It was Montoya in Memphis and the man they call SMOKE Tony Stewart in Atlanta that shined this past weekend

Here we are again as another racing weekend comes to an end and what as interesting racing weekend at that, I don't know who made the schedule for this past weekend, but they really need to look at it again in the future. The schedule had the Busch Series race on at the same time as the IROC series followed by the Truck Series at Atlanta. Then Sunday's race started at 3pm, I hate late starts to racing including on a Sunday that we had to turn our clocks back an hour on and that goes for any race weekend, at least Atlanta has lightning, but other tracks don't.

But lets look at the good side of this weekend, first things first, Saturday under the sun in both Memphis and Atlanta had its moments...

The focus on Saturday, at least in my eyes, was on Juan Montoya making his Busch Series debut at the 1 mile Memphis Speedway and also in Atlanta, at the always spot on IROC Series race of who would be the 2006 IROC champion.

With all of the media and fan attention in Memphis on Montoya, Montoya first outen was basically the same as his ARCA debut, they both had there moments, in Memphis, with starting and running in the bottom half of the top 10, Montoya stayed out of trouble until he made an on track error, at least in his eyes when he spin mid-way thur the race, but just like at his ARCA debut in Talladega, he recovered and climbed back up into the lead group to finish in the 11th position. For Montoya, it was announced yesterday that the next race is going to be next week in Texas for the 300 miler. It has also been talked about and in one case reported that Montoya may run the remaining Busch Series races this season and that NASCAR has approved him to run in the Nextel Cup Series finale at Homestead in a couple of weeks if both Montoya and Ganassi wanted to. Like I said, no confirmed reports, but would hate to think of Montoya having to make his Nextel Cup debut on the 2.5 miler Superspeedway in Daytona next febuary.

One does have to wonder if with all of the attention from both Media and Fans that Montoya got in his Busch Series debut, what will the open wheel/IRL champion Sam Hornish Jr. receive when he makes his Busch series debut at Phoenix in two weeks. Hornish will drive the #39 for Penske Racing, the same car that both Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch have driven in select races all year long.

As for Atlanta, the racing in all three series were spot on with great racing all around, but this weekend would belong to the man they call SMOKE, Tony Stewart...for Saturday's IROC race, it was Martin Truex Jr. once again making a late race pass to win the IROC race and SMOKE would come up capturing the 2006 IROC Championship. But the weekend was not over for SMOKE as the next evening would prove that SMOKE will be a contender in the 2007 Chase, Tony Stewart delivered an impressive performance all race long battling for the top stop with Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a couple of other chase contenders and after a late race caution, which was one of many, SMOKE grabed the lead from Dale Jr. and never looked back as he capped off an impressive win in the Bass Pro Shop 500 with his trademark climbing the fence to the starters stand.

(Photo Credit: Joe Sebo / The Associated Press / Thatsracin.com)

Did anyone see that trophy for the Nextel Cup winner, its huge, a big bear...the big question after the race and even during the race was in the announcers booth, who ever wins the race, how is the winner going to get it home.

What about the Chase for the Nextel Cup, the picture of who is in and who is out is a little clearer within the top 5, maybe the top 6 still in the hunt.

Points Standings wise, Matt kenseth comes out of Atlanta with the leader, Jimmie Johnson 2nd -26 back, Denny Hamlin grabs 3rd -65 back, Dale Jr. closes to 4th tied with Jeff Burton -84 points back and Kevin Harvick in 6th -121 points back. Rightnow its just the top 6, 7 thur 10 is more than a race out. Three races to go, next week at Texas, then off to Phoenix and finally
the finale showdown under the Florida sun at Homestead with that varable banking coming into play.

Before I leave the 500 in Atlanta, there was a big story that cae out during the race on two of many of the cautions that was thrown for debre on track, one in which had some video of a piece of rollbar padding came from around Robby Gordon's car, but the video could not tell if Gordon just hit it or it came out from his car.

The next action was from the NBC TV booth trying to find more video of this...WindTunnel on SPEED desided to ask to the question: Should the TV networks do their own investigating or leave it to NASCAR? I have to agree with Dave Despain, I believe that its the TV's job to find the reason for the caution and if its debre, find it and put it on TV and if they can't find it, tell us so.

Finally, How about next weekend at Texas, Texas will mark the final Nextel Cup race for Terry Labonte, what a career for the two-time Nextel Cup Champion.

Thats it for me here.