Tickled Pink

There are certain colors that are considered bad luck in racing. Black is often grouped with evil. Green, while associated with the start of a race and the payout after the event, is also frowned upon in motorsports.

And then there's pink. In recent years, pink has become much more of a common color in NASCAR. But all of these schemes have a common reason -- breast cancer research, and support has been great.

But then there's this thing. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I suppose that, in these economic times, if you can strike a deal with any company, you should slap its logo on the hood. On the other hand, Danny O'Quinn has to be slightly emasculated to have "SALON WISH" plastered across his chest. (And Danny is built like an NFL linebacker, so that's a big logo)

And then there's the design of the car itself. The overall scheme is pretty good. It's just the colors. I can't bring myself to look at it for more than five seconds without breaking out into a mixture of aloud confusion, laughter, and visually-induced vomiting. Sure, the colors "go well together," but... it's pink. And don't even get me started on the "SALON WISH" typeface.

Let's just hope this doesn't take off like the flame fad of the early part of the decade... Blech.

The Rundown: As noted earlier, Kerry Earnhardt's Rick Ware Racing team showed up at Talladega with a plain black car, not the Dale Earnhardt-inspired scheme they unveiled earlier this week that I wrote about yesterday. ... Hall of Fame Racing also went black for Tally. No idea what that's about, but it's better than the scheme they've been running. ... It still seems strange to see the 43 in anything other than Petty blue, but Reed Sorenson's Air Force car is dead sexy. ... Continuing Hendrick Motorsports' trend over the past few years of reusing Darrell Waltrip's schemes from when he didn't drive for HMS, Jeff Gordon is driving a Pepsi Challenger-based scheme. ... Carl Edwards' Claritin scheme is back for 2009, apparently unchanged from 2008. ... Clint Bowyer will drive a car sponsored by The Hartford in "select races." Jeff Burton will also be sponsored by the company at some point, and I would assume the scheme will be essentially the same. ... Gabi DeCarlo's Great Clips truck sported what has now become the standard scheme for the sponsor. ... Jeremy Mayfield ran a Big Red scheme for the second week in a row. ... Don't adjust your set on Sunday: Leading them to the green flag is this beauty. ... I can't be the only one to mistake this for a 7 Eleven car every time I see it. ... I usually don't like schemes that try to make themselves look like a flag waving in the wind, but this is just too nice not to like.