b0519espnNext week sees the publication of "Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the world of ESPN," a book that's setting off shock waves in the sports media world for its complete and total takedown of the ESPN mystique. Assorted tales of SportsCenter anchors behaving badly and other horndoggery are dominating the headlines over at Deadspin, but NASCAR plays a role in the book as well. Heck, Jeff Gordon even made the cover; you can see him at the top left corner of the "P."

We got our hands on an early copy of the book, and here, we present some excerpts on what a significant role ESPN played in the early growth of NASCAR … and how devastating it was when Fox showed up.

We start in the late 1980s, when ESPN began televising complete races, and a couple young-pup drivers recognized the newfound importance of a national sports channel ...

Jeff Gordon
Racing on ESPN turned my career around for me—not turned it around, but really took it to that next level, because I'd been racing sprint cars n a

b0519kurtThere'll be plenty to enjoy about this weekend's All-Star festivities, so let's get right to it. Clip and save this post for handy viewing later!

The action begins with the Pennzoil Ultra Victory Challenge, where a whole bunch of your favorite drivers will get the chance to do a 30-second burnout to impress the judges. Your competitors will include defending champ Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, Clint Bowyer, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne and Trevor Bayne. And fans can participate, voting via text and email during the event, which starts at 6 p.m. ET on SPEED.

Next up comes the Sprint Showdown, where all the guys who haven't won races or haven't won an All-Star race in the last 10 years go at it for two of the last spots in the main event. (There's also a fan-vote component.) The entry list for this race, which kicks off after 7 p.m., is as follows. Got any favorites from this crew?

{ysp:more}

Brad Keselowski
David Ragan
Marcos Ambrose
Landon Cassill
Casey Mears
Joey Logano
Paul

b0519pits

Pit crew dudes don't get a whole lot of love; they tend to get blamed (and fired) more often than they get praised. But on Thursday night, they'll get their turn in the spotlight, as All-Star Week rolls out the latest Pit Crew Challenge at Time Warner Cable Arena.

Here's your list of teams. Got a favorite?

· No. 00 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota
· No. 1 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet
· No. 4 Red Bull Racing Toyota
· No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet
· No. 9 DeWALT Ford
· No. 11 FedEx Toyota
· No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet
· No. 16 3M Ford
· No. 17 Crown Royal Ford
· No. 18 M&M's Toyota
· No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford
· No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge
· No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet
· No. 27 CertainTeed/Menards Chevrolet
· No. 29 Budweiser Chevrolet
· No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet
· No. 39 US Army Chevrolet
· No. 42 Target Chevrolet
· No. 43 Best Buy Ford
· No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet
· No. 56 NAPA Toyota
· No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet
· No. 88 National Guard/AMP

b0519jj

Twitter might be the best thing that ever happened to Jimmie Johnson ... well, outside of family, friends and those five Sprint Cup championships, of course. The social network gives him the opportunity to show he's not a vanilla automaton, as with this photo he posted Thursday morning of his version of "planking."

Don't know what planking is? That's probably because you're not a young, single kid unburdened with things like bills, obligations and common sense. "Planking" involves placing your body in as straight a position as possible on everything from park benches to tables to, well, Sprint Cup cars. The fad got a bit of notoriety this past weekend when somebody in Australia planked his way right off the side of a seven-story building and, well, died. So be careful up there, Jimmie.

"I wish I wore a helmet," Johnson said afterward. "My forehead is killing me."

Johnson, of course, is just planking in the, uh, planks of Indy 500 drivers, who killed time on Wednesday by planking all

b0518mile

Welcome to the latest Happy Hour mailbag! You know how these work: you write us with your best rant/joke/one-liner at nascarmail@yahoogroups.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee, we respond to your messages, everyone goes away with a smile on their face. Today, because the Dover race wasn't exactly the most thrilling, you folks are still focused on Kyle/Kevin.

But before we get started, a couple notes: first, give us your name and hometown (and, perhaps, your chat room nickname) when writing in. Give us a little more about you, you know? Next, feel free to send in as many letters as you like, but remember: everybody else is writing about that week's Big Story; you've got a better chance of getting in if you go with something offbeat. Now, let's roll with the last word (for now) on the Kyle Busch/Kevin Harvick situation.

First, the anti-Busch contingent:

This guy is a baby crying whining little waste of skin! I love NASCAR, but all everybody does is talks about their Baby Kyle. I talk to a

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Bill Lester, who in 2006 became the first black Sprint Cup driver in 20 years, won in the GT Series in Sunday's Grand-Am race at Virginia International Raceway, becoming the first black driver to win a Grand-Am race.

VIR is also located in the home city of Wendell Scott, the only African-American to win a Sprint Cup race and who was left off the ballot for the next class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Lester, who won the race with Jordan Taylor, made two Sprint Cup Series starts in 2006 after spending eight years and 142 races in the Camping World Truck Series. Lester recorded two top fives and seven top 10s in his Truck Series career.

This is Lester's fourth year in the Grand-Am series and the win was also the first for his team Autohaus. He spent the previous three years driving a Daytona Prototype (the faster cars in the division that Chip Ganassi dominates) before moving to GT this year.

Oh, sure, you saw Vin Diesel and the Rock in "Fast Five," and you're thinking, how hard can it be to nitrous up your car and rocket down the highway? What could possibly go wrong?

Depends. If you define "wrong" as "careening out of control, pinballing off two walls and exploding in a giant fireball," well, then yeah, something could go wrong. Thankfully, this explosion, from this past weekend at Houston Motorsports Park, didn't result in any serious bodily injury.

Obviously, these things are chaotic post-wreck, what with the exploding and the flames and the fire extinguishers and all that. Though I do have to say, if the driver walked out of that fireball silhouetted against the glow, it'd be tough to get any more badass than that.

[Via Jalopnik]