigan was postponed by two days; and the first Pocono race ended early because of rain.

So that’s why it was weird to be sitting there, just waiting for something to happen. I’ve had that experience at RFK and Richmond and Pocono, but never in Landover.

At 11:55 p.m., Roger Goodell (as if he doesn’t have enough things to worry about at the moment) sent word that the game would be terminated. We found out in the press box about 10 minutes later; we had some inkling of the decision through common sense and through some clues on the field.

It didn’t seem logical to restart a preseason football game after midnight; with 11:38 left in the third quarter, it’s not hard to imagine the game ending around 2 a.m. Our collective sense after the second delay was that the game was over.

Our idea strengthened when we saw stadium personnel hustle onto the field and retrieve what was left from the sidelines. (Interestingly, both teams had a black war wagon of sorts. Obviously there weren’t any seats on the top, but it looked just like a smaller version of what you’d find in any NASCAR pit.) One observer saw someone on the field make a throat-cutting gesture, indicating the game had been called.

And not long after, word trickled down to us.

By the time I got home, it was really late and I didn’t much have the energy to watch any highlights.

My cohorts on sportsjournalists.com did report that the race was not compelling television. They said the new surface at Bristol allowed for two grooves, and some of the posters believed it took away drivers beating and banging into the low groove on a one-groove track.

I guess I’ll just have to take their word for it.

(Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press)

An adornment-free hood is usually reserved for the most under-funded of teams — and even that only happens in the Busch series. Even Morgan Shepherd, an also-ran for much of recent memory, had “Racing with Jesus” on his hood. Not a sponsorship, per se, but something.

This isn’t supposed to happen to guys like Burton and it’s sure not supposed to happen to teams like Childress.

But until all the litigation gets settled — and AT&T could push for that to happen quickly, since it can legitimately argue its efforts are being harmed — this could be Burton’s look for the near future. At the very least, it’s how he’ll look on Saturday night. (But if you’re going to not have an identifiable logo on your hood, I guess a base coat of bright, bright orange makes you stand out as much as possible.)

The Scene Daily story is a fascinating one, particularly when you’re reading the back-and-forth sniping between AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel and NASCAR’s Ramsey Poston.

Of course, they’re PR people and they’re doing their jobs. PR, as we know, is all about spin.

“NASCAR fans are not fans of litigation, and AT&T needs to do the right thing and honor the agreements that were made,” Poston said, according to the story.

Whew boy. Poston also managed to call Siegel a liar (Siegel and AT&T “have been dishonest,” Poston said) and vigorously dispute certain facts (“The decision to run the 31 car without a logo is RCR’s alone,” Poston said).

OK, Ramsey, take a break and take a breath. First off, the fans don’t care about litigation. It’s between you and AT&T; referencing the fans in a discussion that has zero to do with them is, well, kind of dishonest.

Secondly, I’d be willing to bet Siegel’s been just as “dishonest” as Poston. They’re only doing their jobs, right? They’re just spinning, right? Doesn’t spinning involve pushing one agenda over another? So, isn’t the suppression of the complete truth on some level dishonest? They may both be right, but that doesn’t mean they’re both truthful.

Lastly, the decision to go logo-less was “RCR’s alone” only in the strictest sense. NASCAR is trying to cover its own rear end, understandably. But to say that is just not being forthright about the whole situation. Yes, NASCAR had approved certain logos for use this weekend; but until the injunction, everyone had a logo. Now one car doesn’t. NASCAR had a hand in that. Period.

It’s possible — however fantastical — that a compromise could have been worked out. But this is NASCAR after all. Compromise is a four-letter word that gets drivers fined.

Burton seems to have more faith than I do.

“I’ve said all along that reasonable people can come to reasonable solutions and I’m still holding on to that. In order for that to work, people have to be willing to be reasonable,” he said on Friday. “Hopefully we can get there — we haven’t gotten there yet. I’m still holding on to the fact that we can come to a reasonable solution.”

But hey, we’re balanced here, so Siegel doesn’t escape scrutiny either.

“The situation we have been put in, not by the court, but by NASCAR, is just an absurd one,” Siegel said, according to the story.

OK, hang on a second. AT&T, and only AT&T put itself in litigation; it’s impossible not to expect that NASCAR won’t defend itself. It’s AT&T that put itself in this entire situation.

At any case, this is where we are. The courts will decide this, more likely sooner than later.

Until then, we’ll just let the PR people do what they do and try to figure what, and what not, to believe.

(Photo by Paul Sancya/Associated Press)