But over the past few months, some of that veneer has been stripped away.

In May, during its two weeks of high-profile NASCAR events, track president and general manager Humpy Wheeler called a news conference and said he was leaving the company. And, he said, it wasn't totally his idea.

Bruton Smith, the track's owner and one of its founders in 1960, said he and Wheeler had been discussing Wheeler's retirement for some time. Wheeler never said they hadn't talked about it, just that he and Smith had never agreed on the timing before it was presented to him as a done deal that he was out after the Coca-Cola 600.

As this all played out, it became clear that the widely held notion that Smith and Wheeler were peas in the old-race promoting pod was off base. While every team that works together as long as they had – more than 30 years – is bound to have differences of opinion, this apparently went way beyond that.

It has been reported that Wheeler first found out Smith planned to build a drag strip at Lowe's Motor Speedway when Wheeler read about it in the newspaper. Wheeler, at the time, had the title of chief operating officer of Speedway Motorsports Inc., the company that owns the Concord facility, so if that's true, you would think that qualifies as a significant breakdown in internal communication.

There's also a story going around about the shabby manner in which one long-time employee was treated when she was told her services no longer were required after Wheeler's departure. Even if 75percent of that is complete exaggeration, the people responsible for the portions that are true should be ashamed.

Then came another piece of news last week: Roger Slack, the vice president for events at LMS, is leaving as well, effective early next month.

Slack, a Wheeler protégé in his 11 years here, supervised events at The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway and would have been one of the point men to help run the inaugural Carolina Nationals at the zMAX Dragway @ Concord in September. But he'll be gone by then.

“I haven't been a very good grandson, uncle or son for a while,” Slack said when I talked to him Friday. “I have a 5-year-old nephew who I've seen three times. All four of my grandparents are still alive, and I don't see them as much as I should.”

Slack said he'll take six months to figure out what's next. When he's ready, he won't have trouble finding opportunities. He's one of the bright, younger minds in the business. That he's leaving, too, is disquieting.

Within the past year Lowe's Motor Speedway also lost Jerry Gappens. He's still with SMI, running New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but the experience and expertise he had in running the track here also have been subtracted from the LMS pool of institutional knowledge.

Let's be clear. Many capable people still work at Lowe's Motor Speedway. I have no doubt the $60million drag strip will be completed in plenty of time for the inaugural National Hot Rod Association event. The October NASCAR races and big events at The Dirt Track will come off, too. The job will get done.

But Marcus Smith, Bruton's son and the man named to take Wheeler's place as the leader of a track that's about to celebrate its 50th season, doesn't have the kind of net under him he could have had if Wheeler's departure had been handled differently.

That might make for a more entertaining circus, but is it a good way to run the show?

The motorcycle riders rolled into the Ballantyne Resort parking lots just before 6p.m. to complete the fifth day of this year's seven-day trip. They'll depart from the hotel this morning, have breakfast and then head south down Interstate 85, turning later toward the finish line Saturday in Savannah, Ga.

Before arriving, the riders spent part of the afternoon at the primary reason for the ride, the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

“Whenever we stop at camp, a lot of the guys ride in wearing glasses, but before long they're wearing sunglasses,” Petty said. “You can't go there and not be affected.”

One of Thursday's stories was about a little girl who saw her parents for the first time after spending a week at the camp near Level Cross. As she hugged them, the first thing she wanted to tell them about was riding a horse for the first time.

There was a brief ceremony at Thursday's arrival. Children from the Allegro Foundation performed, and the ride presented a $25,000 check to that organization.

Charlotte radio personality Robert Raiford, an annual ride participant, joked about being like a small child. “When you're little, you're not 4 you are 41/2,” he said. “I am not 80, I am 801/2.”

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory introduced legends Richard Petty and Dale Jarrett to the crowd. The problem was, it was Ned Jarrett and not his son, Dale.

“He just lost all of the votes in the Jarrett family,” Petty joked about McCrory, a candidate for governor of North Carolina.

Chick-Fil-A is the presenting sponsor for the ride and Dan Cathey, that company's CEO and the son of its founder, spoke to the crowd. But in the spirit of the ride, so did employees from two of the chain's N.C. restaurants. To raise money for the ride, the managers of those stores walked 22 miles from a store in Morganton to one in Hickory. They raised $1,800 in the process, and presented that money Thursday.

