Stewart would consider move to HMS

After Casey Mears was told by Hendrick Motorsports he would not be back in the No. 5 in 2009, Tony Stewart's name was linked to the opening. The strongest rumored Stewart destination has been as owner-driver with Haas CNC. But would Smoke be interested in joining Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick? "Absolutely, absolutely," Stewart says. "You've got to. There's nobody in this garage area that's not going to look in that direction." If Stewart joined Hendrick, that wouldn't make HMS the Yankees of NASCAR. It would make it the Beatles. . . .

Strange but true: Michael Waltrip's second-place run last Sunday at New Hampshire was only his seventh runner-up finish in 706 Cup races. It was his 39th top five and his first since June 2005 at Pocono. He has four career wins. . . .

Sprint Cup Series director John Darby has asked crew chiefs for feedback on the possibility of wide-open testing. Darby says NASCAR could move from its current restrictive policy -- where the only tests allowed at tracks that host Cup events are the sessions conducted by the sanctioning body -- to a no-holds-barred setup where teams would be allowed to test anywhere and anytime. That might tempt well-funded organizations to test every week with dedicated test teams, which likely would increase their advantage over organizations with limited resources. The consensus in the garage, though, is that the testing policy will stop short of that. "I think it's going to be that everything's on the table, but I don't think it will wind up there," Joe Gibbs says.