In addition, the AM band on my car radio would go unused if not for the few sports talk radio stations I can pick up in my area, and I check web pages like CNN and MSNBC repeatedly throughout the day, pretending to be concerned about current events while checking for breaking sports news.

Generally speaking it's a great time to be a sports fan, with a wide array of web sites and cable channels leading the charge in sports coverage. However, despite the wealth of information available, there is one area that the mainstream sports media is not giving ample coverage, namely the NASCAR Nextel Cup series' Chase for the Championship.

That's not to say that this year's Chase is going totally unmentioned in the mainstream sports media. ESPN pays NASCAR's senior circuit lip service after a race on their SportsCenter show, devoting as much as 10 seconds to results on race weekends - possibly 15 if there is video footage of a particularly impressive looking crash.

Now that the season's winding down, they sometimes go as far as to mention movements in the points standings, especially if it involves naming the sport's most recognizable figure, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt might, in fact, be the exception to the media blackout rule, although stories about him tend to focus primarily on his activities outside of a race car, such as his social life and his at times questionable choice of words during live interviews.

Unless your major local newspaper happens to be The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), it's unlikely that you're seeing much about it in the print media either.

I'm fortunate enough to have The Washington Post as my local rag, where some of the country's best sportswriters hang their hats. I'm treated regularly to the columns of Thomas Boswell, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, none of who devote so much as 50 words to the topic of motor sports over the course of any calendar year.

Wilbon?s and Kornheiser's "Pardon the Interruption" television program on ESPN reaches a huge national audience daily, yet they fail to mention what is one of this country's biggest spectator sports.

Coverage seems equally absent on the opposite side of the country, where pundits like J.A. Adande and Jim Rome give NASCAR and competitive eating equal coverage.

I'm continually hard pressed to rationalize the mainstream sports media's disdain for motor sports, and the Nextel Cup Series in particular. This is a series that's obviously hugely popular (both its attendance and revenue numbers are obscene), and this season seems tailor-made for the popular press. Scoring for the points championship was revamped from a season-long marathon to a 10-race sprint among the top 10 drivers, creating a playoff atmosphere that begs for coverage.

While the sport might have formerly been criticized for being dominated by aging "good old boys," the 10 drivers competing for this year's championship average less than 32-years old.

From the sport's changing of the guard to Mark Martin's attempts to break his own "curse" to the Hendrick Motorsports teams' perseverance in the face of incredible tragedy, there are enough potential storylines for a year's worth of sports headlines, but many of them seem to be going unwritten.

For that reason, I'm using this opportunity to issue a wake-up call to the mainstream sports media.

While you may have slept on a great sports story for the last month and a half, it's not too late to jump on the bandwagon. Many of your most ardent followers are already tuned in to this story, and would welcome your attention to this matter.

You can play it off like it's honestly slipped your mind - after all, you were far too busy chronicling the trials and tribulations of Red Sox Nation to pay NASCAR Nation too much mind.

What is currently going on in the Nextel Cup series -- an extremely competitive battle for the sport's highest prize by a select group of its elite -- surely warrants more than a cursory mention on your sports pages and news programs.

The drama unfolding on Saturdays and Sundays each weekend isn't limited to the gridiron and your coverage should reflect that.