From the Marbles

As promised, photos from the Edwards-Harvick fight this week. Now here's one for the family album:

Good rule of thumb: if your opponent's sunglasses are still perched atop his head, you're not trying hard enough.

After the jump, more fight photos. Captioning possibilities are endless!

And so we gear up for another fine weekend of racing. We begin with Friday night's Nationwide race. Your defending champion is Jeff Burton. Then come on back on Saturday for the Sprint Cup race. Sunday, we sit around and make fun of each other's drivers. It's a whole NASCAR fiesta this weekend!

Oh, and after the jump, another anti-Rusty Wallace piece. Poor Rusty. Ain't there any love for him around here?

Hey, it's Pit Chatter! Where we get the behind-the-scenes look at what's happening with our favorite drivers when they're not on camera!

Scene: Talladega, moments after the Big One II. Everyone has spun to a stop, and smoke drifts across the carcasses of wrecked cars.

Carl Edwards: Whew. Huh. That move didn't turn out quite so well, huh?

Voice from back seat: I should say not.

Carl Edwards: Who...?

[Kevin Harvick pops up from the back seat.]

Carl Edwards: Happy? What're you doing back there?

Kevin Harvick: Everything started spinning ... I got ejected from my seat ... and I ended up in the back seat of the 99 car! Wow, what a ride!

Carl Edwards: Gee, I'm sorry about that, Kevin. You okay?

Kevin Harvick: Couldn't be better. Brought back some good memories! I haven't been thrown around in a back seat like that since that time I dated that - hey, are our mikes still live?

Carl Edwards: Probably so. Hey, let's head on back to the garage and get us a couple ice cream sandwiches, what do you say?

Kevin Harvick: I'd say you've been reading my mi--

Voice in headphones: Edwards! Harvick!

Both simultaneously: Mike Helton!

Mike Helton: To the NASCAR trailer. Immediately.

One of the big stories this weekend was supposed to be the debut of Scott Speed, the open-wheel rock star who's going to out-Kyle Kyle. Check out this loving profile from the AP:

Clad in a gray skull cap, a white track jacket and oversized sunglasses, a large pendant stamped with the word “love” hanging around his neck, the 25-year-old former Formula One driver appears very much in his element. This is, after all, a guy who looks more like a visiting artist than a racecar driver, who signs his autograph as a pair of superimposed dollar signs, whose personal style runs the gamut from flamboyant to outrageous.

And it was going to be so good, until the rains came, wiping out qualifying and leaving Speed and the #84 car back on the hauler (above) until next weekend at Martinsville. Speed apparently learned from watching other open-wheelers flail at their first season in Sprint Cup, and has taken a much more deliberate path. It's one that's likely to pay off eventually, but is Speed ready to run with the big dogs yet?

“Not yet,” says Jeff Gordon. “I haven’t seen enough from Joey Logano either, and he’s won Nationwide races. Not taking anything away from those guys, but you’re asking me a question I can’t really answer until I see them in a Cup car in a race. Certainly guys like that have been very impressive in other series. I love the Truck Series, love to watch it. But to compete at the Cup level, you’ve got to run in the Nationwide Series consistently, and be competitive consistently in order to make enough of an impression that I think you’re going to be able to hold your own in the Cup Series.”

If Speed drives the way everyone expects him to, he could be NASCAR's next huge star. With a name like that, he's a can't-miss. So Martinsville is going to be one hell of a fun race to watch.

Kasey Kahne -- hey, remember him? -- comes up and asks Jimmie Johnson for an autograph, or something like that. What are they saying? I'm sure you know.

After the jump, Kurt Busch's crew is rather miffed.

The world revolves around Tony Stewart this week. ( ... nah. I'm gonna let that one pass.) Just a few days after his thrilling win -- NASCAR says it was a win, so who are you to say differently -- Smoke's Stewart-Haas racing team welcomed aboard the U.S. Army as a 22-race sponsor for Ryan Newman's No. 39 car in 2009.

The deal is for one year, with two more one-year options, standard operating procedure for a government entity that has to recalibrate its budget every year. Blah, blah, blah. My favorite part of the press conference announcing the agreement was this:

Major General Montague Winfield was on hand for the press conference and was asked if the Army had any concerns about the fact that Gene Haas, the owner of Haas Automation, is in jail for tax evasion. Winfield said he sees his partnership with Stewart-Haas Racing as a new beginning for the organization and said "The individual that deals with us is Tony Stewart."

