Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! This week we congratulate our new and final Winston Cup champion, Matt Kenseth, of our own DeVine 9 1/2 fantasy team! Matt started 23rd and finished 4th, along the way overcoming a penalty on his drive to the top 5. It was fun to see Matt wrap up the championship. In a sweet gesture, the lap car of Dale Jr. rolled by and saluted the #17 as the white flag waved -- those guys were rookies together in 2000 and were good buds, according to Jr.'s enjoyable book "Driver #8," remaining so after Matt took the Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award over Baby E, the favorite.

Anticipating that Matt would clinch the title, NBC-on-TNT had staked out a sports bar in Cambridge, Wis., which is Matt's hometown. Looked like those folks were sure enough having a big time, more and more as the day rolled on! It is good to see the local folks come out for a hometown boy! I believe they showed Matt's Mama there in the bar after he won; his daddy was down at the track with Matt, and he looked so proud, y'all. It was also, of course, a very special day for team owner Jack Roush, who got his first-ever Winston Cup championship, and for Mark Martin. Matt was discovered by Mark, who himself lost the Cup in 1990 and 2002 by tiny margins after being fined by NASCAR for this or that.

As cool as all that is, let it take nothing from the victory of Georgia's own Bill Elliott, who broke a 50-race losing streak. Awesome Bill said, "To win the last fall race at Rockingham... [when] my first start was at Rockingham back in 1976 . . . all that's kind of an ironic deal. It's like a storybook that's come together." Isn't that the truth? Everybody's all concerned about when Bill will retire -- they need to be worried about him running up behind them and taking the lead! Congratulations, Awesome Bill! This sure ought to jack up the pork rinds sales.

A Baptist preacher and the 82nd Airborne glee club started off the race, and the planes, well, they came right on time. In the continuing series honoring Winston Cup legends, Benny Parsons ran some tribute laps before the race. Who will lead "the last time, even of last times," (as the poet Jean Valentine wrote) when Winston is officially stubbed out at Homestead? I'm betting Richard Petty.

This week, it was our great joy to watch the race with our new friends Amy and AJ. They have a TV as big as a king-size bed and kept us cracking up the whole time! When they showed that Ryan Newman was in a specially decorated car this week, Amy had this to say about new paint schemes: "I HATE it when they do that! Don't they know their fans are drinking?"

Ryan started on the pole and led through lap 47. Ward Burton led 48-77, and then Jeremy Mayfield stomped around out front like a big dawg, leading almost 100 laps. It was good to see Jeremy driving hard, especially since he'd lost an engine early at Phoenix last week; this week, he finished 3rd. The afternoon's highest drama came on lap 84, when a series of bumps between Jeff Gordon on the inside and Ryan Newman up high resulted in Jeff's spinning Ryan out. (Amy yelled: "MANIAC! Black-flag that maniac, NASCAR!") And so they did, penalizing Jeff for rough driving. Afterwards, he was way mad and wouldn't talk about it, leaving #24 crew chief Robbie Loomis to put out Gordon's version, which went something like, "Ryan started it, Mama!"

Soon, Dale Jarrett ran Casey Mears up into Kurt Busch, whose #97 sustained some damage against the wall. Then the rookies Greg Biffle and Jamie McMurray got spun in separate but concurrent incidents. Hate it for ya, Jamie! In another great moment for NBC-on-TNT, they were never able to roll tape that showed what happened to Jamie. His car simply slid into view while the camera stayed on Biffle's accident.

In an amusing incident, Jeff Gordon got us nose all up under Jimmy Spencer and got the #7 car way loose. We laughed at that a lot! Jimmie Johnson passed Jeremy for the lead at lap 174, then Bill Elliott let us know he was serious, marching from the back to take the lead at lap 186. The caution came out for engine trouble on the #6 of Mark Martin, and Matt made a boo-boo when he drove below the "commitment line" at pit lane, then swerved back up into traffic. The penalty sent him to the back of the longest line on the restart -- just more drama for Matt to deal with on his way to the championship!

After a very encouraging run, Mikey blew his engine at lap 343. Sorry Mikey! There was some tough racing between Mayfield and Ryan. An incident between Tony Stewart and AJ Foyt brought out the caution; Tony smacked AJ in revenge. The last caution came out when Ryan wrecked out Kenny Schrader. That was not a favorite move with Our Crowd -- poor Kenny doesn't even have a sponsor, Ryan!

In the points this week, JJ knocked Jr. out of 2nd; Ryan knocked Jeff out of 4th; and Bill Elliott knocked Kurt Busch out of 9th. The DeVine 9 1/2 is holding down 7 of the top 10 spots, although Mikey's bad luck dropped him down to 13th.

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"PYRAMID" SCHEME

As I told you last week, NASCAR stars on the celebs this week on "Pyramid" with Donny Osmond. This sounds like a better idea than it really is. Monday featured Jamie and Kurt, and while they were both cute and smart, the show seems really contrived, and the cutsie-poo puzzle categories are smarmy enough to gag a goat. The one amusing moment involved a puzzle in which Kurt was trying to get his partner to say "rump." Somehow, the guessing got turned around to "butt" then "breakfast," causing Donny to say something goofy about having "butt for breakfast." (I guess the Homeland Security Content Advisor assigned to the show must have been napping at his beeper when that hit.)

Anyway, it's worth checking the show out if get the chance; see your local listings.

That's it for this week, friends. Thanks to Amy and AJ for the invite Sunday, and thanks to all of y'all who have written in. We'll get together again on Sunday for Winston's last race, and I'll be back next week with some final thoughts on the season and some groundless speculation about next year. Thanks for stopping by the trailer, y'all! See you at the Track Bar!