Friday's sights, sounds and so on at Daytona International Speedway

Sights, sounds and observations from Friday’s activities at Daytona International Speedway:
Last year, Miller tried to get Budweiser to make a bet about whether Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 2 Miller-sponsored Dodge, would finish ahead of Bud’s No. 8 Chevrolet, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. driving.
The stakes were that the loser would have to run a race in the other beer company’s colors. Budweiser didn’t take the bet.
This year, Miller says it will change the name of the baseball stadium in Milwaukee from Miller Park to Budweiser Park for a 2008 regular-season series between the Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals if Earnhardt Jr. beats Busch. If Busch wins, the Cardinals’ home (Busch Stadium) will be rebranded as Miller Lite Stadium for a Brewers-Cardinals series.
"It's too bad for Anheuser-Busch that they didn't take us up on our challenge last year, when Kurt and the team were dealing with the first-year 'new team' transition,” said Tom Long, Miller’s chief executive officer.

Workers have been tinkering with signs at the end of the road leading to Roush Racing’s headquarters at the Concord Regional Airport this week, in preparation for next week’s announcement that the Fenway Sports Group is buying into ownership of the team.
The announcement is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at Daytona Beach’s minor league baseball park, Jackie Robinson Stadium. Look for the team’s new name to be Roush Fenway Racing.

One thing my media brethren seem to be doing a lot of this preseason is asking drivers their opinions about two of the sport’s top issues – the Dale Earnhardt Jr. contract negotiations and Juan Pablo Montoya’s arrival in the sport.
Patience with such questions, in some camps, is beginning to wear a little thin.
“It’s funny,” Michael Waltrip said on media day Thursday. “I raced for 15 or 20 years and all I heard was ‘How’s Darrell?’ and ‘Where’s Darrell?’”
Darrell, of course, is Waltrip’s brother. “Then I went to race for DEI,” Michael Waltrip said, “and I always hear, “How’s Junior doing?” Pardon me if I don’t choose to answer questions for him.”

It’s hard for everybody to keep up with all the changes that go in NASCAR, even somebody who’s literally inside the race car. During Friday afternoon’s Shootout practice, Kasey Kahne came over his radio with a question. “Who’s in the 44 car?” Kahne said. The answer is Dale Jarrett, with his new Toyota team at Michael Waltrip Racing.
There’s absolutely no way anybody who covers the sport regularly will make it through the first five races without, at some point, typing in that Jarrett drives the No. 88 Fords. Habits like that are just really hard to break.

Best line I wish I had come up with: Ken Willis, the East Coast distributor for wry wit in his columns in the Daytona Beach News-Journal, noticed that a lot of people employed by ESPN seem to be walking around the premises this week. “There are so many ESPN folks on property this week,” Willis wrote, “you’d think Terrell Owens was doing sit-ups in the Fan Zone.”

Man, it’s only the season’s first weekend and the race for this year’s Emmy Award for sports television coverage already seems to be over. Ray Dunlap’s reporting on why the Daytona track’s tunnel is painted yellow (it’s Nextel’s color) and his first-hand reports from a speedboat in Lake Lloyd locked it up.
…Speaking of television tom-foolery, Thursday night’s draw for the Budweiser Shootout was shown “live to tape” beginning at 8 p.m. What that means is that the draw actually happened about 7 p.m. and was recorded for broadcast an hour later. Television calls that “live to tape” because they don’t bother to edit it. Otherwise, the whole thing might have taken about 15 minutes. In English, “live to tape” means “taped.”
…NASCAR chairman Brian France will give a “state of the sport” report to the media on Tuesday. The Observer has learned that France will reveal the state of the sport is “just peachy.”