At this moment, NASCAR teams are heading toward their garages at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for Sunday's Nextel Cup race on Fox as well as Saturday's Busch Series bash on ABC (via ESPN). Much has been said about Las Vegas' dream of getting major league sports, but this is major league right here.

Just look at the latest ratings.

Yes, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth about NASCAR's sluggish ratings last year. "Woe is me," NBC was saying -- and followed that up by leaving the sport.

But NASCAR on Fox has nevertheless replaced the NHL as America's fourth major sports league, pulling a 5.6 rating on NBC last year to a 1.0 for the NHL. It also beat NBA regular-season games on ABC, 5.6 to 2.2, and the PGA Tour, 5.6 to 2.9.

The always-dramatic, season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 18 pulled a 10.1. That's comparable to the recent averages for the Bowl Championship Series and the World Series. It's also better than the most recent ratings for the NCAA Final Four (8.6), the NBA Finals (8.5), the fourth round of the Masters (8.4) and the Kentucky Derby (8.4).

So NASCAR is major league. The question now becomes whether the series broadcasters -- Fox and ESPN, along with TNT later in the season -- will be up to the task. After all, there are such things as lucidity and aesthetics even when you're dealing with oil pans and piston rings.

• FOX REIGNS SUPREME -- Back in the Mesozoic Era, when Richard Petty was king of Daytona and Mario Andretti owned the Indy 500, I covered both races. Auto racing is somewhat opaque.

And with all the pit stops and lead changes and Darrell Waltrip yelling "Boogity, boogity, boogity!" when the green flag flies, it gets confusing.

Who makes sense of this circus the best? Fox.

They have this season's first 15 Nextel Cup races (TNT takes over June 10 for six races, and ESPN and/or ABC have the final 17, including the Chase for the Cup series).

Fox is off to an outstanding start, if Daytona and the California 500 in Fontana are any indication.

It has all kinds of special effects that keep you in the race: Arrow pointers to particular drivers give you their name, speed, car number and current standing. Broadcasts are in HD and Dolby 5.1. In "Crank It Up" segments, Fox cuts to a camera in the car and special mikes in the cockpit pick up just the sounds.

And Fox's announcers are a cut above (at least on NASCAR; they still have Terry Bradshaw on the NFL).

Waltrip sounds like a hillbilly, but holy smoley, he's the best commentator in racing and one savvy hombre. When Matt Kenseth won at Fontana without his crew chief, who had been suspended, D.W. came up with this nifty truism: "You can't have a successful business and be an absentee owner, but you can have a successful race team and be an absentee crew chief."

• ESPN HAS WORK TO DO -- NASCAR's yearlong Busch Series, which ESPN is temporarily stuck with, is to the Nextel Cup what Triple-A baseball is to the major leagues, even though approximately 25 percent of Cup drivers also compete in Busch. You can't compare them to Fox, ratings wise, but it's fair game otherwise.

I'm perplexed by ESPN's move to bring in Brent Musburger to anchor its telecasts. Musburger has had a brilliant career on the NFL and other sports, but NASCAR? I suspect it might be an ill-conceived attempt by ESPN to widen its audience among NFL fans or create a better-heeled demographic than NASCAR has seen.

It reminds me in some ways of what NASCAR did by staging a Busch road race Sunday in Mexico City while Nextel Cup went dark for the weekend. I saw empty seats and very few crowd shots during ESPN's telecast. And for what? Globalism? Trans-nationalism? I wonder what the good ol' boys in Talladega thought about interrupting the season for Mexico City, though it was the third time the series raced there?

The best thing I can say about ESPN's coverage is the network's half-hour weekday show "NASCAR Live" show, which is both timely and informed. As for expert analysis on the races, Brad Daugherty, the former North Carolina and NBA star? Though Daugherty is a former NASCAR team owner, give me the always well-informed Marty Smith of NASCAR.com instead.

Now for Vegas. Crank up the tube ...

Bill Taaffe is a former award-winning TV-radio sports columnist for Sports Illustrated. His column is published Tuesday. He can be reached at taaffe-reviewjournal@earthlink.net.