The Man in Blue on the Man in Black

Most people know Michael Waltrip for some combination of the following things.

• Being the baby brother of a former NASCAR Winston Cup champion.
• Hamming it up on Showtime and during TV commercials.
• Having rocket fuel (or something) show up in one of the first Sprint Cup cars he fielded as an owner.
• Winning the Daytona 500--his first points victory as a Sprint Cup driver--on the day Dale Earnhardt died blocking for him.

Now we can add another line to Michael's resume: author.
Claiming that "Nobody could tell the story" of the day Earnhardt died "like I could," the younger Waltrip has put out a book called "In the Blink of an Eye," written with the help of Ellis Henican.
Truth be told, though, this book focuses more on Michael Waltrip's career than anything else. To be fair, that is a story no one can tell quite like he can, since he was the one who lived it. We learn, for example, that Darrell Waltrip tried to discourage his brother from getting into racing. ("All you're gonna do is waste a lot of your time and other people's money.")
There are some parts of the book that discuss Earnhardt, who owned the car Waltrip took to Victory Lane that fateful day. For example, we learn that, in the days leading up to that race, Earnhardt laid out the strategy that would get Dale Earnhardt Inc. the checkered flag. Waltrip, Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. would work their way to the front, slowly but surely. "Whichever of us gets to the front," Waltrip quotes Earnhardt Sr. as saying, "at the end we're gonna push and we're gonna make sure that person stays in the front."It was quite prescient; Waltrip and the two Earnhardts were the top three drivers going into that final lap.

But even though nearly 100 pages of this book deal with that day and its immediate aftermath, this still feels more like a Waltrip autobiography than anything else. He may have had a burning desire to tell his story, but it's hard imagining the throngs of Dale Earnhardt fans needing to hear it.

Remember that we will be closing our polls for this week's lineup on Wednesday night. You have until then to help the People's Pitstop pick the drivers who will represent us at Sunday's Coca-Cola 600.

Fantasy Players, Start Your Engines

We'll get back to our quest for glory in the NFL Fantasy Playoff Challenge in the next post. In the meantime, since I now know the AFC won't be needing to play quarterback in the Pro Bowl, it's time to make an announcement.

The People's Pigskin started as an experiment in fantasy football by democracy. The goal was to determine whether polls by you, the Internet, could produce a fantasy football team that performed just as well as one that based its decisions on "expert" opinions from people paid to have opinions. The experiment has been a success, so we are expanding it into another venture.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the People's Pitstop, an experiment in fantasy auto racing by democracy.

Why auto racing? First of all, the NASCAR racing season starts in early February, minimizing the down time for this site. Second, and more importantly, NASCAR racing isn't just for rednecks anymore. What do California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York have in common? Each state will host at least one NASCAR Sprint Cup race this year. Fox may play to the redneck crowd by having Darrell Waltrip in the booth, but people have enjoyed watching one person drive faster than the other since Romans were racing chariots.

This experiment, like the last one (which will resume next football season), will rely on you, the Internet, to vote in polls to stock our fantasy racing team from week to week. This time, the venue is Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Auto Racing, and the goal is to win the Friends of From the Marbles league. (The league is named for Yahoo's racing blog From the Marbles.)

The first race is the Daytona 500 on Feb. 14 (yes, Valentine's Day), so we'll get to the mechanics of stocking the team next week. In the meantime, you can learn about NASCAR racing here and read the rules for the fantasy game here.

We'll be back tomorrow with an update on the Internet's favorite football team and the polls for Super Bowl week.