Rating the Ford EcoBoost 400: 3 Stars ***

For the first time in eight years, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has a first-time champion. Brad Keselowski won the championship, and Jeff Gordon won a race that had a lot of storylines, although few that made for a really exciting race. The final race of the 2012 season gets a 3 Star Rating.

Gordon won the race after Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. had to pit for fuel late in the race, and he beat his nemesis from Phoenix, Clint Bowyer. My how a week changes things. Last week those two were involved in garage fights and had torn up race cars; this week they had the two top finishes.

The best racing of the day came from Busch and Truex Jr. As he did in both the truck and Nationwide races this weekend, Busch led nearly all of the first 100 laps, but then a debris caution came out and bunched up the field.

At that point, Truex Jr. challenged for the lead and the two drivers ran next to each other the remainder of the race. They traded the lead a few times, and Truex Jr. hounded Busch’s bumper for much of the night.

It’s too bad the race couldn’t have come down to a battle between those two drivers. The finish likely wouldn’t have ended as close as Friday’s truck race between Busch and Cale Gale, but it would’ve been better than Gordon beating Bowyer by more than one second.

But the championship was the focus of the day anyway. Johnson put up a good fight throughout much of the race and had a shot to win the championship after pit strategies worked in his favor with a little more than 50 laps remaining.

Then his night quickly took a turn for the worse. His pit crew missed a lugnut on the left-rear tire on lap 213 and by lap 227 he was in the pits with a blown drivetrain that would end his night and hopes of a championship.

Johnson did make the title fight dramatic for a bit, though. After Keselowski chose to stay on track under caution after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wrecked on lap 154, Johnson took the opportunity to get tires and set up his fuel strategy for the rest of the race.

Had Johnson been able to avoid his late-race problems, he just might have squeaked out his sixth championship.

It wasn’t meant to be, however, and Keselowski is the Sprint Cup Series champion in just his third full season in the series. And what a ride he has had to the top.

Keselowski won his first race at Talladega Superspeedway in April 2009 in the famous finish that sent Carl Edwards flying into the fence. That race he drove the James Finch-owned #09 car to its first victory.

Since then he’s won eight more races, made the Chase in two of his three years with Penske Racing and now has the championship. Oh yeah, he also won the Nationwide Series championship for owner Roger Penske in 2010. Both of his championships are Penske’s first championships in each series.

That is a remarkable run of success, and he has earned it. It has been fun to watch Keselowski enter the sport and go from a part-timer looking for a full ride to a brash kid who upset veteran drivers to a champion.

Whether or not he wins more championships in the future, Keselowski's career will be a success. Congratulations to him and the entire #2 team on winning the 2012 Sprint Cup Series championship.

Unfortunately, the end of the championship race also means the end of the season and no more Sunday afternoons filled by a NASCAR race. That is always a sad time and takes somewhat of an adjustment for many fans after they’ve had the same routine for eight months.

But as always, Daytona Speedweeks will open a new season in mid-February and NASCAR life will begin anew. Hopefully the days between now and then are filled with happiness and holiday celebrations with friends and family.

Thank you for following the Monday Morning Crew Chief ratings again this season. It’s been a fun year and expect more in 2013. Also, look for the rating of the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season, which will be posted following the champion’s celebration Nov. 30 in Las Vegas.

Have a great offseason, everybody.

Rating the AdvoCare 500: 5 Stars *****

The Sprint Cup Series’ final trip out West turned into an old-fashioned bar fight, a down-and-out team won for the first time in more than a year situation the championship situation changed dramatically amid all the noise. The wild day at Phoenix International Raceway gets a 5 Star Rating.

Like it or not, Sunday’s race had everything, and all of it was unexpected.

First, five-time champion Jimmie Johnson hit the wall coming out of Turn 4 on lap 235 after his right-front tire went flat. That incident relegated him to a 32-place finish and put him 20 points behind Brad Keselowski, who finished sixth.

But that was only the beginning of the mayhem that took place Sunday in the desert.

Danica Patrick and Sam Hornish Jr. had their weekly spat as Hornish Jr. tapped the side of Danica’s car on lap 299 coming out of Turn 4. The contact cut down Hornish Jr.’s left-front tire and eventually sent him into the wall.

Then the big one happened. Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon made contact in turns 3 and 4 on the restart, and Gordon ended up slapping the wall. He then waited for Bowyer to come back around the track and turned him sideways, wrecking Bowyer, Joey Logano and Aric Almirola in the process.

Once Gordon got to the garage area, Bowyer’s team was waiting and ready to pounce. They did, and a huge brawl broke out behind the #24 team’s hauler as members of both teams started throwing punches. Bowyer sprinted to the garage area to get in on the action, but he and Gordon never met until after the race inside the NASCAR hauler with officials.

After that excitement settles down, NASCAR restarts the race with a green-white-checkered finish. Patrick wrecks in Turn 4 as the field comes to the white flag, but NASCAR doesn’t throw a caution. The entire field then slides through the oil from Patrick’s car as they come to the finish line and a major wreck ensues.

