by Darrell Waltrip

Updated: October 4, 2007, 10:19 PM EST 249 comments

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Villeneuve is a great driver who has had a lot of success in other series, but it doesn't change the fact that he's never raced at Talladega Superspeedway. Plus, it's in the Car of Tomorrow during the Chase for the Nextel Cup. They're just throwing him to the wolves. Even Juan Pablo Montoya had to run ARCA races at Talladega and at Iowa Speedway before he got NASCAR's OK, and he and Jacques are in the same category.

It's a bad move on NASCAR's part. They put poor old Jacques in a box. If he has any problems at all or if anything happens to him, then he's going to look bad and so is NASCAR. I'm not sure why they determined that he was ready to run this weekend, but I'm sure it's based on his experience. He did test down there, and he ran a Craftsman Truck Series race at Las Vegas. I guess NASCAR saw enough to make them comfortable with their decision. But I question it now, and I hope there aren't more questions after Sunday's race.

Edwards didn't deserve penalty

While I agreed with NASCAR's calls during Sunday's Kansas race, I am still in disagreement with the call on the No. 99 car at Dover. Over 400 miles around Dover, you pound the right rear. There's a lot of banking. The track is rough, and you are laying on that right rear all the time. Carl Edwards is an old dirt track racer, and he lays on that right rear. The shock can get a little weak, and the spring can collapse a little bit.

Any number of things can happen. If that car was only low on the right rear quarterpanel, and the roof height and all the other heights were right, the team shouldn't have been penalized. If you're within any reasonable amount of tolerance, it's just normal wear and tear.

In the Chase, 25 points means a lot. You don't have time to gain them back. You've only got a few races to get it done. A 25-point penalty is devastating. It could cost Carl a shot at the Nextel Cup championship. I know you're saying to yourself, "DW, you said he was going to win both championships." I still think he can. But I also believe that the Cup championship is Jimmie Johnson's and Jeff Gordon's to lose. Granted, Clint Bowyer is hanging tough, and if he can maintain the consistency, he's got a shot by all means.

But look at Johnson. He came from a lap down and the back of the field at Kansas to get a 3rd-place finish. What makes him so good is his car is fast. It's always fast enough to overcome any problem that he and his team might have. And Gordon is consistent. He isn't going to get in trouble, and he is going to finish every race and accumulate a lot of points.

So Bowyer's got his work cut out for him to hang with those two cats. When we get to Homestead, it's going to come down probably between Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

Controversy continues

On Saturday at Kansas, Kyle Busch won the Busch race, and NASCAR deemed his intake manifold — which apparently they've been running for quite a while — illegal. I don't know about you, but I'd just like to see a weekend where somebody can win a race, go home and feel like there's no controversy involved.

I just get tired of it, week in and week out. It seems unnecessary to me. For a car to be found illegal after a race, there has to be some responsibility on everybody's part. That car had gone through tech and was approved. Everything was legal. Then, after the race, NASCAR decided something was wrong with it. I have a little bit of a problem with that decision.

Top 35 = franchising

A lot of people are talking about franchising now, and I was talking about franchising in 1995 when I owned my own team. It was a huge investment with all of my personal assets tied up in my race team. Like so many driver/owners before me, I knew that if things didn't go exactly right, I could have lost everything I had ever worked for. When you're a driver and an owner, all of your success in the sport can go right down the tubes.

On a number of occasions, I asked Bill France Jr. to consider franchising. It was right around the time when the CART-IRL split was going down. They were selling franchises, and I guess that had a lot to do with Mr. France not wanting any part of it. If you consider the way the top 35 is today, those cars are locked in, week in and week out. That's a huge advantage. We've already seen teams buying and selling cars and teams. The Ginn situation is a perfect example.

When you have a car locked into the top 35, it has a lot of value. It's NASCAR's way of having franchises but not calling it franchising. The top 35 are exempt every week. There are a lot of provisionals — 35 of them to be exact — not counting the champion's provisional. If you're in the top 35, you've got a provisional, or you can consider yourself one of the teams that has a franchise guaranteed to be in the race every week.

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Oh, by the way...

Folks, has anybody noticed that my Kentucky Wildcats are 5-1, and they're ranked 8th in the current coaches and AP polls? Has anybody noticed that? Their quarterback, Andre Woodson, is obviously a Heisman Trophy candidate. He's an incredible talent and a great kid. It's just fun to have a Kentucky Wildcat football team ranked in the top 10. Normally, we expect that out of the basketball team, so it's a pleasant surprise to see how well the football team is doing this year. I congratulate them, and I'm sure my neighbor not too far away down the street, Ashley Judd, is excited about it, too. So congratulations to the Big Blue and "Go Cats Go!"

Now that sounds like something you would say in Nashville.