Quaker State 400 Countdown: How much Silly Season news will break at Kentucky?

Three years ago, on July 4th weekend at Daytona, Mark Martin and Rick Hendrick sat at a table and announced that the then 49-year-old Batesville, Ark., native would be driving the No. 5 Chevrolet for NASCAR’s so-called “Super Team” starting in 2009.

Last year, in late July, Martin lambasted reporters for saying he should step aside in the No. 5 one year early to make room for Kasey Kahne, who HMS signed in April of 2010.

Mark Martin was unhappy with a few reporters at last year's Brickyard 400 media day when reporters suggested that ESPN's Ray Evernham was right to say Martin should step out of his car at Hendrick Motorsports one year early to make room for Kasey Kahne

The past few weeks have been full of “Silly Season” news, the most shocking bombshell dropped a few weeks ago when Red Bull Racing announced the team’s Austrian ownership was pulling out of the sport.

Clint Bowyer was apparently close to a deal with Red Bull Racing. Or maybe not. He had his own little tirade last week at Sonoma.

“You guys are pretty creative, you really are pretty good at creating stories and stuff like that,” he told reporters last Friday. “You run into people in the garage and it’s like ‘Hey, what are you going to do next year?’ And it’s like, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ (They say) ‘Well, we might be interested.’ Then the next thing you know, you’re standing on a golf course and everybody is saying ‘Well, now what are you going to do? Your plan just blew up.’ It’s like, what?”

The lynchpin in the whole Silly Season is Carl Edwards, who is in his last year with Roush Fenway Racing. If Edwards stays at RFR, things become a little clearer. If he leaves, wherever he ends up could start the proverbial domino fall.

Juan Pablo Montoya wants to resign with Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, and he wants to do so soon. “We’re pretty close,” Montoya said last Friday at Infineon. “I think we’re pretty close, yeah.”

Brian Vickers's No. 83 at Indy in 2009

And Kasey Kahne is scared about the future of Red Bull Racing. Even though Kahne is going to pilot the No. 5 next season, he will finish out the year in the No. 4 at RBR. “As far as Red Bull putting everything they have into the car and the program the rest of the season, they're going to do that,” he said, as reported by SBNation’s Jeff Gluck. “They've said that. But it's the people. And if the people feel like they're in a stable place, they're going to do a better job – they're going to perform better.”

What will happen within the next week, and will anything break in front of my very eyes at Kentucky? It will be quite interesting to see if anything breaks. And if it does, plan on seeing it here, or on my Twitter page: @adamniemeyer

We’re seven days from the NASCAR Nationwide Series “Feed the Children 300” at Kentucky. More to follow this week about the first-ever tripleheader at Kentucky.