by Darrell Waltrip

Around the track

Follow the action:

• Chicagoland practice speeds
• Chicagoland schedule, entries

Watch:

• Video Central

Picture perfect:

• Earnhardt at Goodwood
• 2010 Hall of Fame nominees

Read all about it:

• Dale Jr. would consider racing Indy 500
• Eury Jr.: Split with Junior was needed
• Mayfield won't race at Chicagoland

Analysis:

• Hammond: Battle Royale
• Larry Mac: Midseason report cards

I have written a number of columns this past year where the teams have been begging NASCAR to let them work on this car and make it better. It is not a good car. The design is bad in the suspension area. The body is out of whack. It's out of balance aero-wise. It just takes a race like last Sunday to make it all pretty obvious.

Goodyear simply can't build a tire for this car because of the current weight distribution. It is heavy on the right side. If you make a tire that won't wear out, then it is too hard. If you make a tire that is too hard then the car won't handle. It is amusing to me that NASCAR now wants Goodyear to make wider tires. Yes, bigger tires and bigger wheels.

You know, we raced on 9.5-inch wheels with 10- and 11-inch tires forever. They have been adequate for everything they have been put on. But now, rather than fix the car, NASCAR wants Goodyear to fix the tires so that the car will handle better.

I'm sorry, but that is almost ludicrous. I say it all the time, folks, but once again it is the blind obvious. The car has got to have some work done to it or you are going to continue to have issues.

Sure, it's a safe car. It's a very safe car. We have seen that a number of times this year. But when you are out there in a car that is heavy, doesn't handle good and doesn't go through the corners very well, then sure, it is going to be a little safer than the old car.

The other thing I learned from Indy is that you'd better fix the tires and you'd better fix the car because there isn't anything wrong with the track. Tony George made that very clear. They raced the Indy cars there and didn't have a problem. We have raced there for 15 years and never had a problem of this magnitude until Sunday. So Tony George's opinion is that NASCAR and Goodyear should fix their cars and tires, because there is nothing wrong with his track.

It was also pretty obvious to me that you can have a big event, at a big track, with very little racing. Like I said earlier in the week, it's the place and not the race. The atmosphere, the history and the thrill of being at Indy is something that is still worth experiencing, even if you only have 10-lap exhibition races.

It is also pretty obvious that Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards are peaking at the right time. They are in Chase form. They are going to be the guys along with Junior, Kenseth and Jeff Gordon that can give Kyle Busch a run for his money. Kyle better get that Toyota tuned up because he is going to have to be as good as he has been all year to hold those guys off.

When you get into the Chase, the pressure changes everything. When you take somebody like Jimmie Johnson who is going for a three-peat, he's probably the guy you are going to have to beat if you want to win the championship.

Hey, remember last week when I told you that those long straightaways at Indy would show who had the steam under the hood? Well you saw who had the steam under the hood. That No. 48 car and the No. 99 set a pretty blistering pace. There was that one time when the No. 11 car got out front and he looked pretty good, too. Overall, there really wasn't anyone there that had anything for that No. 48 car. He definitely had a horsepower advantage all weekend long.

Ryan Newman will be Tony Stewart's teammate. I don't know how many of you know this, but Ryan's former crew chief, Matt Borland, already works at Stewart-Haas Racing. I am thinking that Ryan and Matt are looking forward to hooking back up because they did make some pretty beautiful music together.

You have to laugh and you have to love it, but trying to take 15 horsepower away from the Gibbs team did nothing but make them mad. That's just going to make them run that much better and that much harder. The only thing I can think of is that with less horsepower, Kyle's Nationwide car just drove better.

Speaking of O'Reilly Raceway Park, if you want to know what A.J. Foyt was like in his heyday and when he was a young man, just watch Tony Stewart. A.J. fought with USAC. A.J. fought with NASCAR. A.J. fought with everybody. A.J. was temperamental and cantankerous but A.J. could get the job done behind the wheel of anything he ever drove.

I am not sure what is going on, but it looks to me like Robin Pemberton has become the designated damage-control guy. I found it interesting last weekend that Robin was chosen to address all the issues going on at Indy. It looks like they are grooming him more and more to have a bigger part in everything that goes on in the competition department.

The other thing I learned and I hope Mark Martin learned this, too, is that you should never guarantee anything in NASCAR, especially a win. Mark qualified well and I thought he knew what he was talking about. It is hard to guarantee you are going to win a NASCAR race and I don't care how good you are and how good your car is. So I bet Mark won't do that anymore.

I thought it was kind of funny that Terry Labonte trumps Bill Elliott when it comes to using the champions provisional last weekend. Do you realize that it was the Pettys beating the Wood Brothers again? That's an old rivalry that goes way, way back. Speaking of the Pettys, I bet ol' Kyle thinks six races in the TV booth is a lot better than six in a race car.

Remember those Pocono tires you all heard about last weekend? Man, are they going to have a lot of miles on them before they actually hit the track this Sunday at Pocono.

This one also has me chuckling. This is typical NASCAR. If you win the Coors Light pole, then you qualify for the Bud Shootout at Daytona in February. That's pretty cool. NASCAR always talks about wanting parity, so now they even have it with the beer brand awards.

And finally, my all time favorite quote -- and trust me, I have heard a lot of them -- is from a car owner currently in the sport. More prophetic words have never been spoken when he said, "I don't think I can afford for NASCAR to save me any more money."