IN SIGHT Winston? Done. FOCUS: MICHAEL VALIANTE Michael Valiante wants to make a move. Valiante scored three Toyota Atlantic wins in 2002 and finished second in points to American Ryan Hunter-Reay, who went on to score a Champ Car win in his rookie season. Last year, the 24-year-old Canadian again won three races and ultimately finished third in points. Now aiming for a Champ Car ride, Valiante tested for Derrick Walker last month. "I was mentally prepared for it to be a huge jump from Atlantics to Champ Cars, but once we got the track cleaned off and the tires warmed up, I got down to some competitive, consistent times pretty quickly," said Valiante. "We kicked it up a notch the second day and knocked another half second or so off the time." Valiante is aware that the Champ Car series future is unclear -- and that's part of the reason he enjoyed testing for Walker. "Derrick Walker deserves a lot of credit for being the one Champ Car team owner who's out there during this unsettled time keeping a high profile and working toward the future," said Valiante. For his part, Walker, who campaigned Champ Cars for Rodolfo Lavin and Darren Manning in 2003, was impressed with Valiante. "We are investing in the future now, and these kinds of tests really provide both the team and driver with a lot of meaningful insight," said Walker. "Michael and I have been working together for some time now to try to build a race program, and during the test he demonstrated that he is a highly focused young talent who is more than ready to take the next step in his career." PIT PASS Think David Coulthard has Panis envy? McLaren finally made it official that it will retain Kimi Raikkonen as Juan Pablo Montoya's teammate when 2005 comes around, leaving Coulthard looking for work after this upcoming season. Toyota is a team on the rise and has often been linked to Coulthard -- and Toyota's boss didn't exactly silence the rumors last weekend. "I think Coulthard is one of the best drivers around, but today I want to concentrate on the launch of the 2004 season," team principal Tsutomu Tomita said on Saturday. Toyota's Olivier Panis is currently the oldest driver in F1, which helps to add fuel to the Coulhard-Toyota fire. But if Panis does leave F1 after 2004, it won't be by choice. "I want to say very clearly that I'm not retiring," said Panis, who scored six points for Toyota in 2003 and would probably be more likely to be dismissed from the team following a subpar year than would younger teammate Cristiano da Matta, who scored 10 points last year. As for Coulthard, word is that his people have already had talks with the Toyota brass. Oh, what a feeling for Panis. A sport is criticized because its champion only won once and the guy who won eight times was nowhere near the championship. The sanctioning body of said sport then makes radical -- yes, NASCAR, radical -- changes to the way it crowns its champion. Seems like a pretty clear cut cause and effect, right? Take a closer look. Ryan Newman's failure to win the Cup title last year despite winning a series-high eight races was one bone of contention from NASCAR detractors. Whether everyone agreed that Newman should have been the champ -- and many people do not agree with that assessment, by the way -- most did agree that more weight needed to be placed on winning races. To that specific issue, NASCAR responded by deciding to award race winners an additional five points this season. Five points. Some bonus. That's a dropped lugnut on pit road. Add 40 points to Newman's tally from 2003 and he leaps from a sixth-place finish to ... um ... OK, Newman still finishes sixth. So much for more importance being placed on winning. Speaking of five points, in NASCAR's new "Chase" -- which is not a playoff, per se, but it sure does resemble one -- which will give the top 10 or so drivers after 26 races a shot at the championship, the championship leader will start with a five-point lead when the 10-race chase begins at New Hampshire International Speedway. So NASCAR could end up shrinking a 200- or 300-point lead to just five with 10 races to go. This begs the question -- why do it at all? After all, a five-point lead? That's a missed shift in Turn 3. Either allow the points leader to start the 10-race shootout with a larger advantage or even the playing field completely. But that's neither here nor there. Actually, it is here, there and everywhere in NASCARLand, but we've waxed -- poetic and not so much -- of many elements of the new plan and we'll continue to do so. For now, let's focus on the evolution and justification for the point system shakeup. NASCAR's motivation for this new championship chase clearly is not to "correct" what some perceived to be a flawed system that saw Kenseth bull his way to a title with just one victory. If that was the case, they would have added more points for race victories and called it a day. What NASCAR instead chose to do was attempt to create late-season excitement at a time when the sport traditionally lags with football and baseball grabbing sports fans' attention. Traditionalists are furious, we have plenty of e-mail evidence of that in our computers here at ESPN.com. But the only thing that in the end will matter, and the France family knows this well, is this: Does the championship chase create buzz and excitement, or not? If it does, and the ratings will not lie, then NASCAR will be vindicated in the end and fans will have proved they are good at saying one thing but doing another. We expect many fans who say they won't pay attention to NASCAR this season in fact will be glued to their tubes -- unable to ignore their favorite sport, riveted by the championship chase spectacle. But we could be wrong. Hey, it's NASCAR's gamble, and ultimately, we'll know whether or not it paid off. If it doesn't play well to fans, Chip Ganassi's take on the subject will likely ring true. "The good news is, if NASCAR feels that it's not working, I'm sure they're not afraid to go back on the decision," Ganassi said. "It wouldn't be the first time." Bingo. MAILBAG

There is already a racing shootout, it's 36 races long. If a driver is out after 26 races, what's the point of driving in the last 10? This is a really bad idea. Joe Beckim Whitinsville, Mass. Without substantially more weight being given to winning races, NASCAR will end up rewarding the most consistent driver over the last 10 races. You are correct, Joe. It seems being consistently good over 36 races would be more impressive than over just a 10-race span. But NASCAR has created a "crunch time," if you will. Wild card teams can win the World Series or Super Bowl even though they didn't dominate during the regular season. Along those same lines, the new system will force drivers to step up their game down the stretch. As for drivers not eligible for the title, they will still be racing for wins. But just wait until one of these drivers accidently takes out a title contender at Atlanta while racing for the lead with 12 laps to go. Can't blame that driver for being aggressive or racing a title contender hard. After all, they are still racing for wins, right? If the rest of the field ends up being conservative around the title contenders for the entire 10-race shootout ... well, it would be a travesty. Got your own questions about what's happening in the pits? Ask away, and we'll answer a question or two in the next Gas&Go. Name: E-mail address: City, state: Your comment: OVERHEARD J. McMurray On new points system: "I wasn't a big fan of it initially, but the more they talk about it, the better it sounds. I think that they're very open that if it doesn't work and we don't like it, they'll change it back." Richard Petty On the new system: "The points were three, four or five different ways over a period of years, and I think I've been fortunate to win under most of them, so it really doesn't make a difference." Ed Carpenter On racing in the IRL: "I'm one of these new faces in the IRL. ... I think it's great to see people given new opportunities to really show their talent. Each year there are more new faces."

RPM.ESPN.com's Gas and Go appears each and every Tuesday on ESPN.com.