On McMurray's return to Earth, Jr.'s continued over-exposure, Danica's finish, and overbearning on-screen graphics

- Jamie McMurray continued to light up the NASCAR world when he earned the pole on Friday at Auto Club Speedway, just five days after winning the Daytona 500. Many in the media were loving it and proclaiming McMurray the breakout star of the season based on his season-opening performances. As big as winning at Daytona is (even in today's world of spec racecars and cruise control point-and-steer racing), it doesn't really convert to a successful rest of the season. Sure, McMurray followed it up with a pole, but what does a pole really mean any more? Being fast for two miles doesn't mean you can be fast for 500 miles. McMurray's teammate, and fellow front row starter Juan Montoya was just as fast but didn't last the full 500 miles, bowing out early due to engine failure. McMurray came home 17th and despite looking all over the Web all morning, not much can be found on his performance in the race from many of those writers who were touting him after qualifying.

- While McMurray's 17th-place finish was largely overlooked, Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s 32nd-place result generated more coverage than the drivers that rounded out the top-five. Earnhardt's result is noteworthy, but is it feature-worthy? The media has relied on Earnhardt for page views and click-thrus for too long, and his the over-exposure has turned off many of the sport's faithful followers. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the media needs to overlook Earnhardt, but how about giving him coverage commensurate with his performance?

- Has any 31st-place finish been received with more ballyhoo than Danica Patrick's run at Fontana? All of the media who proclaimed her to be a stock car success after finishing sixth in the ARCA race at Daytona are now having to backtrack, although I am not so sure that Patrick isn't right where she should be right now. Her goals aren't to go out and lead laps and win races; no, they are to learn how to drive stock cars. She's still learning that, although she's not competitive just yet. Once she learns how to drive the racecar, she can learn how to race the racecar. Anyone who thinks she will show up in Las Vegas and magically become a top-five finisher is kidding themselves. Although she has considerable experience in racing, she has exactly three races in a stock car. Let her learn, and then let's see what she can do. It's like Ricky Carmichael's transition from bikes to stock cars. He obviously knows how to race, and so does Danica, but he has to learn how to drive these vehicles before he can learn how to race them. Once both of them get their sea legs under them in stock cars, both will make a solid addition to the driver corps, although a big part of me wishes Danica would stay in the Indy Car Series.

- Anyone else find the Fox "White Flag" graphics and the headshots of the top-ten across the top of the screen to be too much? I wish the networks would minimize all the on-screen bells and whistles during the race broadcasts. I've never liked the ticker across the top because it obscures too much of the screen and only shows you three positions at a time. I would much rather favor a system that showed the entire rundown, statically, on both sides of the screen. The top-20 on the left side, the second 20 on the right, displayed as the position and then the car number. As positions changed, car numbers would move up or down; those going towards the front highlighted in green and those moving backwards highlighted in red. Occasionally other information could be inserted, such as interval (behind the leader and behind the next position) and average speed. That way, the entire field could be updated continually and without obscuring too much of the screen.