Two-time Cup champion Terry Labonte has had many highlights in his career, but there’s one victory I’ll never forget, as the 22-time winner gets ready to hang up his helmet after Sunday’s Dickies 500.

There’s many victories to choose from including his four at North Wilkesboro, to his last win at Darlington Raceway, but it’s Labonte’s 1995 victory at Bristol that ranks as my favorite.

Labonte stood in victory lane with a demolished race car after he crossed the finish line by .10 seconds over Dale Earnhardt. Labonte kept in the gas after contact with Earnhardt and slid to the checkered flag. The victory also set up for a Earnhardt/Labonte feud at Bristol which came back in 1999 when Earnhardt “rattled" Labonte on the last lap sending him spinning again, but this time it was Earnhardt that came out on top.

What's your favorite Terry Labonte career highlight?

This year the IROC Series added back a road course to the schedule, adding to the current slate that has one superspeedway (Daytona) and two intermediate tracks (Texas and Atlanta).

Each of the current 12 IROC drivers race on the types of tracks mentioned (one or all) on a consistent basis with the exception of one – Steve Kinser.

Kinser notched his 20 World of Outlaws titles on dirt tracks all over the country, so why not add one these to the IROC schedule?

Tony Stewart is ready to make that happen, as he is prepared to give back his million dollar check for winning the 2006 IROC championship if series president Jay Signore brings the series to Stewart’s Eldora Speedway next year.

“We'll show them what a dirt race is all about,” Stewart said. “Hopefully we'll get something worked out. I'm not going to cash it, I'm just going to sit there and wait.”

Stewart said he’s already looked seriously into the preparation of bringing the all-star race to the half-mile speedway. The biggest problem might be the scheduling.

If the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway is able to host NASCAR and Formula One. Why not let one of the most historic dirt tracks in the world host 12 of the best drivers for one night of action.

A Wednesday night IROC feature sounds good to me.

Mark Martin was shocked that NASCAR pulled David Ragan’s entry for this weekend’s Bass Pro Shops 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“I was more than surprised,” Martin said Friday morning at AMS. “I don’t know the word to use – shocked or dumbfounded – disbelief. I actually did not believe it.”

Even though Martin will be moving on to MB2 Motorpsorts/Ginn Racing in 2007, he still sticks behind Jack Roush’s decision to put Ragan in his old ride.

“I’m a huge fan of Ragan and he is also a strong young man and this will make him stronger and it will make him better. I think he’s gonna be one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR and he’s gonna do an incredible job in the No. 6 car.”

Tony Stewart, who was one of the drivers that criticized Ragan’s driving, last week at Martinsville, will now be forced to meet Ragan this weekend.

Ragan bid $5,750 during Thursday night’s Speedway Children’s Charities auction to buy the pre-race ride around the track with Stewart.

“Tony, he criticized me a lot after last week, and when a champion does that, it’s good to go talk to him,” said Ragan, who will use this opportunity to talk to the two-time NEXTEL Cup champion. “I think I’ll ask him his thoughts, what I should have done different, just introduce myself so that if I step out of line in the future he’ll come and talk to me about it.”

Some interesting quotes on the Car of Tomorrow from this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

Scott Riggs: “Going to the car of tomorrow, I think we’re going back to yesterday. Now we’ve got a bigger car and it’s harder to race side by side on these faster, aerodynamic tracks and it’s going to be some boring races the first couple of races. Everybody will be in one train, and it’ll be boring. I’m sure some way, some how, the teams will figure out a way to make those things drive better around each other and better racy. I’m not a fan of the COT car just because the little bit of testing I’ve done in Evernham’s car, I mean, I call it the car of yesterday. It’s taken a lot away from the ability to pass and race side by side.

"A cot is a good word for it. It’s the car of tomorrow, but when you say cot I think of something laying down on the side of the road to lay on and relax. Maybe that’s what the fans will be doing when the car of tomorrow is racing."

Jeff Burton: "My honest assessment is I think there's going to be a learning period. I think there's going to be things that happen with the Car of Tomorrow that we don't know about. I think some of those things could affect the quality of racing early with the car. At the end of the day, this is what I truly believe though, if you give Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, Roush Racing, (Richard) Childress Racing a Pinto and said 'Here's a Pinto. You guys are going to go racing.' There'd be a heck of a race here Sunday. That's what I believe. I believe the race teams will figure out how to make it work."

Jimmie Johnson: "I think the look is less than be desired and I think a lot of us share that same opinion.  I only tested it at Talladega and that is a really forgiving race track, very easy.  I think that by the time we left Talladega, I think the package we came up well worked well, drafted well and will put on a good show at Talladega. But, I know from the other test sessions they have had, it didn't go that way. The cars were real difficult to drive in traffic; they are more aero-dependant than everyone thought they would be. There is a lot of work ahead of us to get these things right.  I know that NASCAR is working with the teams, the engineers and the manufacturers; everybody is trying to get together to figure out how to make this thing as good as possible for next year.  We do have next year on a limited schedule to run and get these things right. There is still a lot of work ahead of us to get these things right.  I know there have been quotes out there about how great everything is going and it has been going well but there is still a lot of work ahead of us to get this thing right."

