Rolling into to Texas

From the short tracks of Bristol and Martinsville, the Sprint Cup action now rolls into Texas.
The big news of the week is General Mills leaving Petty Enterprises No. 43 at the end of the year to sponsor Richard Childress' fourth Sprint Cup car. Speculation has been running rampart as to who will be driving this Chevrolet car next season.
Names like Bobby Labonte, who currently drives for General Mills at Petty, and Scott Wimmer, who won the Nationwide Race for Childress at Nashville on Easter weekend, have come up.
On Wednesday, I heard the names of Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards who are all current Ford drivers for Roush Fenway Racing.
Childress hasn't named a driver yet, but it will be interesting to see who gets the call. Labonte, who hasn't won a race since going to Petty, would seem like a logical choice because he is a past champion. Since this would be a new team at RCR, Labonte would have a good chance at making it in the first five races in 2009 because he's the 2000 Cup Champion and would get a provisional.
Adding Labonte to the teams Childress already has would be impressive.
Just for fun, I saw where Yahoo's NASCAR page keeps up with a lot of NASCAR stats. I went to see who currently has the lead for Manufacturer's Championship. So far it's Chevrolet with 37 points followed by Ford and Toyota tied with 35 each. Dodge is in fourth with 25 points. This will likely be a close battle throughout the rest of the year.
Now to this week's race. It's really hard to predict one driver to win so I'll name some you'll want to keep your eyes on.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to finish in the top 10. I don't see any reason why that should change this week. Also, don't be surprise if he gets his first win of the season here because this is where he picked up his first Cup win of his career in 2000.
I would be surprise to see Kenseth, Edwards or Biffle win here and have good days. Roush teams seem to do good at Texas and they have had some success at tracks similar to this one.
You can't count out drivers from RCR. Jeff Burton (current points leader), Kevin Harvick (in second place) and Clint Bowyer (in 12th place). And then there is the trio of Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and last week's winner Denny Hamlin at Joe Gibbs Racing. Kind of strange that Stewart hasn't won a race yet, isn't it.
Well that could change this weekend. Check back in on Monday for my review of Texas and look back here next Friday for my thoughts about the next race in Phoenix.