I mean what in the heck is going on in the world? This is 2008 not the 1700s, yet we have pirates hijacking ships in the ocean. It just shows how crazy the world is right now and how upside down everything is. It really makes me nervous and shakes my confidence. It just seems like the things you could always count on are starting to change or their livelihood comes into question.

I would hate to be a CEO of any company right now, NASCAR included. Obviously, nobody has a crystal ball and you have all these so-called experts like congressmen telling Detroit how to build cars. But that's not what this story is about.

If I were NASCAR and the teams, I would come together and pick one track as their official test facility. So for example let's say they all come together and choose Lowe's Motor Speedway and decide they can test there anytime they want. Well let's just use a little common sense here despite the fact that sometimes it doesn't look like anyone has any of that.

If there are 50 teams in the Charlotte area and if travel, per deim, hotel rooms, rental cars, plane fuel, etc could be eliminated and still have some testing, well that seems like a good solution. It would seem to be one of those blind obvious things. I mean they've got the track right there in everyone's backyard. It's a 1.5-mile track and the majority of the tracks on the circuit are 1.5-milers.

So why travel all over the country when you have that track laying right there waiting to be used?

[Read the rest of DW's latest column . . . ]