by Darrell Waltrip

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If Johnson could have gotten to the outside of Harvick, it would have been big, but he couldn't make it. He had a plan, and it almost worked. Johnson was on a rail in the final segment. That No. 48 car at this racetrack... it doesn't matter what they do to the track, the cars, the fuel cells, the tires or anything else, he takes her to the front.

Johnson was smart. He backed off early so he could get a nice run off the corner. But he wasn't able to put a Linda Ronstadt on Harvick, a "Blue Bayou." Catching a car is one thing, passing it is a little bit different story, particularly when you're up on the wheel for $1 million.

The whole Richard Childress Racing bunch had power under the hood and good handling race cars, with Jeff Burton finishing 4th. Burton was impressive all night. With an injunction allowing him to put AT&T on the No. 31 car and his fourth all-star win and first since 1993, Richard Childress had a pretty nice weekend. After Harvick crossed the finish line, Childress asked, "You caught your breath yet? Good job, buddy. You're just the man."

It was a good weekend for Harvick, too, as Ron Hornaday won Friday night's Craftsman Truck race in a Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevy Silverado. I wonder if any of that information got passed along.

Mark Martin was Cool Hand Luke. He sat there and played it just right, getting track position by staying out after the first segment. Once he got track position, he kept it. If Harvick and Johnson had monkeyed around, Mr. Martin could have gone to victory lane. Do you think that he would have loved to go up there and take that million dollars away from Harvick after what happened at Daytona when Kevin beat him by inches in the Great American Race?

With three to go, they pretty much decided the finish. Nobody made any gains. Martin fell back, and Johnson couldn't pull a rabbit out of the Lowe's hat. He got a little tight off. Harvick's spotter Billy O'Dea told him to bite the steering wheel with 2 to go. Harvick was so good down in the corner, and his left-side tires were below the white line.

Cautions early and late

The cautions in the final segment played into the hands of Johnson, Tony Stewart, who finished 5th, and Matt Kenseth, who wound up 7th. It's a shame that Kenseth had a speeding penalty because he had a fast race car. By the time he got through the traffic, it was too little too late.

After all of the cautions in the Nextel Open, we settled into some green-flag racing until the start of the final segment of the all-star race. It was like a bad episode of Survivor. Just when you think this is goingn to be one of those boring all-star races, all-heck breaks loose.

Casey Mears ran over the top of Denny Hamlin. I'm not sure what that was all about, but Carl Edwards was a pit reporter, asking those hard questions. He's in the racer's fraternity, and when you're in that fraternity, you can ask those hard questions. He was great. I loved having him. Hamlin and the No. 11 team tried some things. That's another aspect of the all-star race. Do something different, and you might hit upon something. Or you might get hit upon.

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Busch clash

The Nextel All-Star Challenge is Kyle Busch's kind of race. He will hang it out, and it's checkers or wreckers for him. After he got into his brother Kurt and ended the night for both of them, I'd hate to be the referee in that family. That's what $1 million will make you do — no teammates, no deals, no friends and no brothers. It's no give and all take.

Kyle got his nose in there, and they were hooked together. With a little wobble, the No. 5 was out of control and just barely got in the back of the No. 2 car as they went into the corner. If Kyle had just been a little bit quicker than his brother, he would have been out of it. Kyle probably should have won four or five races this year, but things like this crash keep happening. You drive those final 20 laps with blinders. You don't care who's around you or what's going on. You're just going wide open.

It's a shame for both Kurt and Kyle because they had good cars that could have won the race. It was unfortunate that Kyle took them out of it.