Tomorrow is a lot of things: Its my mom’s birthday,  the end of the NASCAR 2008 season, it’s the day we will find out if the Cup Champion will be Jimmie Johnson or Carl Edwards.  Tomorrow will be Tony Stewart’s last race with Joe Gibbs Racing, with sponsor Home Depot and with crew chief Greg Zipadelli.

Usually by this point in the season I am chomping at the bit for it to be over.  I love my NASCAR but its a LONG season and even I am ready for a little teensy break.  A couple weeks will pass and I will be bored and ready for Speedweeks in Daytona in February even before Christmas has arrived. I will find myself searching for something NASCAR related on SPEED just to have something to watch. My visits to Nascar.com and other racing sites I frequent will go way up as I scour for information on the season to come.

This season is a little different though- if possible I would have grabbed onto the ankles of this season and slowed it down and maybe made it last just a little longer.  I don’t like change and I don’t like goodbyes. And this season’s finale has both for me. So I wanted to prolong the season- so that I didn’t have to think about it and could live in my blissful state of denial. Tony not being in home depot orange? Tony not being told “Wheels straight, put on the brakes” by Greg Zipadelli at the beginning of every pitstop? That was just something I couldn’t or didn’t want to wrap my brain around.

After tomorrows race here will be no more of that. And it makes me a little melancholy.  What’s funny is I spent most of my week packing up my office- which I have decorated with a lot of Stewart memorabilia….it’s almost ironic.  What’s even more ironic? My new office number is 14 just like Tony’s new car number.

I may be a tad melancholy, however a bigger part of me is excited too.  It’s sad and exciting both (I think I am stealing something Trixie said in my comments not too long ago). While I will be the first to admit that initially the whole “stewart-haas thing” as I called it horrified me…after hearing Tony talk about it- I got excited for him. Its something that he is excited about and that excitment shows and is contagious to an extent. I am excited for next season and for Stewart-Haas racing in general. It will be fun to watch it grow into a cohesive and successful team. So it is something I am looking forward to already for next season.

Still..tomorrow will be a little sad:

Tony Waves---from homedepotracing.com

Sign Says: I'm Tired Of Winning, Going To Stewart Haas

Is it me or does he look like he’s ducktaped to a dolly?? And why won’t people transport me around work on a dolly…it sounds like fun and I know the guys next door have a couple! Ah on second thought they would probably just drop me in the quad or leave me in the storage closet or something. I’ll walk.

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Congratulations are in order for Clint Bowyer for being the winner of the Gillette Timeshaver Award for spending the least time in the pits in Charlotte. I don’t know if you have been paying attention to this award but each week the Gillette Young Guns Driver who has spent the least amount of time in the pits during that particular race is the driver awarded. As you all know I am fascinated by pit stops and pit crews so I pay attention to these kind of things. Fans at home can play along by going to the Gillette Timeshaver website to align themselves up with one of the Gillete Young Guns.

The Gillette Drivers from L-R: Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch

And that’s a great line up of drivers if you consider that both Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne got top five finishes at Charlotte last week.

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***Updated to find out that this IS some sort of hazing. Apparently this took place at FanFest at JGR. According to sources-employees at JGR do this to employees who have given their notice.  Tony was well Tonynapped from the JGR cafeteria by crew members and transported to the flagpole- where he was tied to the flagpole.