“On the first day this year, we had this little boy standing beside the road with a sign saying he had a donation,” Kyle Petty said. This year's ride started Saturday in Traverse City, Mich. “We pulled over and he had a Pringles can full of dimes, nickels and pennies. There wasn't a quarter in there.”

Petty counted the change that night at the hotel.

“It was $23.22, I think,” he said. “That's the story of this ride. We have great corporate sponsors and the riders pay a lot of money, but that's a cool part about it, too. And those people will never know just how far that $23.22 will go at camp.”

Briefly

Motor Racing Outreach is working with the Pajama Program to collect new pajamas for children's homes in the Charlotte area. Fans can contribute to the effort by bringing pajamas, in sizes for infants through teens, from 5:30 to 8:30p.m. Tuesday at the Smith Tower at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Casey Roderick won the legends pro division feature Tuesday at Lowe's Motor Speedway during the sixth round of the Summer Shootout series. Clay Hair won in masters, Cody Blackburn in semipro and Dylan Presnell in young lions.

Andy Mercer won the late model feature Saturday at Hickory Motor Speedway. This weekend, the historic track will host the Dwight Huffman Memorial, featuring 77 laps in honor of Huffman, a longtime late model team owner whose teams won more than 150 feature races. Tickets are $7 in honor of the number on Huffman's cars. Racing, of course, will begin at 7p.m.

Thursday was typical for the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America in that it was a really big day filled with a lot of small moments.

The motorcycle riders rolled into the Ballantyne Resort parking lots just before 6p.m. to complete the fifth day of this year's seven-day trip. They'll depart from the hotel this morning, have breakfast and then head south down Interstate 85, turning later toward the finish line Saturday in Savannah, Ga.

Before arriving, the riders spent part of the afternoon at the primary reason for the ride, the Victory Junction Gang Camp.

“Whenever we stop at camp, a lot of the guys ride in wearing glasses, but before long they're wearing sunglasses,” Petty said. “You can't go there and not be affected.”

One of Thursday's stories was about a little girl who saw her parents for the first time after spending a week at the camp near Level Cross. As she hugged them, the first thing she wanted to tell them about was riding a horse for the first time.

There was a brief ceremony at Thursday's arrival. Children from the Allegro Foundation performed, and the ride presented a $25,000 check to that organization.

Charlotte radio personality Robert Raiford, an annual ride participant, joked about being like a small child. “When you're little, you're not 4 you are 41/2,” he said. “I am not 80, I am 801/2.”

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory introduced legends Richard Petty and Dale Jarrett to the crowd. The problem was, it was Ned Jarrett and not his son, Dale.

“He just lost all of the votes in the Jarrett family,” Petty joked about McCrory, a candidate for governor of North Carolina.

Chick-Fil-A is the presenting sponsor for the ride and Dan Cathey, that company's CEO and the son of its founder, spoke to the crowd. But in the spirit of the ride, so did employees from two of the chain's N.C. restaurants. To raise money for the ride, the managers of those stores walked 22 miles from a store in Morganton to one in Hickory. They raised $1,800 in the process, and presented that money Thursday.

“On the first day this year, we had this little boy standing beside the road with a sign saying he had a donation,” Kyle Petty said. This year's ride started Saturday in Traverse City, Mich. “We pulled over and he had a Pringles can full of dimes, nickels and pennies. There wasn't a quarter in there.”

Petty counted the change that night at the hotel.

“It was $23.22, I think,” he said. “That's the story of this ride. We have great corporate sponsors and the riders pay a lot of money, but that's a cool part about it, too. And those people will never know just how far that $23.22 will go at camp.”

Briefly

Motor Racing Outreach is working with the Pajama Program to collect new pajamas for children's homes in the Charlotte area. Fans can contribute to the effort by bringing pajamas, in sizes for infants through teens, from 5:30 to 8:30p.m. Tuesday at the Smith Tower at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Casey Roderick won the legends pro division feature Tuesday at Lowe's Motor Speedway during the sixth round of the Summer Shootout series. Clay Hair won in masters, Cody Blackburn in semipro and Dylan Presnell in young lions.

