Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson joke before Sunday's race. (Getty Images)

Be afraid, NASCAR drivers. Be very, very afraid.

Right up until about last September, the knocks on Tony Stewart were piling up. His best days were behind him. He couldn't juggle both ownership and driving. He was scoring points against the media but not on the track.

Amazing how one championship changes everything, doesn't it? And yet the doubts still persisted ...

He just got hot at the right time. He made a mistake ditching his championship crew chief. He can't win before the weather turns warm. He can't win at Vegas.

Hey, guess what? Smoke's done all this and more in the last few races, and Sunday's run at the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas affirmed that we write off Tony Stewart at our peril.

Stewart wasn't the best car early — that honor belonged to none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. — but Smoke absolutely dominated on restarts, beating both Brad Keselowski and Jimmie Johnson off the line after pulling off an amazing three-wide move to take the lead near the race's midpoint.

Racing, she's a brutal sport. One minute, you're cruising along in sixth place, the next your car is getting sucked right up into the wall. Brian Scott was fine, if a bit shaken, after this wreck courtesy of an unintentional Trevor Bayne pass. Keep that in mind when taking the high line on that minivan in traffic, friends.

NASCAR drivers! They're funny! Or at least reasonably so! Check out this collection of clips from the best of Friday's media sessions. And even though the jokes don't really warrant the guffaws they draw from the assembled media, it's still good to see a little bit of life out of these cats. Enjoy.

Montoya

Like many race fans, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a fan of NASCAR history. Unlike most race fans, Earnhardt has the means and connections to get his hands on actual pieces of that history. And there's no more historic piece of NASCARiana in recent years than Juan Pablo Montoya's fireball-sparking 42 from this year's Daytona 500.

Guess what's now sitting in Junior's backyard?

"I got about 50 or 60 cars out there and I didn't buy any of them," Earnhardt said. "We get a forklift or a tractor with a forklift or front-end loader and just carry it into the woods and just set it out there somewhere." (Why is it no surprise that Earnhardt's backyard is like some backwoods version of the warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"?)

So where does the Montoya car rank among Junior's collection?

"That one's good," he said. "That one ranks right up there.  I've got the car (Dennis) Setzer flipped when he was driving for Keselowski at Talladega so that was pretty cool, but it ranks right up

Danica Patrick's tribute helmet to Dan Wheldon from last fall's Texas race (Getty Images)

Five months ago, Dan Wheldon died during the inaugural running of IndyCar's Las Vegas 300. The events of the day haunted NASCAR then and now. As safe as the sport now is, with more than a decade since the last fatality, Wheldon's death was a shocking, painful reminder of how dangerous motorsports will always be.

Danica Patrick, now full-time in NASCAR, was in the field for the IndyCar race, and in her return to Las Vegas spoke in solemn tones about her memories of Wheldon and that weekend.

"My thoughts are still with Susie [Wheldon's wife] and the kids," she said. "There won't be a time when I come to Las Vegas where I won't think about Dan, and won't think about the family and hope they're doing well."

Patrick acknowledged that one simply cannot carry the pain of the day onto the track. "As race car drivers, our job is to drive the race car," she said. "We need to be able to do that with our whole heart and mind. It's in the moments where you don't have a singular focus, like walking

Here's a nice clip from a recent V8 qualifying race for the Clipsal 500 in Australia which shows that closing speed isn't always the greatest of assets. Careful with that merging!

The punter here is a guy named Greg Murphy, and the punt-ee is Jonathon Webb. His replacement car will be named for none other than former NASCAR champ Alan Kulwicki. Worldwide, baby!

The clip comes courtesy of frequent reader/commenter highflyjet, who notes, "If you've never watched V8's, ya gotta. The races are less than two hours, the announcers are great (dvr from channel 7 in Oz), the lingo is cool and the racing is generally good, they occasionally have a 1.5 cookie cutter runaway but not too often." Sounds a bit like heaven.

This is fairly cool: Martin Truex Jr. and NHRA Top Fuel driver Antron Brown swapped rides in Charlotte on Wednesday. Truex fired off the line in a dragster at the zMAX Dragway, while Brown took hot laps at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Check out the ways that each driver perceives the other's ride, from the sense of time to the feeling of G-forces. Good stuff.

Brian Vickers is back in a Toyota for six races for Michael Waltrip Racing (Getty)

Michael Waltrip Racing confirmed on Thursday that Brian Vickers would be the driver of the No. 55 car for six races after Elliott Sadler backed out of his five-race deal with the team.

"I am thrilled to get back behind the wheel of not just a race car, but a very fast race car," Vickers said in a release.

Vickers will drive the same races that Sadler was scheduled to — both Bristols and Martinsvilles and the first New Hampshire race — as well as the second New Hampshire race. A driver hasn't been determined for the road course races. (Boris Said, perhaps? Said would be a logical fit, and would have one of the best chances of his career to win in the seat of the No. 55.)

Mark Martin will drive 24 races for the team and Michael Waltrip will be in four.

Since Vickers will be in equipment that could be as good as his best Red Bull cars, how he peforms will go a long way in determining his future? Vickers was patient in a very weak drivers' market this offseason, and while six races with