The Daytona 500 is this weekend. That's one of the more important of the Cars Going Around In A Circle contests they have on this planet. We don't understand NASCAR, obviously, but we suspect some of you do, so we've asked Jay Busbee, of Sports Gone South, to explain to us why we should care about all this stock car business.

Here's all you need to know about this weekend's Daytona 500, the race that kicks off the 2008 NASCAR season: everything's a competition. Everything.

The obvious battle is between the drivers on the track, but you've also got competing models of cars (Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and now Toyota), racing teams (the Dream Team-esque Hendrick Motorsports, the nobody-respects-us Joe Gibbs Racing squad, and more), sponsors (far too many to name), nationalities (American vs. them foreign open-wheel racing vets), and on and on. Everything's a battle; the prerace buildup has included the "Budweiser Shootout" and the "Gatorade Duels." (The "LifetimeTV Bitchslap" is scheduled for next year.)

So it's no wonder NASCAR fans spend a significant percentage of their lives drunk. You'd drink, too, if you had to keep up with this many rooting interests.

NASCAR stokes this competitive frenzy, with an ability to manipulate storylines and manufacture controversy that leaves both ESPN and third-world warlords drooling with envy. Here are some of the key plot threads unspooling at Daytona:

• Dale Earnhardt Junior's new home. Junior spent most of last season in an ugly fight with his stepmother for control of the racing company that bears his father's name, and ended up losing. So he jumped over to Hendrick Motorsports, where he'll race alongside Jimmie Johnson (two-time defending champion) and metrosexual (for NASCAR, anyway) Jeff Gordon. Imagine the media slobbering that would go on if Brett Favre joined the Patriots, and you'll have a...

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