Andy Mercer won the late model feature Saturday at Hickory Motor Speedway. This weekend, the historic track will host the Dwight Huffman Memorial, featuring 77 laps in honor of Huffman, a longtime late model team owner whose teams won more than 150 feature races. Tickets are $7 in honor of the number on Huffman's cars. Racing, of course, will begin at 7p.m.

Stewart's decision to become a driver/owner in NASCAR's top series is a bold step. The question, however, is whether that step will take him over the edge of a career cliff.

He has won 32 races in nine-plus seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing, with at least two victories each season. He's won two championships and has finished in the top 10 in more than 58percent of his series starts. Those are impressive numbers.

When he announces today at Chicagoland Speedway that he'll move next year to what's now Haas CNC Racing, apparently acquiring at least a 50percent ownership stake, he'll have another set of numbers staring at him.

Of the 2,192 races in Cup history, 456 have been won by a driver also listed as the owner of the car. That works out to about one in every five races.

But 250 of those driver/owner wins were by Lee Petty or Richard Petty for one of the sport's dominant franchises for two generations. Take the Petty Enterprises wins out and the driver/owner win percentage is 9.4percent – 206 wins in 2,192 races.

The last driver/owner to win a race was Ricky Rudd at Martinsville, Va., on Sept.27, 1998 – nearly 10 years ago. Since Richard Petty's final victory for his family's team, at what's now Lowe's Motor Speedway on Oct.9, 1983, a driver/owner has won only 22 of 787 races – 2.8percent.

Bill Elliott owned cars that ran 228 races and had no wins. Darrell Waltrip and Rudd each had six wins as a car owner, but they also wound up selling their teams at considerably less than they had invested. Robby Gordon and Michael Waltrip continue to look for a formula that leads to Victory Lane.

Stewart is 37, so he has another five to eight years of prime winning time ahead – if he chooses to drive that long. There is no questioning his talent as a driver, and his success as a businessman also cannot be discounted.

He runs successful U.S. Auto Club and World of Outlaws teams and has kept the legendary Eldora Speedway in Ohio running and relevant after buying it.

We don't know if Stewart can take Haas CNC Racing, a team that has had one top-five finish in 250 starts as a Cup team, and turn it into a winning operation.

We do know he can't do it alone. Stewart knows that, too, because in his tenure at JGR, he's seen first-hand that team's secret to success.

“I've modeled my USAC and World of Outlaws teams the same way they built their NASCAR team – I made it a point to find good people to run those programs,” he said.

“If I've learned anything from my time at Joe Gibbs Racing, it's that Joe Gibbs' saying of, ‘You win with people,' is incredibly true. They always surrounded me with not just good people, but great people. The results speak for themselves.”

Stewart already has a leg up on some recent driver/owners in that he has a lot of resources behind his move. Chevrolet played a major role in making this happen, and Stewart also will be buttressed by Hendrick Motorsports, which will supply engines and other support.

Even though The Home Depot is staying at Joe Gibbs Racing, sponsorship for the two cars Stewart will own won't be an issue, either.

Could his move mark a new beginning for NASCAR?

Frankly, it has been a puzzlement where the next generation of car owners might come from. Richard Childress made the move from driver to owner, and Dale Earnhardt also started a team that has won 24 Cup races.

With the cost of doing business what it is, could a Childress or a Jack Roush or a Rick Hendrick – all of whom built up from single-car teams with relatively humble roots – gain admission to ownership right now?

Perhaps Stewart can use his talent and fan appeal as leverage to clear the barriers to ownership. Perhaps he will change expectations for driver/owners the way he changed expectations for rookies when he won three times in 1999.

Today he takes a bold step toward finding out.

However you define it, one thing you see after watching NASCAR for a while is that when two drivers cross each other's paths it's sometimes hard for them to get apart again.

“Feuds” fester in racing because the same teams are on the track each week. If the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays get into a beanball war, it might be a month before they play again. But in racing, the rotten you-know-what who bumped you last week is out there again in the very next race.

Occasionally it runs deeper, though, than simply carrying a grudge from one week to the next. Sometimes it almost seems to be a karma thing.

Take, for instance, Tony Stewart.

