Carl Edwards has never won at Darlington Raceway. Then again, hes never arrived at the South Carolina track with the Sprint Cup point lead.

Lost perhaps in the knowledge that Jimmie Johnson has won five straight Sprint Cup championships is the fact that Jeff Gordon has won four.

As the 2011 season gets under way, one NASCAR driver after another remarked that the sport had never been so competitive.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. What is clearly understood at Daytona International Speedway is that no one understands it clearly. The Daytona 500 shapes up as an indecipherable quandary wrapped up in a riddle.

David Ragan needs a solid year. His job is likely riding on the outcome of the 2011 season.

Marcos Ambrose, the NASCAR driver from the Australian island of Tasmania, is hoping a change will put his Sprint Cup career back on track.

Petty Enterprises won 10 championships in what is now known as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, a total matched only by modern dynamo Hendrick Motorsports.

While five straight championships as an owner doesnt rival such attainment in a driver, its instructive to note that Hendrick Motorsports Chevys have won a total of 10 titles: five with Johnson, four with Jeff Gordon and one with Terry Labonte. The total equals the all-time record of 10, won by Petty Enterprises with Richard (7) and Lee (3) Petty.

This is the time of year when everything is going to be better. In part, this is because the NASCAR season hasnt started.

You know, some stars are born, some stars are coming on now, and it just takes time, said NASCAR chairman Brian France in November 2010. Our job is to make sure that we are putting the best racing in the world forward, and let those story lines and incredible performances get the recognition over time as they will, and thats what we do.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won a fan vote to become the Sprint Cup Series Most Popular Driver for the eighth year in a row, finished a mere 21st in the point standings. The season wasnt without its high points: Earnhardt had a pole, three top-five finishes and eight top 10s.

I dont know if part of that is coincidence, or just that those guys who win championships are really good. I dont know, but it is a difficult race track. You have to do everything right. Matt Kenseth, noting the overlap of Indy winners and Cup champions.

LOW: The exhortation of NASCAR vice president Robin Pemberton Have at it, boys proved to be emblematic of the season that followed. An on-track feud between drivers Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski boiled over in both the Cup and Nationwide Series.

The same driver has won five consecutive Sprint Cup championships. No one else in history has ever won more than three straight (Cale Yarborough, 1976-78). Johnsons five championships have been accompanied by five different runners-up: Matt Kenseth (2006), Jeff Gordon (2007), Carl Edwards (2008), Mark Martin (2009) and Denny Hamlin (2010).

HOMESTEAD, Fla. Jimmie Johnson has a familiar face. He has turned the Chase for the Sprint Cup into what seems to be a perpetual case

Just what does Brian France want to change? The NASCAR monarch after all, stock-car racing has a clearly defined royal family and order of succession: Bill I, Bill II, Brian I thinks if times are bad, the only possible solution is change.

I grew up a NASCAR fan. My family was going to Dover and Richmond (old half-mile track) when they only had grandstands on the front stretch. Ten years ago I was sure NAS- CAR was going to go down the tubes. It is not a stick-and-ball sport. Don't try [to] make it that.

Supposedly, NASCAR officials are contemplating an offseason change in the Chase for the Sprint Cup that would provide some sort of elimination process.

On TV, it also looks a great deal like bumper cars at the county fair. Up close — and by that, I mean, in the lower rows of the grandstands, squinting at cars flashing by and trying to keep dust, grime and oil out of the eyes — it looks as if all the cars were constructed by NASA, not organizations with names like Furniture Row Racing.

Jamie McMurrays victory in the Bank of America 500 represented a charge he leads alone.