Ryan Newman, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Paul Menard all sustain major hits as they plowed through the oil and into Patrick’s car. Keselowski got hit coming to the line, but he didn’t get turned.

To put the finishing touches on a crazy day, Kevin Harvick won the race. It was the first time he and the #29 team had gone to Victory Lane since September of last year at Richmond.

The win was surprising because Harvick and the entire Richard Childress Racing organization had shown no signs of contending for a win for nearly the entire season. Harvick finished second at Phoenix in the spring race, but he hadn’t even had a top-10 finish in the Chase up until Sunday.

Maybe the win will boost the Childress teams, but they still have a lot of work to do to be competitive on a weekly basis, especially at larger tracks.

People will likely debate for days about what NASCAR should do about the Gordon-Bowyer incident and what penalties it should or should not hand out. The one issue from Sunday’s race that shouldn’t be disputed is NASCAR’s incorrect call to throw the caution flag for Patrick’s wreck.

Week after week NASCAR officials call for a caution flag for water bottles and sandwiches or whatever incidental piece of debris is on the race track, yet they didn’t call a caution when Patrick’s #10 car slid sideways through Turn 4 after hitting the wall.

That’s what caused the big wreck on the final lap. Officials always talk about the importance of safety in the sport, but they put drivers in harm’s way on the final lap when they allowed the race to finish under green.

Robin Pemberton’s excuse that officials couldn’t see fluid on the track shouldn’t justify NASCAR’s actions, or lack of action. The caution comes out for small incidents all the time when the leader has put together a big enough lead to keep the race from being exciting.

NASCAR should’ve thrown the caution flag for Patrick’s wreck. Period.

Anyway, Johnson will take a 20-point lead into Homestead to try to win … Wait, not Johnson. Keselowski will take that lead to Homestead to try to win his first championship. He needs to finish 15^th or better to win the trophy. If he does, he will become the first driver to go head-to-head with Johnson in the Chase and beat him since Tony Stewart did it in 2005. That’s a pretty impressive feat, and Keselowski and the #2 team have had a very impressive season.

Have a great final week of the 2012 season, everybody.

Rating the AAA Texas 500: 3 Stars ***

Sprint Cup Series championship contenders Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski spiced up the end of an otherwise stale race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Thankfully, the championship was in play or Sunday’s race might have received worse than its 3 Star Rating.

Johnson and the #48 team trotted out their dominating ways quickly last weekend. Johnson smoked the field in qualifying, beating second-place Greg Biffle by more than 0.10 of a second. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was the largest difference between any two top-40 qualifiers.

Johnson then went on to lead the first 100 laps, and he did so with more than a four-second advantage over second place. Then NASCAR had to throw a debris caution to give the field a chance to keep Johnson from stinking up the entire show.

Overall, Johnson got the necessary results by leading 168 laps and winning the race. But his challenger, Keselowski, put up another strong fight at a track he previously hadn’t finished higher than 14^th.

Keselowski finished second Sunday and nearly stole the win. He took two tires twice while the rest of the field took four tires, and he even roughed up the #48 car a little by bumping him on the frontstretch to take the lead on the penultimate restart.

That last section of the race is what saved the AAA Texas 500 from a lower rating. The first 275 or so laps were very boring. For whatever reason, the intensity level jumped dramatically after the final debris caution of the day on lap 275 and continued to the checkered flag.

Alas, Johnson still ended up in Victory Lane and extended his lead in the championship standings to seven points. The lead would’ve been just two points if Keselowski had won and Johnson finished second.

That means Johnson will head to Phoenix, the second-to-last race of the season with a lead that is longer than an eyelash. If Johnson beats Keselowski again next week, the #48 team will strut into the final race at Homestead with another sizeable lead that would require Johnson to finish well outside the top 10 to even have a chance to lose the championship.

Still, Keselowski has put up an admirable fight throughout the Chase, and the entire season for that matter. Whether or not Keselowski wins the championship, this season could be a sign of things to come in the future for him and the # 2 team, provided their switch to Ford next year goes smoothly.

In any case, the series will head to Phoenix next week for what could easily be another Johnson-Keselowski show. There might be a non-Chaser jump in the top five or pull off Kasey Kahne’s feat from last year when he won a race that was dominated by the 2011 championship contenders, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards.

Kyle Busch could pull that off this year. Remember last year at this time he didn’t even have a ride after NASCAR suspended him following a truck series wreck with Ron Hornaday Jr. at Texas.

Busch finished third at Texas this year and could pull off an upset win next week, but otherwise the championship race will likely be the sole focus of the weekend.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Bank of America 500: 4 Stars ****

The top three Sprint Cup Series championship contenders dominated Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the driver now fourth in the Chase, Clint Bowyer, outlasted everyone to grab his third win of the season. The final race of the season at Charlotte gets a 4 Star Rating.

Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin were the class of the field all night. Keselowski used pit strategy to move up from his 20^th-place starting spot after the third caution in 36 laps. The race went incident free the rest of the way with only a couple of debris cautions for NASCAR to make sure it stayed entertaining.

Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin combined to lead 228 of the 334 laps, but fueld mileage came into play after the final debris caution on lap 223. Johnson and Hamlin both couldn’t make it to the finish when they pitted with about 55 laps to go. Surprisingly, neither could Keselowski, who usually has good fuel mileage.

Keselowski’s chance at winning the race ended anyway on that next-to-last pit stop because he ran out of gas going down the backstretch and had a 22-second stop once he got there. That put him outside the top 10, and he would never recover, finishing 11^th.

Johnson and Hamlin also had to come back to pit road for a splash-and-go stop late in the race, but they managed to finish second and third, respectively.

While all that was going on, Bowyer had enough fuel to make the finish, although not complete a celebration burnout, and give Michael Waltrip Racing its first Chase win. The victory also moved Bowyer up to fourth in the points standings, 28 points out of the lead.

Bowyer is still a bit of a long shot to be a factor by the time the series reaches the final race at Homestead, but he has shown once again that he is on the cusp of being a championship contender.

Bowyer has made noise in just about every Chase in which he’s competed. He finished third in 2007 and fifth in 2008. He also made the Chase in 2010 and won the first race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but his car didn’t pass postrace inspection and NASCAR docked him 150 points. That took him out of the picture, and he finished the season in 10^th place.

This year Bowyer could be in a similar position. He still doesn’t have the consistency to match Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin, but he is the best of the rest.

He is also headed to his hometown track, Kansas Speedway, next week and could have another good finish there, but it would still take a flawless run through the rest of the Chase to have a legitimate shot to win the title.

The track in Kansas now has a brand-new surface and progressive banking in the corners. Does that mean it will be a more exciting race to watch? Probably not. The progressive banking has worked at Homestead but hasn’t made much difference at other tracks once the idea became popular.

In any case, expect the Chase frontrunners to lead the field as they did at Charlotte. It might stink to have the same guys up front each week right now, but their battle to win the championship will be a good one if they can all stay in contention throughout the next month.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500: 5 Stars *****

The annual crazy race of the Chase lived up to the hype this time with the most lead changes of the season, large pack racing and a massive crash on the final lap. The final restrictor-plate race of the season gets a 5 Star Rating.

The majority of the race Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway was actually extremely clean. Carl Edwards, Cole Whitt and Joey Logano got in an early wreck and Jamie McMurray spun out to cause the green-white-checkered finish, but that was the extent of the damage.

Until the final turn of the final lap.

Casey Mears, who had a strong car all day, gave Michael Waltrip, who was irrelevant until the final lap, the mother of all pushes through Turn 3 and the pair was headed to the lead. But then Tony Stewart saw them coming, tried to block and ended up setting off a 25-car wreck.

Needless to say, the race ended there. Matt Kenseth was ahead of the wreck and drove off for the win. Jeff Gordon finished second, but he was 15^th or worse when the wreck began. For once he was on the receiving end of some good luck, and it kept him on the edge of championship contention.

Like it or not, that’s what happens at restrictor-plate tracks. The field was four-wide at least six rows deep nearly the entire two laps of the final restart. That is incredibly exciting to watch, but it would be a miracle for the field to make it back around without some sort of incident. It’s already amazing they made it to the final lap without a wreck.

Since the Sprint Cup Series was at a restrictor-plate track, let’s go ahead and discuss the style of racing. The cool temperatures should’ve helped the cooling issues the cars tend to experience after the offseason rule changes to restrict air flow to the engine, but nobody was able to push for more than a lap, if even that far.

The race actually felt more like the old style of restrictor-plate pack racing than any race since the drivers discovered the two-car draft in 2008 and 2009. Drivers were able to pass for the lead (there were 54 lead changes), and the field never got strung out despite a couple of green-flag pit stops.

This was the last race of the current car model, but early indications are the new model in 2013 will produce similar, if not better, racing. But we’ll find out about that in February at Daytona. For now, the Chase drivers will focus on the final six races of the Chase and how to catch Brad Keselowski, who extended his lead to 14 points over Jimmie Johnson.

Next up is Charlotte Motor Speedway for a Saturday night race. It’s the fifth race in the Chase, and this is the point where drivers start to get eliminated from championship contention either mathematically or practically. Johnson wrecked in this race last year to end his hopes of a sixth-straight title.

Either way, the racing at Charlotte is usually pretty entertaining. It might be some of the best intermediate track racing we see the rest of the season.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the AAA 400: 2 Stars **

Brad Keselowski and the #2 team outsmarted the Sprint Cup Series field again Sunday at Dover International Speedway to win their second Chase race of the season, with seven more to go. Late strategy drama saved what was left of an otherwise boring race that deserves a 2 Star Rating.

Keselowski now leads the points standings and stands five points in front of second-place Jimmie Johnson. This has all the makings of a three-man championship battle among Keselowski, Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who sits 16 points behind in third, and Keselowski is leading the charge.

Those who thought Keselowski would be a factor once the Chase started might have thought he would play the role of Clint Bowyer in past years. Bowyer often had a great start to the Chase and would hang around through most of October before falling behind the real championship contenders.