Sure, he was frustrated last week when he got knocked out of a better finish than the 10th he wound up with when Kevin Harvick bumped Jamie McMurray and McMurray then bumped Stewart's No.20 Toyota off the track.

But the divergence of Stewart's luck path this year can be more directly traced to Darlington, where he and Elliott Sadler were involved in a Lap2 wreck. Two races later, at Dover, they both got into a big wreck on Lap17.

In the five races since Darlington, Stewart and Sadler each has an average finish that, when rounded off, comes to 22nd. More to the point, both have run far better than they've finished in most of those races.

While they haven't literally run into each other on the track since Dover, each has run into sometimes startlingly bad luck.

Stewart was leading at Charlotte with less than four laps to go when he had a flat tire. A pit road speeding penalty late at Pocono led to a 35th-place finish, and then there was the bump-up one week ago.

Going into Darlington, Stewart was 141 points ahead of 13th in the standings, but entering today's Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway he's only 18 points clear of the Chase cutoff.

“We've just not had any luck,” said Stewart, who starts 28th today. “It seems like the races that we do get ourselves in good position … toward the end something bad happens and we get out of that position.

“I think it's that way in every aspect of life. You have to have some luck on your side. … It seems like in this sport it always comes around. … It's just weathering the storm and waiting until it gets back on a high note again.”

If all things do even out, Sadler is due for a run of good fortune. He likely would have had a top-five finish at Infineon had he not had a tire go down just before the green-white-checkered finish. He faded to 19th.

“We've been running and qualifying really well, we just need some luck to change our way a bit,” Sadler said. “We're not hanging our heads. We're still building new cars and feel very confident about the next few races.”

Stewart and Sadler each also has a teammate that has done markedly better this year. Stewart hasn't won yet this season, but fellow Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch has won five times and leads the Cup standings. Sadler is winless and 25th in points, but Gillett Evernham Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne is ninth in points with two points wins and a victory in the all-star race over the past six weeks. Another Sadler teammate, rookie Patrick Carpentier, starts today's race from the pole.

Sadler has four career top-10 finishes at New Hampshire. Stewart has won here twice and has four finishes of third or better in his past six starts here.

“I wish it was that easy, that you could just pick which weeks you wanted to be good,” he said. “You try to be good every week. We have just been trying to find something that keeps the car balanced and gets us where everybody else is right now.”

Stewart's fans have been trying to help, too.

“I've got enough to fill the trunk up and the passenger side of the car with good luck trinkets,” he said. “…The hard part is that if you have another bad week it's trying to decipher which ones were the bad luck.”

Luck, of course, won't do it all. Stewart and Sadler know that ultimately they'll have to work their way out of whatever has been going on lately.

“We're starting to figure out what this car wants,” Sadler said, peering forward. “We just have to put together a whole uneventful race.”

There's steady business in "Boogity, Boogity, Boogity" gear these days, but Gomer Pyle Inc. could've sold T-shirts emblazoned with a more fitting slogan for what happened at Lowe's Motor Speedway over the past two weeks.

"Sur-PRISE, Sur-PRISE, Sur-PRISE!"

Two weeks ago, who would have believed that Kasey Kahne would be the sixth driver to win the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same year, hauling home $1,455,751 in the process?

Who would have believed the all-star race would be, by a considerable margin, the least controversial, least entertaining and least satisfying of the month's major races?

Who would have forecast that LMS President Humpy Wheeler would be cleaning out his desk, retiring after more than 30 years instead of thinking toward next year's historic 50th running of NASCAR's biggest race?

Kahne is no stranger to success here. He won both points races in 2006 but had not won since that October race. Coming into the two weeks of racing at LMS, he had one top-10 finish in his previous six races and wasn't even qualified for the all-star race.

"The cars aren't where they need to be to go fast," Kahne said May 16. "As far as winning races, we're a long, long way from there."

Not as far as it seemed.

A fan vote propelled him into the all-star race, and he won it. He backed that up by ending a drought in 52 points races with his eighth win Sunday night that boosted him two spots to 12th in the Sprint Cup standings.

"This is still a sport," said Ray Evernham, co-owner of Kahne's No. 9 Dodge at Gillett Evernham Motorsports. "You can have the machinery, you can have the computers, you can have all the technology you want, but the human element is still the biggest part of what we do.

