Sprint Cup N's & Q's: Coke Zero 400

Still unclenching the teeth after that grinding multi-car wreck to finish the Coke Zero 400, here's the latest -- and greatest -- edition of Sprint Cup Notes & Quotes.

Busch, Stewart Wreck Avoidable

Just as there was after Talladega, there's been those this week claiming that restrictor plate racing is the reason why we've had big wrecks to end the last two plate races -- whether it was Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards at 'Dega or Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch on Saturday night at Daytona.

Hogwash, I say.

Both wrecks were caused by a simple thing: driver decision. In the most recent example, Kyle Busch could have settled for second -- maybe even a win had Stewart's momentum been magically broken -- and what likely would have been a greatly reduced headache by simply not turning to the right.

Sure, restrictor plates keep the cars together and the out-of-bounds line has a big role in saying what a driver can do to win a race, but in both situations, driver input caused the crash.

Why so much grass, Daytona?

Over the years, the folks at Daytona International have made some nice improvements by paving over some huge areas of grass that cars often slide into to prevent rollover accidents and, most of the time, allow them to recover and continue in the race.

However, it's time for a whole lot more to be done around the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

Too many times Saturday night, drivers made an evasive move or spun into the backstretch grass, and nearly everyone of them sustained substantial damage to the front-end splitter, forcing long pit stops and ruining their nights competitively.

I understand that the grass looks good on television and that its helpful for the road course guys, but come on, why not lay down more asphalt in a strip that takes 50 yards of the grass closest to the track out along the backstretch? And when you're done, just paint the area that was grass a nice, dark green color.

In the end, it'll probably look better than the turf that was previously there thanks to the drought conditions that are so often prevalent in the region.

TNT's crash coverage had some holes

While it's sure hard to knock TNT as a network for its presentation of the race -- the "Wide Open" format is the best mix of necessary advertising and race coverage we've seen so far -- I will say that the two big crashes left a little bit on the table.

In the first melee on the backstretch on lap 77, 13 cars got a piece of the action caused by contact between Kasey Kahne and David Stremme. Most noteable among those involved who TNT seemed to miss adequate coverage of?

Oh, just the driver who still sits second in the points and surprisingly wasn't much of a contender up to that point in the race -- Jeff Gordon. Gordon nearly skirted through the mess before getting clipped on the right side in turn three and being sent to the grass. The damage ruined any type of aerodynamic performance for the No. 24.

The last-lap crash also seemed to miss some coverage, but mainly on what drivers were actually in the crash and their health after some brutal licks. Obviously, we saw Kyle Busch emerge from his car and walk back, but Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne both had a couple of big shots after coming across the finish line and TNT didn't show any video or mention if they were both removed from their cars.

It would have been nice to know what their condition was before the telecast ended.

One more time for Kyle Busch

I've lost count by now, but its worth noting that Kyle Busch avoided commenting again about the most important part of the race after being released Saturday night from the infield care center.

At the end of his career, the tell-all book will take two years to read -- but hopefully, his fans and the rest of the world will know what he was thinking after getting turned by Stewart.

Any changes for NASCAR coming?

One of the biggest defenses NASCAR came up with about how "safe" the sport is for spectators after the Carl Edwards fence ballet at Talladega in April was that it took an unusual set of circumstances to lift his No. 99 into the fence.

Well, as the last-lap wreck showed Saturday night, it wasn't that unusual.

Kyle Busch's car did get slightly airborne before coming back to the ground and slamming the wall, but had a car been in the outside lane he spun across, the No. 18 surely would have continued its lift into the catch-fencing.

NASCAR, the problem of flying race cars is still there.

Drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon?

Tony Stewart was asked after Saturday night's win about what his reaction would be had someone told him that he would be leading the points, have two wins, have won the all-star race and have both Stewart-Haas Racing cars in the top-five in points.

His reaction?

"I would have laughed said you were drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon," said Stewart.

Carl Edwards invents new verbs, likes tires

Following the race, Roush-Fenway driver Carl Edwards was asked what he thought about the Goodyear tire combination brought to Daytona after his fourth-place finish.

"Goodyear almost brought the perfect tire," said Edwards. "It's coming apart a little bit, a little bit too much heat, but they were real close with the tire. If they can get that right to where the tires gives up like that and we can start racing and slide-jobbin' -- that's fun."

Slide-jobbin', of course, refers to the use of a slide job. Let's hope that makes the 2010 version of Webster's.

Michael Waltrip's unfortunate Tweet

The owner of Michael Waltrip Racing started up his own Twitter account just a few weeks ago -- he's using the name mw55 -- and on Tuesday, he sent out one that left a lot of people wondering.

In it, Waltrip wrote "i wish i was bi like Juan."

Now if you don't understand the potential problem, I won't explain it to you, but if you do, you probably got a laugh.

Michael must have been slammed with questions about the tweet because just minutes later, he fired off another one with some clarification saying "lingual. bilingual i meant. i skippped one word and it changed the whole meaning of my message. darnit."

So what was Waltrip referring to about being "bi" about? He simply wants to speak two languages like fellow Sprint Cup competitor Juan Pablo Montoya.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The Nationwide COT is coming

NASCAR announced over the weekend that the new version of the Car of Tomorrow for the Nationwide Series will take its first competitive laps in 2010. It won't be used for the entire season, but rather just on the restrictor plate and road course tracks.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., a team owner in the series with JR Motorsports, is already feeling the pinch from losing General Motors support in 2010 and said his team doesn't have the budget to build and test a new fleet of race cars at the moment.

The new cars won't feature a wing and instead will have a spoiler on the rear of the car.