UPS will unveil its number and paint scheme for the 2007 season on Friday.

Personally I hope it’s the No. 44. The number is currently being used by Terry Labonte, who will retire after the Texas race. Prior to Labonte, Christian Fittipaldi made three starts with the number with Petty Enterprises.

Plus it makes sense: 1. Half of 88, plus 2. It keeps with the consistency of double numbers: 55, 00, 44.

Check back Friday with RacingOne to see what number Dale Jarrett will drive in 2007.

ESPN will reveal their 2007 NASCAR broadcast crew on Thursday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Check back with RacingOne later this week for the full report.

Well it’s 11:50 p.m. and I’m in Atlanta officially putting a close to what was my favorite five consecutive days of racing so far this season.

It all started on Thursday when I arrived at the track for ARCA qualifying, which usually isn’t too bad in terms of the media center being crowded, until a guy by the name of Montoya showed up. I have never seen so many people hyped up about an ARCA race before. Everywhere Juan Pablo Montoya went he was followed by a heard of fans and reporters, including me.

On Friday the action continued with Truck qualifying and the ARCA race. But before I went to the track I stopped off at the Waffle House for breakfast where I sat and talked to to J.J. Yeley’s crew chief’s motorcoach driver (Tom Johnson loans RV's out to see if they will buy them). Friday’s ARCA race was probably one of the best I’ve seen at Talladega in a long time. With SPEED covering the race on tape delay I decided to cover the race on RacingOne with live lap-by-lap coverage. The article set an all-time record for an ARCA article as people from all over wanted to know Montoya’s progress. Just to show the power of Montoya, a report shows that unique viewers from Bogota, Colombia on RacingOne is steadily rising.

Saturday morning when I arrived at the track, everyone was informed that NASCAR would reduce the size of the restrictor-plate. Also that morning Harvick uneiled his new 2007 sponsor Shell/Pennzoil on a “COT” just outside the media center. After a long qualifying session for the Cup Series, where David Gilliland showed Robert Yates is not slowing down on the plate tracks by winning the pole, another great race took place with the Craftsman Trucks. A huge Saturday crowd turned out at Talladega to witness Mark Martin sweep both superspeedways in 2006.

And we all know what happened on Sunday, when Brian Vickers knocked out championship contenders Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson on the last lap. The crowd reaction was very similar to Jeff Gordon at Chicagoland with the crowd erupting in boos and hurling trash onto the track. In the media center Vickers kept apologizing after everything he said, until one reporter asked, “Brian, are you sick of apologizing already?”

It will be interesting if Vickers will indeed stay with Hendrick for the rest of the season. If I had the say so, I’d send Vickers off to Team Red Bull, talk to Ganassi to let Mears go, so Montoya could take over the ride by Phoenix or Homestead – two great markets for Montoya to race at.

The five days of action concluded on Monday where 13 drivers participated in the “Car of Tomorrow” test. You can see video, photos and an article from the test on the homepage of RacingOne.com or in our podcast section.

I'll be in Charlotte starting Thursday giving the latest updates starting with ESPN announcing their broadcast crew.

I wonder if Nextel has a watchful eye on Jeff Burton and where he currently sits in the standings.

Although, Ryan Newman was never a threat in the past two “Chase for the Cups,” Burton is showing the potential that a major competitor to Nextel could become the series champion.

Not to jinx Burton, but if he does win the title, does he have to claim himself as NEXTEL Cup champion, or just say “NASCAR Cup champion” when he does the post season media blitz? Also it seems that Cingular would get the most exposure out of the deal, the main reason any sponsor is involved with NEXTEL Cup Series.

The Nextel name is no where to be found on Jeff Burton's web site, in fact the NEXTEL Cup Series logo has been replaced with a Cingular logo on his uniform on most of the pages.

Pending a possible name change in the future for Cingular (personally I still think it would be nuts to drop a name that has so much equity behind it) it would be interesting to see how each side would market Burton if this is the scenario.  Rumor has it that Nextel is already working on a contingency plan.

But for now will just have to wait and see. There’s still a lot of racing left and you never know what can happen – just look at what happened in Kansas yesterday.

David Stremme said yesterday during the tire test at Talladega Superspeedway that Juan Pablo Montoya could be close to competing in his first stock car race next month in the ARCA race at Talladega.

“I know they are talking within the company of Juan Pablo (Montoya) making his ARCA start here and trying to get some speedway experience and other stuff. So we are gathering data for that along with the Cup team,” Stremme said.

If this is the case, will this be the most publicized ARCA race ever?

With Montoya’s world-wide fan base it with out a doubt will be.

But for now will just have to wait and see if it becomes a reality.