By SCOTT ADAMSON, Scripps Howard News Service

The NASCAR fans that dislike Kyle Busch -- and they are legion -- are still buzzing about the driver's poor Pete Townshend imitation last Saturday night in Nashville, Tenn.
As everyone who follows stock car racing knows by now the sport's reigning bad boy took the trophy for winning the Nationwide race -- a hand-painted Gibson guitar -- and smashed it.

As NASCAR continues its 2009 struggles, both at the gate and with a declining television audience, her name is starting to come up with more regularity.
This league covets Danica Patrick like the proverbial golden calf. Ask any power broker in the sport what it would mean to have the driver with the looks of a model driving one of their Car of Tomorrow models, and they light up.

Urban Meyer led Florida to another national championship.
Nick Saban helped make Alabama football Alabama football again.
Houston Nutt took a bad Ole Miss team and turned it into one that has fans in Oxford dreaming of the glory days of Manning -- both Archie and Eli.
So when the SEC spring meetings wrapped up last week who was the coach creating the most buzz?

Now that I'm smack-dab in the middle of the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons -- big-time pro football teams within easy driving distance -- my fascination with fledgling gridiron leagues has waned.

For years NASCAR seemed untouchable.
Bill France Jr. ran the show like a dictator (maybe a benevolent one, maybe not) and with TV ratings through the roof and attendance continuing to swell, any and all complaints were dismissed out of hand.
Those days are gone -- perhaps forever.
NASCAR is a major sport, and now it's experiencing some major problems.

OK, be honest -- do you really enjoy NASCAR qualifying?
Does watching a lone car on a track take two laps around asphalt provide the ultimate thrill?
Of course not. I think most of us simply accept it because, well, that's just the way they do things in stock car circles -- you qualify, you practice, you race, you go home.
Rinse and repeat.

OK, be honest -- do you really enjoy NASCAR qualifying?
Does watching a lone car on a track take two laps around asphalt provide the ultimate thrill?
Of course not. I think most of us simply accept it because, well, that's just the way they do things in stock car circles -- you qualify, you practice, you race, you go home.
Rinse and repeat.

The Atlanta Braves' 5-1 loss to Colorado on Monday was, by and large, unremarkable. The 2009 season is still in its infancy, with another couple of months to be played before pennant races really begin to take shape.

We can now put those "Super Bowl in London" rumors to rest.
Although it was suggested recently that talks to ship the NFL title tilt overseas were legitimate, commissioner Roger Goodell insists they aren't.

I'm starting to think NASCAR is a little like the "Skull and Bones Society", that secret organization at Yale University. For some reason, officials of stock car racing's governing body feel the need to keep things under the tightest of wraps, even when the greater good is served by being open.