Keselowski is better than that. He and crew chief Paul Wolfe can pull out top-five finishes on days they have a mediocre car that qualified in the mid-20s because they play the strategy game better than anyone in the sport.

That team looks at every part of the race as an opportunity to gain an advantage while most people focus on the final two runs. Keselowski is on top of the sport because he and his team have made calls early in races while other teams follow the leader and make the same call as everyone else. Granted, they have to have good cars to be able to pull off those moves, but good cars and good strategy are key ingredients in a championship run.

On the other side of the battle, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin walked out of the Monster Mile disappointed even though they had top-10 runs. Busch dominated Sunday the way Hamlin had the week prior at New Hampshire, but fuel strategy got in the way and both drivers had to pit late in the race.

The loss means nothing but frustration for Busch because he isn’t in the Chase this year, but Hamlin gave up six points that could prove extremely costly late in the season. Johnson also had to back down on the final run to make sure he had enough gas to the finish.

While other drivers are leaking points, Keselowski is capitalizing. The rest of the Chase field better take the #2 team seriously or they will be saluting the team with a championship toast at the end of the year.

Overall, there wasn’t much on-track action. J.J. Yeley blew a tire during green-flag pit stops on lap 69 that knocked all but six drivers off the lead lap, but the race wouldn’t have been any more exciting if everyone was on the lead lap.

At this point in the season, the good cars are head and shoulders above the rest of the field so a race among the top six at tracks such as New Hampshire and Dover is about as exciting as it would be if 30 cars were on the lead lap.

That will all change next week, though, as the series heads to Talladega Superspeedway for the final restrictor-plate race of the season.

Those races are nearly impossible to predict, which is part of their intrigue. However, if Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin finish in the top 10, the window of opportunity for the rest of the Chase drivers will virtually shut.

But for one week at least, the Chase will take a back seat to 500 miles of intense 200 mph drama at the biggest track of them all.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Sylvania 300: 1 Star *

Denny Hamlin won the Sylvania 300 Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Nothing else happened, so this race gets a 1 Star Rating.

Hamlin dominated the race by leading 193 laps, all of them after lap 93, but he started in 28^th position. He had what might have been the most dominating car of the season, if not several seasons. Jimmie Johnson has won some races when he could race for three days and no one would pass him, but that hasn’t really been the case this year.

The win also gives Hamlin his fifth of the season and vaults him back to third in the points standings, just seven behind perennial leader Johnson.

So far two of the three championship contenders have proven they belong in the title hunt with victories, and Johnson has back-to-back second-place finishes to lead the points standings. Brad Keselowski won at Chicago. He, Hamlin and Johnson could easily be the three drivers fighting for the championship at Homestead.

All of the Chase drivers finished inside the top 20 at New Hampshire, but that did nothing to spice up an afternoon of lackluster racing. NASCAR threw a competition caution at lap 40 and then threw three more throughout the rest of the race, including a late-race caution for “debris” in a vain attempt to keep Hamlin from pulling into Victory Lane before anyone else even crossed the finish line.

Thankfully, Hamlin still won the race so we don’t have to worry about NASCAR officials destroying the presumed integrity of the sport this week. Had Hamlin lost the race and gone on to lose the championship by a few points, he would have a good argument that NASCAR’s quest for exciting racing kept him from winning the championship.

There wasn’t a real caution all day. Every car that didn’t start and park finished the race with nothing more than a dent in a fender.

So, after a week that did nothing to change the outlook of the Chase, next week the Sprint Cup Series heads to another one-mile oval to race at Dover International Speedway.

Dover is another track where a driver, most likely Johnson, can dominate an entire day. However, there should be a little more close racing this week because of Dover’s high-banked corners that allow drivers to race instead of scoot around trying to roll the middle of the turn.

It’s also a track that has bitten Chase drivers in the past, and it would be surprising if all 12 Chase drivers finished in the top 20 again. Either way, Talladega will eliminate any boring racing the following week.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the GEICO 400: 2 Stars **

Brad Keselowski stole the Jimmie Johnson show Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway to win the first race in the 2012 Chase and take the lead in the points standings. Keselowski and Johnson both had impressive performances, but the race still gets a 2 Star Rating.

Johnson made Chicagoland Speedway his playground for the first half of the race and left the entire rest of the field in his dust. If races didn’t have cautions or pit stops, Johnson would’ve lapped the field. Unfortunately for him, races do require pits stops, and that’s when Keselowski and the #2 team pounced.

Johnson made his final pit stop on lap 229, and Keselowski, who was more than one second behind, followed a lap later. Incredibly, the #2 team pulled off a feat similar to the June race at Michigan and Keselowski passed Johnson for the lead after the round of stops.

Johnson could never catch Keselowski, and the Blue Deuce sailed to victory in the Windy City.

This win will instantly make people talk about him being a favorite to win the championship even though he was considered a darkhorse pick at best up until Sunday afternoon.

Either way, it’s too early to know with any certainty what’s going to happen in the next nine races. Clint Bowyer has performed well at the beginning of the Chase in past years but never made it to Homestead with a real chance at the trophy, and Johnson has finished as bad as 39^th in the first race and still come back to win.