"That little bit of confidence, that little bit of bounce in your step, that little bit of motivation, it maybe makes you look a little bit harder at something, makes you be a little bit more confident in a decision."

The human element was a guiding principle for Wheeler in staging larger-than-life events year after year after year at LMS.

Sunday had to be difficult for Wheeler, but he had a show to put on.

The tough day will be Wednesday, the retirement date set for him by track owner and Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman Bruton Smith.

For Wheeler, that's the last day Lowe's Motor Speedway will be "his" track.

What I hope, and what wouldn't "Sur-PRISE!" me one bit, is that when Wheeler walks away Wednesday, he has "that little bit of bounce" in his step Evernham was talking about. IN MY OPINION David

Poole

Neff drives a Funny Car in the National Hot Rod Association. John Force, his boss, is a 14-time champion in that division.

So when Neff faced off against his boss in the first "race" at zMAX Dragway @ Concord on Saturday, the prudent course of action might have been for Neff to come in a close second.

Instead, Neff got a hole shot -- a quicker start -- and stayed in front as he and Force raced super-sized dump trucks down part of the yet-to-be-completed strip.

Neff's acting crew chief for the race, Pro Stock driver Jeg Coughlin, said the key to Neff's advantage on the start was in who was waving the green flag.

"They had that zMAX girl starting the race and Force was busy looking at her," Coughlin said.

The atmosphere will be a little more serious when the racing starts for real across U.S. 29 from Lowe's Motor Speedway. That's scheduled to happen Sept. 11-14 at the Carolina Nationals.

"What's the budget for this place?" Force asked as he and fellow NHRA drivers toured the construction site.

Sixty million bucks, Force was told.

"Well, I'm impressed," he said. "What's Bruton (Smith) doing? He must be robbing 7-Elevens."

Force and Smith, the chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., have developed a friendship over the years.

Eight weeks after work began in earnest on the drag strip, grandstands to the drivers' left going down the track are almost up. When the slightly smaller stands on the opposite side are added, the place will seat about 30,000. With as many as 400 people working at a time, in six-day, 10-hour shifts, the project is on schedule.

"We deserve a stadium like this," Force said.

Of particular interest to drivers such as Force, Neff, Coughlin and Antron Brown, also on hand Saturday, are two facts about the facility. It will have four lanes for competition, and the entire quarter-mile trackwill be concrete.

There's a lot of talk in the drag racing world about how a four-lane facility can be used. One set of lanes could be prepped to optimize conditions for Top Fuel and Funny Cars, for instance, while the other pair could be prepared with Pro Stock and Pro Stock motorcycles in mind. Having two pairs of race-worthy lanes also could streamline the length of a day of competition.

Force, for one, can't wait to bring big-time drag racing to the heart of NASCAR's home base.

"We've always kind of joked that we're NASCAR's little brother," he said. "We need to get in here and see if we can steal some of that NASCAR cash." IN MY OPINION David

Poole

Friday, after a practice session for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race that did not go well, Kahne didn't have a lot to be upbeat about.

"I didn't feel like we were that good as far as what I was looking for in the car," he said. "That was some anger. I don't know. I just get frustrated. I get down.

"Sometimes when you're finishing 10th to 15th, you feel like you're battling the car a little bit more than everybody is battling the car these days, that you're further off than you think you are."

His Saturday started with the Sprint Showdown, a preliminary for drivers not qualified for the main event, and his fifth-place finish wasn't enough to advance. However, a fan vote put Kahne in the field, and he won the 24th running of the all-star race.

That pepped Kahne up.

"Winning tonight, I am already looking forward to next weekend's (Coca-Cola) 600," he said. "It gets me excited to come back to the track next week. It's good for myself and I know it's good for the team and the guys who work on the car.

"They need to win once in a while. They're putting in so much time, so many hours, and it pays off. We won a really big race tonight."

After fans gave Kahne the chance to race, he moved up from the 24th starting spot to seventh by the end of the third 25-lap segment. Team director Kenny Francis made the call to take no tires on the pit stop before the final 25 laps, and that got Kahne back on the track in second place.

