by Darrell Waltrip

Darrell Waltrip: It's become very obvious that the marriage of Jack Roush and Robert Yates has produced a great engine program. With the new parts and pieces that NASCAR approved last year for the Ford engine and then the resources of those two guys, they have definitely come up with a very impressive package.

And I really like Roush's lineup of drivers. He has the right talent with Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin. If he can keep providing them with the kind of equipment we've seen the first two weeks of this season, everybody else is in big trouble.

Just about the time that you think the Chevrolet crowd is up to the task, we have a rash of engine failures. I'm sure everybody at Hendrick Motorsports will get to the bottom of it. Certainly, they had the power to win with Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Joe Nemechek coming on the way he did. Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers had the front row at California too so Hendrick has the power.

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Hendrick doesn't usually have massive horsepower failures. The only other time that I can recall that many problems on one day happened back at Talladega when they had a faulty bunch of parts. The challenge is to find and fix the problem, and if they do, the Chase for the Nextel Cup will come down to Roush vs. Hendrick.

I like Hendrick's lineup. I love Johnson. Gordon certainly has all it takes to win his fifth championship so it's going to be a great year on the track. It's going to be a great year in the booth. And I am so — what's the new word — I am so stoked that I don't know what to do. Oh, by the way, I guess that young guys get stoked and old guys get snookered.

I was a little bit disappointed with Dodge's performance. I thought the Dodge teams would really shine when they got to California because they built their new car with the new shorter spoiler. But it looks like they've got a little work to do. Some of their good cars crashed, but it's surprising that they didn't run better than they did. We'll have to wait and see after they get a race or two under their belt. Maybe they can tune on the Charger, and we'll see how they go at Las Vegas.