That’s the route Jeff Gordon will have to take to win this year’s championship. Just a week after he shockingly snuck his way into the Chase through the second wild-card spot, his throttle stuck going into Turn 1 on lap 188 and destroyed his car. He got back out to make laps but finished 35^th and is already 47 points, basically a full race, out of the lead.

The non-Johnson favorite heading into Sunday was Denny Hamlin. He was running inside the top 10 but ran out of fuel on the final lap and finished 16^th. That drops him to fourth in the points standings, but he is only 15 points out of the lead. He just can’t have another similar mistake. Chicago turned into his mulligan race.

Other than Chase implications, Sunday’s race didn’t offer much. We had a couple of always-dramatic debris cautions and Casey Mears blew a tire. Otherwise, Keselowski and Johnson dominated the day, combining to lead 248 of the 267 laps.

So, next week the Sprint Cup Series takes the Chase to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for 300 miles of “rolling the center.” This race, and Dover and Talladega to follow, will be a chance for the drivers who don’t dominate on 1.5-mile tracks to try and stash enough points to remain in the hunt down the stretch.

Tony Stewart ran well at Chicago, and he has been really good of late at New Hampshire, with three top-fives in his last five races at the track.

New Hampshire is also provides a chance for closer racing than we saw at Chicago. It is incredibly difficult to pass, which opens the opportunity for good battles for position.

In any case, have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Federated Auto Parts 400: 4 Stars ****

The Sprint Cup Series regular season came to a close in dramatic fashion Saturday night and early Sunday morning at Richmond International Raceway. Jeff Gordon snuck through the raindrops to grab the final spot in the Chase in a race that constantly changed complexion. Overall, this race gets a 4 Star Rating.

To accentuate the changing nature of the race, Clint Bowyer won his second race of the season even though he spun down the frontstretch in the second half of the event. He and Juan Pablo Montoya made contact on lap 235. That cut down Bowyer’s left-rear tire and caused his spin.

But that turned out to be a big-time blessing in disguise. The resulting pit stop strategies put Bowyer back near the front of the field for the final 117 laps and he passed Ryan Newman for the lead with 88 laps to go. He didn’t look back, although he did have to manage his fuel mileage to reach the finish line.

While Bowyer led the final run, Gordon made a comeback that deserved to be rewarded with a Chase spot. Gordon’s #24 car was junk in the first half of the race even though he started in second. By the time the red flag came out for rain on lap 152, Gordon was a lap down to then-leader Denny Hamlin and looked to be out of contention for anything. It turns out he was in contention for both a Chase spot and the race win.

Gordon charged through the field in the second half of the race and reached second when the checkered flag flew. Kyle Busch faded to 16^th, which meant Gordon had snagged the second wild-card spot by a mere three points.

No matter what type of points system NASCAR uses, the fall race at Richmond almost always produces a wild night of racing both on the track and in the points standings. Those type of races don’t come around very often, but they are sure fun when they do.

Also, pretty much any important race in the last year has had to deal with rain delays. Both Homestead last year and this season’s Daytona 500 were affected by rain, but the racing was great when the weather let them get out on the track. Hopefully that’s just a coincidence and this year’s Homestead race will be fun but without rain.

But before the series gets to Homestead, the 12 Chase drivers will start their battle next week at Chicagoland Speedway. Expectations for a fun and exciting Chase are always extremely high the week leading up to the first race, but this year there are a myriad of contenders.

All of the top drivers have won multiple races. Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart are going to be primed for a good next 10 races. Even drivers such as Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick, who are winless this season, are running well right now and it wouldn’t be shocking to see them bust through with victories in the Chase.

In any case, this should be the best part of what has been a mediocre season in terms of action. There won’t be time for Chase drivers to ride around because they could quickly lose touch with the leaders in the points standings. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the memorable part of the 2012 season.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the AdvoCare 500: 2 Stars **

After a rough-and-tumble night at Bristol Motor Speedway a week ago, the Sprint Cup Series brought back the long green-flag runs more typical of 2012 on Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The relative lack of action earns this race a 2 Star Rating.

Denny Hamlin won the race to put him in prime contention for the championship once the Chase begins in two weeks at Chicagoland Speedway, but Martin Truex Jr. should have won the race. Shockingly, it wasn’t NASCAR’s fault he didn’t win.

Truex Jr. led 40 laps Sunday night and had a substantial lead with five laps to go when Jamie McMurray blew a tire and pounded the frontstretch wall. That sent the leaders to pit road to get four tires because the surface at Atlanta is so rough. Denny Hamlin came from fourth to first on the exchange of pit stops and lined up alongside Truex Jr. to settle the race.

Truex Jr. had trouble getting through the gears so Hamlin and Jeff Gordon checked out in front. Gordon almost had a shot at Hamlin on the final lap, but he got loose, Hamlin won and Truex Jr. finished a disheartening fourth place.