The driver took it from there. Kahne, who became the first driver to win the all-star race in a Dodge, took the lead from Denny Hamlin -- who also chose not to take tires -- on Lap 84 and held on.

Greg Biffle, who easily won the third segment, thought the two-tire change his team did before the final trophy dash would be his ticket to victory. But Biffle finished second, with Matt Kenseth third.

"The longer the race went, the faster our car got," Kahne said. "It was like that until the last lap of the race. It was getting faster and faster."

Kahne won six races in 2006, including the Coca-Cola 600 and the Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway, but struggled through a winless season in 2007 as team owner Ray Evernham worked to sign George Gillett as a partner and struggled to redefine his role with the team he started.

"I kept saying, `We weren't that bad, we weren't that bad,' " Evernham said. "We just needed a little bit of momentum and a little something to hold onto and prove that we could do it.

"I think this was a really big night for Gillett Evernham Motorsports. People have to believe. I think the biggest thing we did is we're starting to believe that we can win again."

That notwithstanding, the events of a Saturday night that presented ideal racing weather and an encouragingly large all-star crowd were a lot better for the winning team than for the sport and its fans.

"When you get out front with this car, it's like magic," Kenseth said.

He's right about the value of track position and the clean air the leader gets, but unfortunately that magic consists of making passing all but disappear.

There were zero wrecks in a race hyped each year as a no-holds-barred battle for big bucks. Had there been one during the final 10 laps, perhaps the race would have provided a memorable finish.

Instead what's left for the week ahead are questions about how a race that's four times as long as the one Kahne won Saturday can be kept from being sleep-inducing. IN MY OPINION David

Poole

Today's Carolina 500, a race for the Automobile Racing Club of America series, will mark a new beginning for the track formerly know as North Carolina Speedway. It's the first race there since Andy Hillenburg bought the track from Speedway Motorsports Inc. last year.

It will be hard not to get caught up in nostalgia at Rockingham, where NASCAR's top series last raced in 2004. This was a great place to watch stock-car racing's top stars compete, but not enough people did that to keep it on the Cup schedule.

I have no idea what kind of crowd to expect for today's race. I hope, for the sake of Hillenburg and the people who've worked to make this day possible and for the people in Richmond County that the place is packed.

But even if it is, that doesn't mean Rockingham's rebirth is about returning to past glories. That ship has sailed.

What today is about is what Rockingham might be. It's a small miracle cars will compete there again. It's far more typical for a track that falls off the NASCAR map to get swallowed up than it is for one to start trying to make new memories.

If the new Rockingham is to continue to be a place where cars compete, it's going to be in the kind of new reality Hillenburg is trying to forge. Today's race is one of the biggest on this year's ARCA schedule. On Nov. 1, Rockingham is to host the final race on this year's USAR Hooters Pro Cup schedule.

Is it impossible to believe that, if everything goes wonderfully, a NASCAR Truck Series race might some day be part of Rockingham's schedule? No, but one almost hesitates to say that could happen for fear of setting it up as a false goal.

Today's race shouldn't be about what Rockingham used to be. It should be about what it could be.

That would be fitting with those who'll be competing today. Some of the most promising drivers in the sport will be in the field.

They'll be led to the green flag by the man many believe to be "The Next." Joey Logano won the pole Saturday with a lap at 146.645 mph, putting him alongside Ricky Stenhouse.

Logano will turn 18 on May 24 and after that will embark on a Nationwide Series schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing. There are people who believe the Gibbs team might not lose too much sleep should it lose Tony Stewart after this season or the next because it has Logano, preparing to step in. Logano is that highly regarded.

Stenhouse is no slouch, either. He's driving a Roush Fenway Racing car and is in that NASCAR team's developmental program.

Michael Annett, who will start fourth alongside Justin Lofton on Row 2, won the ARCA race at Daytona this year and is in the Bill Davis Racing developmental pipeline.

Matt Carter, who will start sixth, is leading the ARCA points standings and is the son of former NASCAR team owner Travis Carter. Austin Dillon, the grandson of Cup team owner Richard Childress, will start 10th. Former Formula One driver Scott Speed, who won the race at Kansas last week, will start 25th.

IN MY OPINION David

Poole