This is the best you can do?(NASCAR)

When there's a bidding war for a Nextel Cup driver who never has won a Cup race--I'm talking about you, Brian Vickers--it's time for NASCAR and its teams to re-evaluate how they develop young drivers.

There is a long list of successful Busch drivers who haven't done squat since graduating to Cup. Vickers, 22 and in his third year on the tour, is one of them. He has 94 starts, and his best finish is second. In identical Hendrick Motorsports equipment, teammate Kyle Busch scored two wins as a rookie--one of only six drivers to accomplish that feat.

Unlike Vickers, who was promoted to Cup after winning a Busch title, Casey Mears had little success at the Busch level. He has one more year in Cup than Vickers has and the same number of wins. Meats' soon-to-be-former boss, Chip Ganassi, accepts responsibility for not providing equipment competitive enough to retain his driver or attract top-line talent to his organization. Vickers, driving Hendrick equipment, has no such excuses.

Still, after Vickers announced he would leave Hendrick following this season, his phone rang off the hook with calls from Toyota and Robert Yates Racing. They begged for his services and threw enough money at him to feed a Third World country. Vickers listened all the way to the bank and will drive a Toyota for the Red Bull team next year. Meanwhile, Meats has signed to drive Vickers' car next year.

I don't get it. When did owners and sponsors get so desperate?

Is Jack Roush the only owner with the foresight to develop a farm system with enough depth that he's not forced to venture into the has-been well for drivers? And even Roush is rumored to have spent $4 million for Jamie McMurray, who has yet to produce results that would make Crown Royal do cartwheels.

The spending frenzy isn't limited to young drivers. The golden parachute Michael Waltrip offered Dale Jarrett to ensure the Waltrip-owned team would have a champion's provisional is every bit as absurd. Sure, he's a former champ, but who can remember the last time D.J. was up on the wheel?