Just another Friday?

INDIANAPOLIS – This may have been the first day of practice for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard (just gotta get used to that name), but the crowds were big, the speeds were fast and the stories floating around the garage were extremely interesting.

Martin to buy Yates?

The hottest story being whispered around the Nextel Cup garage is that Robert Yates is about to sell out to Mark Martin. Yes, that Mark Martin.

Sounds preposterous?

Maybe not.

The whole idea makes sense, since Yates has got to be pretty much fed up with the whole NASCAR deal at this point, considering the shaky goings on over the past several months by people within his organization that he felt he could trust. And that includes his soon-to-be former drivers.

Watching long-time driver Dale Jarrett pilfer the UPS sponsorship from Yates and take it with him to Michael Waltrip's new Toyota team as well as Elliott Sadler's reported attempt to take sponsor M&Ms with him to Evernham Motorsports are just some of the shenanigans.

If you know the kind of man Robert Yates is, all this has to make him start to question his reasons for staying in the sport. After all, he could turn his back on the whole circus and spend time on a boat in the Caribbean.

Selling the Yates organization to Martin makes a lot of sense.

Martin could bring the 17 car with Matt Kenseth, which he already owns, into his new organization and let his old friend Jack Roush go back to four teams, which is the number that NASCAR seems to be the most comfortable with one owner having.

(There had been rumors in the past few weeks of one of Roush's teams – perhaps the 99 team – going to Yates.)

Roush and Yates' organizations have had a close working relationship for some time now building engines, and more recently Roush's group has been working with Yates to help the latter's teams build better race cars.

It also makes sense if the planned press conference Friday morning at Indy to announce the signing of Stephen Leicht to a Cup deal was cancelled to wait until after the Martin deal was completed.

That cancellation was explained away by Doug Yates as necessary to "cross the t's and dot the i's on their new driver's contract."

It also might explain why Jack Roush was one of the first people to talk to one of NASCAR's newest hot properties, David Gilliland, at Martinsville two weeks ago, right after Gilliland crashed out of the race early.

Roush says he talked to Gilliland just to give him a pep talk and tell him to keep his head up and that he (Gilliland) was on his (Roush's) radar screen.

Could he have told Gilliland not to sign a pending deal with one of the other teams that has been courting his services, like Richard Childress Racing, and stick with whatever offer Yates gave him, since things would be changing at Yates and changing for the better?

Representatives from all parties involved aren't talking – as if they would admit anything was going on anyway.

Time will tell.

Making the Chase

With little else to write about, the NASCAR media pool's focus has been on whether or not Nextel Cup's holy trinity of Gordon-Stewart-Earnhardt Jr. will make the Chase come September.

Each driver held court on Friday, either behind his hauler or, in Gordon's case, in the media room. As if it wasn't expected, each one reassured the media that they were focused on the Chase, but not worried.

"Right now, me and the top two guys (Gordon and Stewart) in the sport are right there – beating for a spot (in the Chase)," Earnhardt said.

He then admitted that beating those two would be a formidable task and that his team was looking at drivers four or more spots ahead of them.

"As our prey, you know what I mean?" Earnhardt said.

Gordon made it clear that although any pending decisions to make changes to the Chase were totally up to NASCAR's president Brian France, he did question a points system that was based solely on consistency.

"You don't have to win a race to win a championship," Gordon said. "I think it would be something that would add some excitement to it – forcing guys to have to win, even though you really don't have to.

"If you think about it, you can finish fifth or sixth or eighth every weekend and you're going to be solidly in the Chase. And if you do that throughout the Chase, you're probably going to win the championship."

The latter scenario is exactly what Tony Stewart did during last year's Chase. His average finish for those 10 races was 7.8. His best finish was 2nd – three times (Loudon, Talladega and Martinsville).

Sign(s) of the times

A former Indy 500 winner, a talented young open wheel driver and a veteran sports car builder all were at the Brickyard on Friday – for three different reasons.

Two-time Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk wasn't shopping himself around for a Cup ride, which seems to be the trend these days.

Nor was he shopping around for a ride for his son, Arie Jr.

Instead, he was talking to drivers about getting involved in endorsing one of his new business ventures, Playseats, which builds racing simulation cockpits.

"I've talked to Dale Jr. about it and I plan to talk to others like Tony (Stewart) and Denny Hamlin," Luyendyk said.

The seats are priced at around $280 and sold at Target and Walmart stores.

Indy Racing League rookie Jeff Simmons was walking around the garage area, talking with numerous team members including drivers and owners.

Simmons lives in Indianapolis and says his reason for visiting the Cup garage is that he has not been to the Speedway other than in May. He has two Indy 500 starts (2004 and '06).

Although Simmons says he's not actively seeking a ride in NASCAR, his deal with Rahal-Letterman Racing only goes through the end of this season and the 29-year old Connecticut native would be a much better choice for a NASCAR seat than his current (and soon to be ex-) teammate Danica Patrick.

Renowned car builder Bill Riley announced on Friday what many in the racing fraternity had expected, that he would be starting a new Nextel Cup team.

Last March, Riley announced that he was closing his long-time Indianapolis car-building shop and moving it to North Carolina, saying at the time, "As the business of racing has grown in recent years, we have received a greater amount of interest from the racing community in North Carolina.

"Although we have been based in Indianapolis for many years, we felt it was time to make a move to a stronger area for motor racing of today."

His departure from Indiana was, at the time, a blow to the Hoosier state's continuing motor racing business development initiative.

With his announcement on Friday that he was starting a new Cup team with former Yates Racing GM Eddie D'Hondt at the helm, it was clear that his intentions weren't just to develop his business within the NASCAR community, but to become part of that community.

Riley Technologies captured both the 2004 and 2005 Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype Chassis Constructor Championship. In addition to their involvement in that, Riley's company also builds cars for the American Le Mans Series, the USAC Silver Crown Series, and the Japanese GT Championship Series.

His company also built the 2006 Rolex 24 at Daytona race-winning car for Chip Ganassi Racing.