Now here's a $1 million challenge to tickle your mind.....

   Wally Dallenbach, one of the TNT guys setting up for Turner's six-week NASCAR stint, always has an interesting perspective on the sport.... (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    By Mike Mulhern
    mikemulhern.net

    POCONO, Pa.
    Pssst! Wanna make an easy million?
    Don't even have to win a big NASCAR race.....
    Just pick the winner of Sunday's Pocono 500 – and the runner-up, and the third-place finisher, and fourth...the whole top 10, in fact.
    In order.
    Yeah, 10-factorial:  3,628,800. Or something like that. Or is it 100 factorial....or 43 factorial.....where are those engineers when you really have a question for them?
    So the odds might be long, even impossible. But, hey, for $1 million...
    That's the hook for Turner's TNT NASCAR TV opener here this weekend, the first of six straight Sprint Cup shows for the next network carrying major league stock car racing.
    And another big hook: ace racing director Mike Wells, who may be the best director ever to cover NASCAR.
    But whatever happened the past four months with NASCAR on Fox, well, Wells faces a big challenge – can he and his guys, including Wally Dallenbach and Kyle Petty, start turning things around?
    Fox' David Hill has been grumbling about NASCAR racing losing too many in the key 18-34 male age group demographics, and he says the sport – its executives and its team owners – ought to be worried, very worried.
    Whatever the reason – and perhaps Fox itself bears part of the blame – Sunday's Indy-Charlotte double-header wasn't a game-saver, not by a long shot.
    The headlines: the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup playoffs beat both the Indy 500 and Charlotte's Coke 600 in the TV ratings game.
   Ouch!
    That's a 4.1 TV rating for the NHL in the nation's top 56 markets, to the two races, which each pulled a 4.0 in those big markets.
   When the final nationals come in, NASCAR should pick up a boost of a couple tenths. But still...
   Those are the worst TV numbers for the Indy 500 in 25 years. Not an auspicious opening for for the Indy-car tour's new CEO, Randy Bernard.
    And the 600 (which was rain delayed to Monday last year) has done much better in years past.
    On the plus side, TNT will be able to carry some of its post-race driver interviews live on the internet, something Fox had wanted to do but was precluded from, because Turner has exclusive rights to that stuff. Wells says depending on how the race goes, the net may get at least 15 minutes or so of live post-race interviews, in addition to what he plans to be at least a 15-minute post-race interview session on TV.

    More good news:    
    One year ago Detroit was in a deep funk. General Motors and Chrysler heading into bankruptcy, and worries abounding.
    Today: hey, look, car sales this are up, again in May dramatically. And it's looking new car sales for the year could hit 12 million, up a solid 15 percent from last year.
    Time for a GM IPO?
    Or will Ford Motor Company still be the better stock pick?
   
    And speaking of stock picks, what about Tony Stewart here? He'd like a win (which would be his first on the tour since Kansas last fall) to get some pub for his own Eldora Speedway racing promotion, next Wednesday's sixth annual 'Prelude to the Dream,' which features a number of top Sprint Cup stars racing real sprint modifieds on dirt.
    Stewart won last June's 500 here in a gas mileage finish, a duel of light feet with gambling Carl Edwards....which may be the way this race goes too. Maybe, as some drivers insist, 500 miles is simply too long at this big track.
   Gas mileage finishes? "I've lost a lot more races like that than I've won," Stewart says.
    "It was between Carl and me. We were the strongest two cars at the end of the race, and we were able to get the track position we needed. Our guys did a great job of getting us out of the pits in the lead -- and that gave us the opportunity to make Carl push harder in the beginning to get the lead.
    "Once he went into that fuel conservation mode, we had to follow suit.
    "To be in a situation where your speed is dictated off the guy behind you and not off of what you can do, it's a different style of racing. It's hard. It's just as hard, if not tougher, than trying to run 100 percent."
    Of course Stewart has more on his plate at the moment than just promoting and racing – he's got to get cranking if he's going to make the NASCAR playoffs in September.
    Which 12 men will make the cut?
    Well, halfway through the regular 26-race season it looks like Jimmie Johnson is sitting pretty, and Kevin Harvick just got through what is typically his worst month of year in fine shape. Teammates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle look to make, even if they aren't in contention for wins yet. Of course Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin ought to make the cut easily, and Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch too. And Jeff Burton, who is more fired up than ever this spring.
    The rest of the 12?
    Well, Mark Martin knows what it takes, but he's been off the mark lately, until Charlotte. Ryan Newman, like teammate/owner Stewart, has been ragged. Jamie McMurray could well make it, but teammate Juan Pablo Montoya may be all but out of it already, despite his strong runs.
    Clint Bowyer is a question mark. And so is Carl Edwards, oddly.
    A wild card – Joey Logano. Bet on him to make the cut. But at whose expense?

      
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  Will director Mike Wells, and announcers Wally Dallenbach and Kyle Petty, fare better at the TV ratings desk during their six weeks of NASCAR coverage, beginning with Sunday's Pocono 500? (Photo: TNT Sports)