Numerous Sports Topics

The Forest City Owls look to be the number one seed out of the Coastal Plain League West once the playoffs start next week. They hold a four game led in the West and have the best overall record in the CPL with two less losses than Fayetteville. However, Wilmington is coming on strong in the East, they have won 10 games in a row now.

In our countdown to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s biggest moments throughout his NASCAR career in a six-part series, we come to No.4...A Texas size win:

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in his rookie campaign sporting the No.8 Bud Chevy...2000 to be exact. Junior dominated at Texas Motor Speedway leading 106 laps and beat Jeff Burton by six seconds for his first career Cup win.

In fact, right after Junior won the race, Dale Earnhardt Sr. couldn't wait to drag his son out of the car to celebrate. Senior, doesn't really get too emotional, but that day, he became the proudest dad on earth as he watched his son pull into victory lane.

Dale Earnhardt himself ended up seventh on the day and it was Adam Petty's first and only Cup start of his career, which ended way too soon.

The last three parts in the series will be talked about later on this season. Since he is retiring, I decided to put that together. Maybe a there is a little bit of an upswing for Junior, he finished 12th this past weekend at Pocono.

As for other NASCAR news, I didn't agree with Joe Gibbs Racing forcing the suspension of two of Martin Truex Jr.'s crew members following an incident at Indy the week before.

Yes, Gibbs provides the resources including those crew member to Barney Visser's team in an alliance, but two of Kyle Busch's crew members came into Martin Truex Jr.'s pit box after a wreck between Truex and Busch ended both chances at winning the Brickyard 400. Those two Busch crew members triggered the whole mess and Truex's team gets members suspended.

I think a lot of Joe Gibbs. Great guy and coach, a smart business man, faithful man. However, just because Truex is beating you every week and you have some power to control that team on some level, Busch was able to finally get his first win of the season this past weekend. I didn't see Busch get suspended for a brawl with Joey Logano this year. That was way worse than what happened the previous Sunday. Busch's crew chief Adam Stevens was one of the guys at fault and he received no punishment. Stevens has been on NASCAR's bad list before, but Gibbs refuses to suspend him. Politics and a competitive advantage was all that came to be.

Kyle Busch didn't want to play nice on a restart last week and Truex dug a little deep to try and grab the lead since both were the best two cars in the field at Indy. A wreck happened. Racing deal. Move on.

The return of High School football returns officially this week with first practice. I plan to have an update from all high schools next week.

There is also a buzz with the Carolina Panthers returning to training camp in Spartanburg. Cam Newton had surgery during the offseason, many are impressed with Christian McCaffrey and a couple of rookies are still ailing. Limited roster spots are available, so I'm curious to see who does and doesn't make it as we get deeper into pre-season.