By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

GM is making a bit of a hoopla over the 25th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports, for which they’ll be issuing a Hendrick edition Camaro, limited to a run of 25 units. That car doesn’t seem to be here yet, though there are a couple of other nostalgic NASCAR racers already in place in the booth. I’m thinking that the Hendrick Camaro looks a little plain-jane considering what they might have done with it, but I guess I’ll have to reserve judgment until I can see it in person. Pics and video below the jump!

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By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

Hendrick Motorsports must’ve been crazy to kick Kyle Busch to the curb. As you may know, the preeminent NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team dropped Busch in order to pick up Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the 2008 season as Junior fled his former team, DEI. The orphaned Busch brother was soon picked up by Joe Gibbs Racing, and meanwhile Gibbs was bought out by Toyota. Today, this sequence of events has at last paid dividends all around as Kyle, at 22, became the youngest driver ever to win a Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and the first since 1954 to drive a foreign make into victory circle. The win was a huge relief for Toyota, whose controversial move into Sprint Cup racing last year, and its longstanding inability to prove itself to be truly competitive in NASCAR’s top series despite sinking untold bucketloads of cash into its NASCAR effort, was starting to become a bit of an embarrassment. Now it’s clear that Joe Gibbs has scooped up the right driver and Toyota has bought the right team—congrats all around! Poor Rick Hendrick must be just kicking himself right now, but he should be biding his time: new acquisition Junior’s performance has been trending upward in the early races of this season, and by all accounts he’s poised to make a major comeback in ’08.

Every day is race day with this Dale Earnhardt Jr.-themed school bus conversion. It’s got electricity and running water, checkered-flag flooring, two sets of bunk beds, an Alpine sound system, and NASCAR decor throughout—including a tasteful No. 8 printed curtain on the door to the privy. Just browsing through the pics of this rig is enough to make you blow Bud Light through your nose! It can probably be had for a bargain, too, especially since Junior will soon be ditching both the No. 8 and the Budweiser colors: he’ll be flying under the 88 next season with Hendrick Motorsports. But with less than 2 days left on the auction, the reserve still hasn’t been met. So pony up some dough already, and let’s go racin’!