I found this on InsiderRacing.com and I have to say I agree with all but #2.  Well, Dale Jarrett is done but, Toyota will win in the C.O.T. and most likely with Vickers.

January 12, 2007

By Ron Felix

With the Nextel Cup cars testing at Daytona International Speedway this week, it gets the racing blood flowing once again. It's time for Insider Racing News' annual -- bold predictions for the upcoming season.

This is where we predict events or outcomes in Nextel Cup, not just the normal run-of-the-mill calls, but these are ones that nobody else would dare predict. These are BOLD predictions. Let's get right to it.

1...Jamie McMurray will win at least one race this year:

Jamie McMurray may win one or more races this season and allow me to point out why I think so.

Over the past year, McMurray, highly-touted and highly paid, didn't come close to returning Jack Roush's investment in him and it was mainly because McMurray and his crew chief(s) couldn't come to terms with what McMurray needed as a driver.

The problems were compounded by mis-communication, on both sides. Jimmy Fenig was trying to set his car up the way that he did for the successful Kurt Busch and when that didn't work, Roush turned to Bob Osborne, who was crew chiefing for, the successful Carl Edwards.

Again, the same story. Osborne was trying to make McMurray's car work like it did for Edwards and was never able to get the right feel for McMurray.

"When we made the first change from Jimmy to Bob, that wasn’t really my decision," said McMurray. "That was something that Jack felt was gonna be a step in the right direction. I never really got used to working with Jimmy or got to know him that well and then I had Bob. I got to know Bob well, but you just kind of know in the first couple of months. Everyone has met people that when you meet them and in the first five minutes they’re very easy to talk to and you feel like there’s a relationship there. Then you meet people that you feel like it’s a challenge to have the conversation and you walk away and you just didn’t feel like you both got it. Unfortunately with Bob, I never had that feeling."

The frustration last year for McMurray had him talking to himself. "I would tell myself after I’d go home after a race and say, ‘I don’t think it can get any worse,’ and then I’d show up the next week and I’d be like, ‘Wow, I was wrong.’"

To Jack Roush's credit, he sat down and talked it out with McMurray. Told him to pick his own crew chief, someone that he would be comfortable with and if that person was available, Roush would hire him.

That's where Larry Carter comes in.

Carter was working for Michael Waltrip, working to help get his Toyota program off the ground. McMurray had known Carter when he was crew chief for Rusty Wallace and McMurray was driving the Busch Series car for Wallace. So he and Carter already had the relationship going. Carter will set the McMurray cars up to drive in the way that will be most beneficial to Jamie.

"We’ve changed so much. We’ve got a new crew chief, new car chief, new engineer, new tire guy, new guys at the shop," McMurray said. "All of the cars are gonna be brand new. We pretty much have already changed everything.

"When our season ended last year, we didn’t know who the crew chief was gonna be and didn’t really know who was gonna be on the team – how many guys were gonna be willing to stay or what was gonna happen. It was a very stressful month or so after the season ended, but I had been talking with Larry," McMurray continued. "I wasn’t 100 percent sure that he was gonna be able to come. He was the guy I wanted for a lot of reasons, but, basically, when I was with Donnie (his crew chief at Ganassi Racing) I didn’t realize the way that the guy would make you feel personally – whether it was talking on the telephone or just the friendship that you have.

"You don’t really realize what you have going for you until you don’t have that. When I came last year I only got to work with Jimmy for a few races. We never really got to have that friendship and with Bob, our personalities were just so much different. Bob certainly had the skills and qualities to make a car go fast, but we didn’t have the off-track or mingling down – just hanging out buddies. So I made a list of who I wanted to try and go get as a crew chief and I knew it would be a challenge, really, to get anybody to come over because when you run as bad as we did, no one really wants to come participate in your activity. So when I saw that Larry was somewhat willing from the get-go, I was excited about that because I already knew him well. I knew that I would be able to have the same relationship or friendship off of the race track as what I had with Donnie. I didn’t realize how important that was to me until I didn’t have it."

I think McMurray will be the comeback driver of the year. He has the talent and he has the desire -- now if he can only get the right feel.


2...NASCAR will open up the Award's Banquet to the public:

It only makes sense to open the awards banquet to the public but making sense alone doesn't assure that NASCAR would be willing to do anything. Making money does.

It always comes down to making money and we all know that NASCAR doesn't just want your money, they want all of it.

If NASCAR could secure a 500 seat theater and charge $200.00 per seat for admission, that could rake in a hefty $100,000.00 profit for the night. More seats, more money, think of the possibilities. Sponsors and broadcasters would pay for the use of the building as they do now.

I wouldn't pay $200.00 for a seat to the event but I'd be willing to bet that many people would. It would be even more profitable for NASCAR to move the banquet to Las Vegas where the crowds could be enormous. Add in an autograph session at the end of the event and NASCAR could charge even more. The only reason this hasn't been tried is because they haven't thought about it, or it wasn't their idea.

Profit will be NASCAR's only motive to change the event.


3...Jimmie Johnson won't win the 2007 Nextel Cup championship:

As well as Jimmie Johnson has run in the past four years and with the incredible luck that the team has enjoyed, it would be difficult to bet against Johnson in the title chase.

We know Johnson has the talent to drive a race car, we know that the organization that he drives for, Hendrick Motorsports, is arguably the best in NEXTEL Cup racing and we know that Chad Knaus is also one of the best crew chiefs in the business, so what's the problem?

The key words there are -- incredible luck. Jimmie Johnson, has over the years, come up smelling like roses time after time after stepping in cow dung. He can have flat tires, torn up sheet metal, be caught for speeding on pit road and near the end of a race, he and the team are in contention for a victory. I catch myself saying nearly every race, "How does he do that?"

I don't see how that kind of luck can continue. Good things never last forever and his 15 minutes of fame are up.


4...Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win the Daytona 500:

That's right, you heard it here first. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive to his second victory in the "Great American Race" at Daytona International Speedway in February.

The race will be run on the sixth anniversary of the death of his father at the speedway and that will fire him up and inspire him a bit -- but the driver of the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet will do anything now to prove to his step-mother, Teresa Earnhardt, that he can and will be a celebrity and drive a race car at the same time.

It's like walking and chewing gum at the same time, it can be done and Earnhardt Jr. wants desperately to prove this point.


5...Toyota will win this year:

This probably won't be a popular notion with the dreaded Toyotas invading the South, the U.S. of A. and worst of all, NASCAR. It's time to get over it folks, it's all sheetmetal, burning rubber and racing.

It no longer matters what the brand is, these are pure racing machines with metal skins and wide tires.

Because they have done their homework in the Craftsman Truck Series, a first-time championship, Toyota has an excellent chance of winning a race this year. The first victory most likely will come at a short track, Bristol or Martinsville when the "Cars of Tomorrow" race.

All the teams and drivers will be on a more equal footing at those tracks because it's like they will all be starting anew. And it's most likely that the victory will come from Brian Vickers in the Red Bull no. 83 or maybe from Dale Jarrett in the UPS No. 44, possibly at Martinsville. Jarrett has won at Martinsville in the past and he still knows how to win.

There you have it, five bold predictions. Nothing earth shattering, no new revelations, not even a thought on Silly Season.

Have you noticed that there are only 29 days left until the engines fire for the Budweiser Shootout? It's true, not much of an off season for the drivers and especially the crews.

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