Have you been sitting there on your couch thinking, "Good grief, it's January 7th already, when is NASCAR going to start?" Well, if you have, you need to find a couple more hobbies, but the good news is that the Speed channel is kicking off its NASCAR season this week with NASCAR Preseason Thunder. The season just gets longer and longer.

They will be covering Nextel Cup testing at Daytona. You can get a schedule of the shows on the Speed website. The actual race isn't until February 18th, but Speed knows where their bread is buttered. NASCAR is to them like the football team is to Notre Dame. It pays for everything else.

My early season predictions are for Jimmy Johnson and Tony Stewart to come out strong. Denny Hamlin will prove that last season wasn't a fluke. Kurt Busch will be back in the hunt now that the #2 team has had a season to gel. The #24 team will remain inconsistent, possibly leading Jeff Gordon to fire his crew chief. Robbie Gordon will crash some people, but it won't be his fault. And Michael Waltrip will continue to get all kinds of camera time despite never even getting a whiff of being competitive.