First off, we still have a military official named "Montague Winfield"? Why is that guy not in charge of EVERYTHING? That's, like, old-school military cool! Second, do you think that reporter who asked that question was ordered to go through a Parris Island Full Metal Jacket-style boot camp? I hope so.

Newman is only sponsored for half the season, so Stewart's going to have to line up somebody else -- at least according to Stewart himself:

Newman: We're running a full season, right?
Stewart: Yeah.
Newman: Ok, whew!

My recommendation? Line up MoveOn.org or Air America or somebody completely opposite of the Army. Why not have total sponsor schizophrenia?

A smorgasbord of thoughts here all crammed together.

First off, LOLDrivers. Your thoughts? Yea or nay? I love 'em, but I imagine there are plenty who can't stand 'em. If there's demand, we'll run more, if not, we'll run 'em as we see fit. Which is seven times a day, minimum.

Next, make sure to go check out Margolis's account of his day flying with Jack Roush. Lucky bastard -- er, I mean, it's a well-written account of the life of a NASCAR owner. Good stuff.

And now I turn the site over to you guys for some mirth, merriment, and assorted innuendo and such. If you're one of those lurker types, speak up and say howdy. The Marbleheads are a welcoming bunch ... and if they're not, it's more photos like this one. The threat is in the air.

After the jump, a couple anti-Rusty Wallace workups. Seeya!

Breaking news out of Charlotte this afternoon, where apparently Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards, bored by the rain that's halted qualifying, passed the time by trying to beat the crap out of each other. Here's an eyewitness account:

The incident started in the garage beside Harvick's No. 33 Chevrolet when Edwards walked over from his area, located two spaces down, to talk to Harvick, witnesses said.

After heated words were exchanged, the witnesses said, Harvick appeared to turn away from Edwards, who then reached for Harvick's shoulder, as if to turn him back around. Harvick responded by shoving Edwards, who landed on the No. 33 Chevrolet, denting the right-front section of the hood.

People who saw the altercation, including the driver of Harvick's motorcoach, Jeff Smith, jumped in to separate Edwards and Harvick, the witnesses said. At one point, Smith had Edwards in a headlock, the witnesses said, but no punches were apparently exchanged between the drivers.

Headlock! Awesome! I hope Harvick leaped off the hood of his car and dropped an Atomic Elbow on Carl's head! Apparently some photos were taken of the incident, but they haven't hit the web yet. When they do, though, you know where to find 'em. (UPDATE: Here they are.)

Apparently the incident stemmed from last weekend's Big One II, when Edwards caused a monster pileup at the end of the race that took out Harvick. In television interviews afterward, Harvick called Edwards a "pansy." Edwards responded by leaving a note that read, "Kevin, Thanks for (expletive) me on TV - I was really trying to screw up everyone's day. Love, Carl."

Jeez, Carl. A note? Signed "Love, Carl"? Why didn't you just post to his friggin' Facebook page if you were going to go that route? Come on, man! You go and beat 29's tail, then stand on him like you've got a little Captain in you! Sheesh. Drivers today.

Now that NASCAR is on its second trip to most of its tracks, we're taking a look at what happened the last time we passed this way. This weekend, we return to Lowe's Motor Speedway. Here's what happened back in May at the Coca-Cola 600 ...

Kasey Kahne! Kasey Kahne! Say it with me, Kasey Kahne! After a big win at the All-Star race and another at the Coca-Cola 600, it certainly looked like Kasey was headed straight for a Kyle Busch challenge! Sitting in seventh place with only five races to go, he was a lock for the Chase, and then ...

... oh, right. Awkward.

Anyway, Tony Stewart was about to win -- no, I'm not going to run any more photos of Tony in the yellow suit; I think we've all had enough of that for the year -- when he blew a tire and Kasey put himself in position to win.

Kyle Busch placed well, and Matt Kenseth hauled himself up from 20th in the standings in what was the start of a run that would put him in the Chase. Overall, a solid but unspectacular race. We can expect that everybody's going to be going flat-out this weekend in an attempt to rein in Jimmie Johnson.

And Charlotte's historically given Johnson trouble. In 14 starts, he's only won five times and only nailed down a top-10 finish 11 times. That, to me, screams vulnerability!