Start Your Engines

Toyota has yet to break through with its first Cup win three races into 2008. The second-year nameplate is much improved between adding Joe Gibbs Racing and a strong new engine package, and the consensus is that a sweet maiden victory can't be far away.

Want to know what would make it even sweeter? If Toyota could beat Chevrolet to Victory Lane.

After winning 13 of the first 14 races last year and running away with the manufacturers' championship for the fifth straight year, the bowtie has run dry at the start of this season. Hendrick Motorsports hasn't won a race, nor has Richard Childress Racing or Dale Earnhardt Inc. Seven drivers among those three teams claimed titles in the first four months in 2007.

Not since 2002 has Chevrolet suffered through such a drought to start a season. That year, Tony Stewart saved face for General Motors in the fourth race at Atlanta, winning in a Pontiac. (JGR switched to Chevrolet for 2003, and Pontiac left Cup racing for good at the end of that year.) The first Chevrolet win came in the ninth race at Talladega with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Maybe Atlanta and the Kobalt Tools 500 can be the savior again this weekend.

Chevys have won seven of the last 10 races at Atlanta, including Jimmie Johnson sweeping the 1.54-mile oval's two events last year. The second was in the middle of his remarkable four consecutive wins in the Chase, a form he hasn't found yet this year. After a solid second at California, Johnson took a step back with a 29th-place day at Las Vegas, where he was a nonfactor.

"It was definitely a disappointment, but no one is down about it. It just makes us that much more determined," said Johnson, 14th in points. "We have a lot of talented mechanics and engineers back at the shop that won't stop until they figure out what was going on with the car. Sometimes you can learn a lot more from overcoming setbacks than you do from your successes."

The learning curve in the new Cup car will continue at Atlanta's racy quad-oval, whose 24-degree banking in the turns creates some of NASCAR's top speeds. Last year's pole speed of 193.124 mph from seven-time Atlanta pole winner Ryan Newman was the quickest of the year.

"At Atlanta, the key is how you are on long runs," said Roy McCauley, crew chief of Newman's Dodge. "The tires there have a history of wearing out quickly, so it's not about how fast you are during the first 10 laps, but it's about how consistent you are over the last 30 laps of a run."

Rocket Man

Carl Edwards: So, when did the No. 99 go in your fantasy draft? Unless you've got an Edwards family member in your league, there's no way he went top five, not ahead of the big boys at Hendrick or Tony Stewart or maybe a Busch brother. Perhaps Edwards wasn't even the first Roush Fenway guy picked, given four-time Chaser Matt Kenseth.

Well, if two early races on intermediate tracks are any indication -- and in Cup racing, they often are -- Edwards may just be the best of the bunch this year. Vegas and California were wins and impressive shows of strength in the new car. Roush didn't have that last year, but it's appearing to make up for lost time.

"Just the way we've been running, you know, the hard work that [crew chief] Bob [Osborne] has put in, you know, everything that Jack's put into it," said Edwards, who has led 150 laps the last two weeks. "You know, the idea that we are, I think, close to the form that we were in 2005, you know, where it just seemed like a Roush Fenway car would win every week. That's what I'm really excited about."

We know now.

John Schwarb is a motorsports contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at johnschwarb@yahoo.com.