Truex Jr. still clinched a spot in the Chase, but instead of the papers being full of stories that say Truex Jr. is a serious contender for the championship, he is left as an afterthought that happens to be in the Chase but probably won’t be much of a championship threat.

This loss is a tough won for Truex Jr. and the #56 team because they have come extremely close to several wins this year and have come up empty every time. Truex Jr. has six top-fives, 14 top-10s and should’ve won the spring Kansas race if not for a late caution.

A win might have been even more beneficial than the three bonus points he would’ve received once the Chase standings are set. Sometimes a breakthrough win can open the floodgates for several more wins in the near future. It’s amazing sometimes how difficult it is to break into Victory Lane but then seems relatively easy to return after that first win.

For example, Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports had gone 16 races without a win before Johnson won the Southern 500 in May at Darlington Raceway. Since then, Johnson has won three more races (including the All-Star Race) and Hendrick Motorsports has won seven races.

Truex Jr. hasn’t won since Dover in June 2007, a span of 192 races. That streak certainly weighs on him, and Sunday night’s fourth-place finish was devastating. However, if he can get that win during the Chase, he could go on a roll and really be a factor in the championship at the end of the season.

Sunday’s race might not have been the most exciting race in the world, but next week’s race at Richmond International Raceway could be thrilling. Seven drivers are in wild card contention, but the only way most of them can make the Chase is to win the race. That could make for a memorable short track race.

The final regular-season week of the season is always a fun one, and all the ingredients are in place for another wild race to send us to the Chase. We’ve been waiting for this race seemingly the entire season, and hopefully it satisfies our hopes.

In any case, have a wonderful week, everybody.

Finally, a NASCAR season without major changes

After years and years of changing nearly every aspect of the sport, NASCAR believes the 2011 season went well enough that everything will be pretty much the same for 2012.

Thankfully, during this year’s preseason media tour NASCAR officials didn’t announce any big changes to the points system or schedule, and it didn’t any issue mandates on how drivers should act.

Sure, the cars will run new electronic fuel injection engines, but that likely won’t create a noticeable difference in the racing.

Beyond that, the cars, points system, schedule and rules will be nearly exactly the same as last season, and that is a very good thing.

NASCAR has always been a sport that embraces change, but it really kicked the changes into high gear during the last decade.

Since 2000, the sport has brought in new tracks while eliminating others from the schedule, it has a different car model, a playoff format, new title sponsors in all three national touring series and a new points system, just to name a few.

Back when NASCAR started to make all of these changes, the sport was still growing in popularity and gaining more and more fans each year. Much of the talk at the time was how to make changes to the sport to continue to bring in new fans.

So, NASCAR dove in head first to making changes to spice up the sport. The competition changes began with the introduction of the Chase format in 2004 and ended with the double-file restarts that began in mid-2009.

In between, rules such as the Lucky Dog, wave-arounds and green-white-checkered finishes crept into the sport.

Now, not all of those changes are bad, and the sport will still be exciting and fun to watch regardless of the rules NASCAR puts together. The biggest problem with the changes was the amount of changes that happened in a relatively short period of time.

During that time, some fans simply became fatigued from all of the changes and decided to throw their hands up and skip out completely. It would likely take several races for a fan from 10 years ago to understand how the sport works these days.

It is difficult in any sport to build a fan base when the sport changes so much.

Yes, some fans go to races just for the experience of watching 43 racecars charge around the track at the same time, but a lot of fans have a passion for the sport that goes deeper than the simple sights and sounds of a race.

They want to understand what is happening in all aspects of the sport, from the drivers personalities to how the cars work to how teams prepare for a race, as well as the strategy involved throughout the event.

Unfortunately, the changes of the past decade have made it difficult for even the most die-hard fans to keep up.

The sport would likely be just fine if many of these changes had never been made. The sport survived for 50 or so years before everything changed, and it would have survived without them. There will always be a market for stock car racing, even though the size of that market could surely be debated for years.

NASCAR may have made more money during the 2000’s in part because of some of its changes, but it also shook up the fan base.

The only changes that absolutely had to be made were the introduction of the SAFER barriers at all tracks and the Car of Tomorrow. As much as people hated the look of the car, it has saved several drivers from serious injuries or worse. Plus, NASCAR will fix the ugly problem next year with the new 2013 car models.

For those who liked last season, get ready for what NASCAR hopes is more of the same.

For many, just having the same rules for two consecutive years will be a welcome experience.

Rating the Irwin Tools Night Race: 2 Stars **

The action at the Bristol night race wasn’t all that exciting, but the guy who won the race continues to shock the world as the #2 car got win #3 on the season. The story is incredible, but the race gets a 2 Star Rating.

Brad Keselowski’s win at Bristol was another I-can’t-believe-I’m-watching-this moment, and the #2 team is in the midst of one of the most remarkable mid-season turnarounds in NASCAR history. Plus, Keselowski broke his ankle to get it all started.

Keselowski sat 23rd in the points standings just six races ago at New Hampshire, where he finished 35th. Since then he has ripped off a jaw-dropping five straight top 10s, four top fives and two wins with a worst finish of ninth at Indianapolis.

