Jeff Gordon's Birthplace in Danger of Bankruptcy

Jeff Gordon was on hand for the Monster Monument dedication ceremony at Dover International Speedway today. I bring this up to point out Jeff's surprisingly muscular arms (who knew?) and to talk about the place of his birth.

Jeff was born in Vallejo, California which is situated about 20-something miles away from where I'm sitting right this very minute. As a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm pretty sure Jeff is the greatest thing to ever come out of Vallejo in its entire history of existence (and if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will point that out), unless you count Marine World, which I don't. There isn't much to do there, it's just a city with houses and people and schools and what not.

But anyway the point is that the city of Vallejo has been going through some financial woes as of late and is on the brink of declaring bankruptcy. They're in the hole about $16 million. You think he could write 'em a check?

In other news...

The fabulous people at Nationwide -- title sponsors of the NASCAR Nationwide Series -- sent over a press release featuring the post-race interviews with the top-three drivers from the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at Darlington Raceway on Friday. There was one exchange between Tony Stewart and Dave Rogers, his Nationwide Series crew chief, that was particularly funny (for audio go here):

The Joe Gibbs number 20 team is easily leading the Owners’ standings again after winning six of the year’s 12 races and they have done that with three different drivers, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin. After last Friday night’s win, Tony was doing the post race interview when someone asked who chief Dave Rogers thought was the best driver among those three, would want in that car. Before Rogers could answer Tony jumped in:

Stewart:
How many races have you won this year?
"Six"
How many have I won?
"Four"
Well that's easy to figure out. I thought you guys were smart. Obviously there are no math majors in the group. See, I am just keeping him from getting himself in a box. I don't care those guys can come tell me they are better than me all day long. Just like AJ Foyt said, "all you got to do is check the record books big boy."