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Happy Hour: Danica, prize money, and the beginning of our driving career

Nick Bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to happyhourmailbag@yahoo.com or @NickBromberg. We'll post them here and have a good time.

Welcome to this week's Happy Hour, where we're still getting used to the news that there will be a hydrogen-fueled pace car at Richmond. We hope they quintuple-check the lighting system on the car for electrical shorts before the race.

Our best email of the week was unfortunately not racing related. However, we'll share part of it with you anyway.

Ya just gotta hate small time bloggers like you who write those disgusting little blurbs ... (redacted for being inappropriate)

Why don't you do better research before you write and stop being just another lemming? - Philip

Why the hell is this email noteworthy? It was about former Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston. The subject line was "Jameson Winston." Yeah...

Speaking of people who can be polarizing, here's a sampling of what we got after Sunday night's race and Danica Patrick's record-breaking sixth-top 10 finish.

Typical of the media to glom onto Danica's ninth place finish and make it the big headline of the night. Is really more important the Kenseth breaking his win drought? One of the best drivers of his era and she gets the big headline and the pub. Sickening if you ask me. She is nothing as a racer but a woman racer makes her more special than those who are actually championship worthy - Kent

Kenseth breaking a 51-race winless streak was clearly the story of the evening. He's now basically guaranteed into the Chase and the second JGR driver likely in.

But Patrick is a big story too, and not simply because of breaking Janet Guthrie's record. She has two top-10 finishes in three races (at Martinsville and Bristol, nonetheless) and is 13th in the points. It's still way to early to talk about non-winning drivers in the Chase, but she's on the right track. That certainly stops the "championship worthy" point, even if you don't think she's a threat to win the title.

If Patrick is in the same position in the standings halfway through the season, these type of emails should slow down.

Worst article I ever read! - Ray

Or maybe they won't.

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How is the race purse divided?  How is it determined which driver will get what?  And the car owners?  The racetrack owner?- Gail

This question comes up every year because of the confusing nature of NASCAR's race winnings structure. The race winnings printed in the box score are a combination of prize money from the race purse and contingency programs. Not all drivers and teams are in all contingency programs. For example, teams can opt out of the Coors Light Pole Award.

Drivers don't receive all of that money listed in the box score. They receive a percentage of the race winnings based off their contract. Then the money is also divvied up based on other contracts the teams have. Tracks receive 65 percent of NASCAR's television contract.

These are both fun. How many people do you think went into Outback on Monday assuming that Kevin Harvick finished in the top 10? It may not be in the thousands, but there's gotta be more than a few, right?

The Logano question is interesting. Not fixing the car is the ultimate statement that points really don't matter in the Cup Series (if you have a win), but was fixing the car something based on circumstance rather than the inherent desire to get it done and see what could happen? It's probably much more of the latter, but it wouldn't be surprised if the track played a role.

We're heading out to do the Richard Petty Driving Experience for the first time. Here's your advice to us. We promise we'll take the last one into consideration and are prepared to potentially bribe our teacher to open up the limiter on our car to make it go as fast as possible.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!