FONTANA, CA - FEBRUARY 19: Kevin Harvick, driver of the #29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet, looks on from pit road during qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway on February 19, 2010 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Kevin Harvick is quite the hot topic in NASCAR these days. Not only is the former Daytona 500 champion in the final year of his contract with Richard Childress Racing, he has finished no worse than seventh in the first three races, and two of those, the season-opening Daytona 500 and the Sprint Cup circuit's second race in Fontana, California, he could have and should have won.

What a far cry from 2009, when Harvick became so frustrated with the lack of performance of his #29 Chevrolet and the RCR organization as a whole that he all but told Marty Smith he would be leaving the team in a much-publicized ESPN interview last fall.

Harvick's hot start has him on top of the NASCAR world, for now at least, as he leads the Sprint Cup standings. It is the third time Harvick has topped the standings, but the first time he has done so for more than one week. He held the top spot after his win in the 2007 season-opener at Daytona, of course, and before that after a win at Loudon in September in 2006.

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Jamie McMurray celebrates winning the Daytona 500 in his first race with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing.(Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

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If there's one thing you can say about Americans, its that we wear our emotions on our sleeves. Whereas those in other countries are sometimes characterized as monotone and unemotional, it just seems people here in the States don't mind letting people know how we're feeling, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

In the NASCAR world, no driver wears his heart on his sleeve quite like our new Daytona 500 champion.

Therefore it came as no surprise when Jamie McMurray had to cover his face for a moment, shielding himself from the watching world as the floodgates opened. In a poignant moment of pure emotion, viewers were able to witness just what the Daytona 500 truly means to the man who takes the checkered flag first.

It was as fitting a reaction to the achievement as the tears the usually calm and cool Matt Kenseth shed while standing in steady rainfall upon being declared the winner of the event. Three years ago, Kevin Harvick was so overcome with emotion after edging Mark Martin for the win that he accidentally broke his rearview mirror off while on his victory lap.

In an age where many NASCAR stars are criticized for, whether they win or lose, having a constant, even keel demeanor, its refreshing to see that the biggest race in the world can bring the participants in a sport its fans view as more macho than any other to such an enthusiastic level.

And for anyone who says there is no crying in NASCAR, they need only consider this: even Dale Earnhardt, perhaps the toughest man to race in NASCAR's modern era, admitted to his eyes watering as he realized he was about to finally win "the Granddaddy of Them All."

McMurray's display in victory lane has been said to have brought many viewers to tears as well, or at least to the verge of them. We were able to see a racer, one who has been star-crossed throughout his career, make good on the sport's biggest stage and then see exactly what he was feeling. It made for great television, the fans being able to connect so strongly with the winner of their biggest race.

One can only hope as the season moves forward, we'll see more victory lane celebrations like Jamie's. Perhaps not with the tears, but just an all-out enthusiasm and thrill of victory as opposed to the "We had a great car, my crew did a great job, thanks to my sponsors, and thank God for Goodyear," script that many winners seem to rehearse during as though its Shakespeare during their cool-down lap. 

 

DAYTONA, FL - JULY 05: Ernie Irvan, Daytona 500 winner, poses prior to practice for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway on July 5, 2007 in Daytona, Florida. (Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR)

He should have been a legend. A champion, perhaps multiple times. He won the Daytona 500, outrunning a trio of men named Earnhardt, Allison, and Petty, leaving them crashing in his  wake. He was the stiffest challenge to Dale Earnhardt's reign of dominance in the early 1990s, in 1994. In the opinion of many, that '94 Winston Cup crown should have been his.

Of course, blown tire at the fastest point of the high-speed Michigan Speedway's two miles on August 20th ruined all of that.

Ernie Irvan survived the massive head injuries sustained in that crash, injuries that almost always kill or permanently incapacitate their victims. He endured a long, courageous recovery and returned to Winston Cup just 13 months after his crash.

Irvan won three races after making his comeback, including at Michigan in June of 1997 for his 15th and final win. He remained competitive, though a number of hard crashes, two in particular at Charlotte in 1996 and Talladega in 1998, took their toll. Eventually, another accident at Michigan, this time while practicing his self-owned NASCAR Busch Series car, brought his career to a harsh, fitting end. 

If not for the fact that he should have been dead or in the permanent care of others after his '94 crash, rather than racing and winning those three times, one would have to lament the poor luck that cost him a number of other races he should have won.

