NASCAR is having major issues this off season. Drivers in all 3 series are without rides, including champions Mike Skinner – apparently out of his truck #5, and Bobby Labonte – rumored to be seen around the Ganassi-Earnhardt merged team and thought to be a candidate for the #8, after being ousted due to the piss poor Petty-Gillett-Evernham merger. Oh, and by the way, P-G-E just this week withdrew their commitment to AJ Allmendinger and have now given the #19 seat back to Elliott Sadler. Something tells me a few lawyers made some quick dough on that one. But honestly race fans, can you keep track of NASCAR in these turbulent ever merging times?

I’ll move on… Supercross is alive and well and kicked some tail in Phoenix Saturday night. James Stewart rebounded from his DNF last week to take the top spot on the podium, and Ryan Dungey nabbed himself a #1 in the Lites. This week, Southern California will celebrate another Fan Appreciation Night at Chaparral Motorsports and Ryan Dungey phoned us Sunday night to discuss… click here to see if he really cares or not about his rivalry with Jason Lawrence.

In Arenacross, Nathan Skaggs made it two weekends in a row with his win in Baltimore.

Dakar.com is your place to follow our kick butt American riders and drivers in this year’s Dakar Rally. Even though NASCAR’s Robby Gordon flipped his truck this past week and then wrestled with a massive boulder in Sunday’s Stage 8, he still finds himself in the 5th spot overall… USA’s Mark Miller is still 3rd… both extremely impressive considering the huge pressure and dominance from the VW diesels of Carlos Sainz and Giniel De Villiers.

This week marks the beginning of both the Barrett Jackson Auto Auction and the Detroit Auto Show… Barrett Jackson has some extremely strange items up for sale, partially due to the dismal economy (check Throttle’s article here)… where do you think the money is REALLY going? Bailout anyone?

And get this, no fewer than SEVEN auto manufacturer have pulled out of the Detroit Auto Show… SEVEN… OUT! Could it be another sad sign of the times?

Off Road Racing just announced a new series, the Lucas Oil American Off Road Series, this week. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions and the future of the sport of short course off road racing is sort of still in question. Our discussions Sunday night hopefully cleared up a little bit for you (click here to listen) but much more still requires answers.

President Bush has just one more week left in office, so we posed the question to you on Sunday’s show about whether or not he should pardon IndyCar’s Helio Castroneves for his tax issues. Many of you have come to the plate to discuss the matter, via our social networking sites, via text or even through Twitter. Thank you so much for participating in our live topics… THAT is what makes our shows so successful. The winner of our Helio Pardon topic discussion will be read on the air next week (it's not too late, comment now at PitCrew@SpeedFreaks.TV )… gee, won’t some of you have an opinion already? Ha, ha!

Which reminds me, last week we posed the question: Do you think that marriage or relationships in general can be a distraction to professional athletes, racers in particular? Here is our winning listener response from Richard on Facebook:

It's not getting married that causes these guys to loose their edge,

it's the fact that live such a comfortable lifestyle without having

to really earn it. It just so happens they get married about the same

time.

Petty, Allison and Earnhardt were married. They came from an era in

which you won or starved. Now, you finish 30th and ride your jet back

home.

Congrats to Richard… we’ll be sending him some Freak Wear for his participation!

Catch you all on next weekend’s show!

Comments/Questions: CrashG@SpeedFreaks.TV