We’ve seen drivers get on this type of hot streak before, and there is usually at least one each season. Last year all Denny Hamlin did was win during the first half of the 2010 season as he visited Victory Lane five times, and Jimmie Johnson has gone through stretches a few times in his five-year championship run where he is literally unbeatable.

But, most of the time these drivers and teams are already Chase contenders and have shown strength either early in the season or previously in their career to indicate a run like that is possible, but Keselowski had just two top fives and a fuel mileage win before he caught fire.

Now he has people talking that he might be a championship threat, rather than just a Chase threat.

Before this recent run of success, Keselowski spent much of the year between 22nd and 28th in the standings. That means he was consistently running races comparable to Marcos Ambrose and Martin Truex Jr. Now he is running with, and beating, drivers such as Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch.

No matter what happens from here on out, Keselowski’s 2011 season will go down as one of the most shocking seasons ever.

As for Saturday night’s race, there were only six cautions, with three of those for debris. The cars of David Reutimann and Mark Martin are the only cars that had to go to the garage for damage. All of the other contenders had very clean races.

While this discussion could quickly turn into the new Bristol vs. old Bristol debate, the Nationwide race had nine cautions and many cars were torn up in wrecks.

Yes, the style of racing is drastically different at Bristol since the repave, but the best of the best race at the Sprint Cup level. Plus, with only a couple of Rookie of the Year candidates each year, the same basic group of drivers has been on the track together for the past four years or so. Keselowski and Joey Logano are the only two newcomers of consequence since the end of the ill-advised open-wheel invasion of 2008.

The current Nationwide group has a lot of drivers without much experience and they tore cars up like they were still racing on the old surface.

While the Cup drivers had to work hard in the car to pass each other because it was next to impossible to pass on the low side of the track, those battles only happen at a few spots throughout the field while everybody else settles into single file.

Anyway, next week the series heads to another fun night race; this time at Atlanta for Labor Day weekend. This race is even more special now that it’s the only time NASCAR visits during the season and there will be a lot going on with the points situation, the extra money on the line for certain drivers, and the fact that it’s the Labor Day weekend race. Have a good week, everybody.

Rating the Pure Michigan 400: 3 Stars ***

In a season full of different winners, the final trip of the season around Michigan International Speedway had the most common winner out front. The race itself was also common for Michigan, minus the fuel mileage, and gets a 3 Star Rating.

Kyle Busch became the first driver to lock himself into the Chase with his fourth win of the season Sunday. This race was a little bit back to normal after a stretch of surprising contenders and unusual finishes.

The big-name drivers came to the front and the different lanes in the corners at Michigan actually gave drivers a chance to pass each other. Some of what has caused all of the different winners of late is that it’s just so darn hard to pass.

That finally wasn’t the case Sunday. Busch won from the 17th starting position and Jimmie Johnson finished second after starting 19th, even though he caught a break with a caution coming out while he was in the pits.

So what happens after a race where drivers can find ways to improve their position without having to use strategy? They repave the track that gave them that ability. Who knows what the track will be like next year. There will be slight progressive banking, but new pavement doesn’t often make for really good races. Sunday’s race was classic Michigan, and it’s a shame that type of race is in jeopardy.

In the big picture, Brad Keselowski continued an amazing stretch with a third-place finish at Michigan and moved up to 12th in the points. He has now moved up 11 positions in the points standings in the past four races. That is incredible. He’s gone from an also-ran that lucked into a win early in the year to a driver that will likely make the Chase. He could have one of the biggest in-season turnarounds in the history of the sport.

People talked a lot about how much more a bad finish would hurt a driver in the standings when the new system was announced before the start of the season. While that has been true to an extent, the real difference is how much ground a driver can gain with a good run.

What may have taken two months to achieve in making big gains in the standings now takes about one month, as Keselowski has proved. Maybe it is easier to make up ground under this format even though many thought it would be harder.

All of that means a lot could still change in the final three races before the Chase is set. Denny Hamlin’s 35th-place finish really opens the door for about eight drivers who either have to get a win to have a shot at the Chase or already have a win and need to pass Hamlin in the standings to grab that second wild-card spot.

Now the Sprint Cup Series heads to one of the best stretches of the season. Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond are all fun tracks and the uncertainty in the points standings will make those races all the better. This is going to be a great final push to the Chase.

Pocono decides people can’t handle its 500-mile races

Sprint Cup Series drivers will likely catch a break and race about 200 miles less in 2012 than they have in past years.

Pocono Raceway announced Wednesday that both races in 2012 will be just 400 miles long instead of the traditional 500-mile races.

There will surely be people throughout NASCAR land that think this is the greatest decision Pocono has ever made.

I’m not one of them.

Shortening a race to 400 miles is like adding double-file restarts, a wave-around rule for cars a lap down or even implementing a playoff format. They are all gimmicks intended to make the sport more “exciting.”

Sorry folks, people loved the sport long before all of these new rules were dreamed up. Why did they like it? Probably because they thought it was exciting to watch cars race as fast as they can all afternoon.