He SHOULD have won. Just as he SHOULD have been a champion in 1994 and maybe in subsequent years. Just as he SHOULD have been a legend.

Alas, one of NASCAR's most dynamic competitors of the 1990s has all but been forgotten.

There are a lot of drivers whom fans can talk about, sometimes extensively, though they became followers of the sport after those drivers' careers had ended. Dale Earnhardt would be one example. Retired legends like Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, The King, David Pearson, the list is long.

Ask anyone who became a fan after August 20, 1999, the day Ernie's career-ending crash occured, about the 1991 Daytona 500 champion, and you'll most likely get a blank stare or some mumbled, incoherent ramble about his accidents or reputation as an on-track menace in the early '90s.

He should have had better. He deserved better. As talented as anyone who ran during his career, winning on superspeedways, intermediate tracks, short tracks, and road courses, Irvan had that pure, all-out, seat-of-the-pants driving ability for which Kyle Busch is admired today.

It is unclear whether or not Ernie Irvan will be honored one day with induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. To those who watched him compete, it should be clear that he would one day be in, and the statistics of winning 15 races, including the sport's biggest, on a variety of circuits, should back that up.

SHOULD.

Just like Ernie SHOULD have had a full career and a career full of success.

Just like he SHOULD have been the man who outdueld perhaps NASCAR's greatest driver ever for the 1994 championship. 

Just like he SHOULD be regarded as a NASCAR legend, perhaps one still active, going door to door with his friend from the short tracks of the midwest, Mark Martin

Should.

But didn't. Wasn't. Isn't.

Credit: Getty Images for NASCAR

No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet (Tony Stewart) via nascar-assets.americaneagle.com

When you look at the last decade's worth of Sprint Cup champions, from Bobby Labonte in 2000 through the four-year reign of Jimmie Johnson and the #48 team, you might be hard pressed to find a connecting factor. Indeed, the personalities and racing backgrounds of Labonte, Johnson, Jeff Gordon (2001), Tony Stewart (2002 and 2005), Matt Kenseth (2003), and Kurt Busch (2004) are all rather diverse. Each driver can tell his own tale of trials and triumphs before reaching the pinnacle of American motorsports, and only Gordon and Stewart, who each toiled the USAC ranks before making highly publicized swaps to stock cars, could claim a background that mirrored one another on any substantial level.

However, there is one minor detail that ties nine of the ten championship-winning rides together.

With the exception of Gordon's championship at the wheel of a flourescent red flame-bedecked blue Chevrolet, each champion's primary paint scheme prominently featured one mutual hue: black.

Labonte's championship in 2000 was much more noted for the fact that his Interstate Batteries-sponsored Pontiac was a primarily green machine, but the then-Joe Gibbs Racing driver's title brought to an end a drout for black that had dated back to Dale Earnhardt's last championship in 1994.

After Gordon's brightly-colored romp to the title in '01, Stewart outdueled Mark Martin at the wheel of an orange, white, and - yep - black Pontiac. In addition's, Martin's runner-up Ford featured a primarly black paint scheme.

Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch brought Jack Roush the final NASCAR Winston Cup title and the first title of the "Chase" era, in 2003 and 2004 respectively. Whilte the two immensely different racers enjoyed immensely different runs to the top, their Roush Racing Ford Taureses each sported paint schemes with significant amounts of black, with Kenseth's machine being a near half-and-half mix of DeWalt black and yellow and Busch's ride featuring a full black paint scheme offset by metallic gold marks of primary sponsor Sharpie.

Stewart took his second title in 2005, at the wheel of an orange and black Chevrolet Monte Carlo, and the next year, Johnson began his stint at the top that is still ongoing with his silver, blue, and black Chevy with flourescent yellow trim. Is it any coincidence that prior to 2006, Johnson's primary paint scheme was always silver, blue, and red?

Okay, so you may be thinking, "Whats the point? No, there isn't a point, its just the most pointless article I think I've ever read. Certainly the most pointless one I've read on this website."

Aha, not so fast, my friend! There is plenty of reason why this is relevent to the season that will begin February 6 with the exhibition Bud Shootout at Daytona: Johnson's Chevrolet will not only for the first time since the last time another driver won the title be without the black, but its primary hue is the exact opposite on the color wheel: white.

Certainly it will take more than just a change in paint scheme and the dropping of one color and the addition of the complete opposite shade to bring the #48 team's reign to an end, but it is certainly worth noting, none the less.