The reason people show up to a race isn’t to see how the points standings will look at the end of the day or whether the race finished in a certain amount of time. They go to see racing. All of the other sideshows are cute, but they are called race fans for a reason. They enjoy watching racing.

So, now they will race 400 miles twice a year at Pocono. Now the track is even more meaningless than it was before. Part of what makes Pocono special is that it tests the drivers, teams and cars like no other track on the schedule. Sure, road courses and short tracks are tough, but those races are at most 300 miles.

It doesn’t make sense for fans of any sport to want their events to be shorter. We hear the same complaints about baseball. “It takes too long.” Well, what do you want? Do fans not go to a game to enjoy an afternoon or evening at the event? What else do they possibly have planned that day that makes them want the event to finish 30 minutes sooner?

Attending these events is something special. One would think a fan would want their event to last as long as possible, even though it seems some people show up just to see how soon they can leave to "beat the traffic." What’s wrong with spending more time watching what you came to see?

Ok, enough with the rhetorical questions. Having a 400-mile race at Pocono is not a good idea. Ed Randall, the former governor of the Pennsylvania, which ironically is where Pocono Raceway is located, might say this is just another example of the “wussification of America.”

People will say they think it makes the drivers race harder throughout the race. Honestly, they race pretty darn hard most of the time. Sunday’s race wouldn’t have been any more exciting if it had finished on lap 160. If anything, it would’ve been less exciting. Kurt Busch would’ve won by a larger margin than Brad Keselowski beat Kyle Busch.

People will still complain the racing is boring at Pocono whether the race is 400 or 500 miles long.

Unfortunately, this is part of our culture. Now there will be just 10 races that are 500 miles long next year, including a stretch of 12 races during the summer without a 500-mile race.

Sorry folks, 400 miles at Pocono won’t be any more exciting than the 500-mile races at that track. The only thing that changes is a shorter time to enjoy races that happen just one day out of a week.

NASCAR racing isn’t like sitting in church listening to a pastor preach a sermon that lasts three times longer than necessary. We aren’t forced to watch NASCAR races, but we choose to because we like it. If somebody likes something, they generally want more of it, not less.

In this case, we got less.

Earnhardt Jr.’s margin for error is gone

That all-too-familiar feeling is coming back. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is struggling as the series heads to Indianapolis to begin the final stretch toward the Chase.

Just weeks ago it looked like Earnhardt Jr. was a lock to make the Chase, and could be a legitimate contender for the championship.

Then came Michigan, the track where he won 111 races ago.

Late in the race his teammate, Mark Martin, pulled up in front of him and cut down his tire to relegate the #88 car to a 21st-place finish.

In the last five races, Earnhardt Jr. has an average finish of 25.2 and has fallen from third to ninth. He went from just 10 points out of leading the standings to just seven points from being outside the Chase.

Is it time to panic? Yes. The tracks coming up on the schedule aren’t some of his best, and all of a sudden it looks like the team’s mojo is gone. Maybe the off-week allowed the team to get some things straightened out at the shop, but Earnhardt Jr. is out of mulligans at this point.

Earnhardt Jr. cannot have anymore bad luck for the next seven weeks. Bad luck has been part of the problem during the last month as he got taken out by Martin at Michigan and was involved in an early wreck at Sonoma, where he finished 41st.

While the past four-and-a-half years have been difficult, (Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t finished in the top 10 in points since 2006) this year could be the most painful for his fans.

Finally, it seemed, Earnhardt Jr. was back up at the front. No, he hadn’t yet won a race, but that was right around the corner. Even if he didn’t win a race, he would at least comfortably make the Chase and have a shot at the championship.

It would be back like the good ‘ol days. That nagging pain his fans felt every time he spent most of a race out of contention would finally go away. It would be OK to be excited about his chances before a race.

Well, that is gone. Now Earnhardt Jr. fans will likely have more anxiety before a race than excitement. With Earnhardt Jr. barely hanging on to a Chase spot, it is now more important that he have good, consistent finishes than take chances for a win.

The margin of error for Earnhardt Jr. is gone. For the next seven races, Junior Nation will have its collective stomach in knots.

If Earnhardt Jr. comes through and makes the Chase, there will be an incredible feeling of relief and joy, but if he misses the Chase again, it might sting this year more than ever.

NASCAR still has no clear championship favorite as second half begins

Now that everybody is finally finished sitting in traffic after the Cup race at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday night (although they aren’t finished talking about it) it’s time to head back to a flat track to start the second half of the season.

The second half begins with a race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway before NASCAR slams on the brakes with an off week to prepare for the home stretch of the season.

Even though everybody has speculated about what will happen as the Race to the Chase wraps up and the Chase begins, we still don’t have any idea who will be left standing. The points standings right now are as convoluted as they have been in several years.

Normally at this point in the season, somebody has established themselves as the regular-season leader. Although that counts for absolutely nothing in this sport, they still led the standings and would’ve gone on to win the championship under the traditional format. Not this year, however.

The past three races have ended with a different driver at the top of the standings, and there is little reason to think there might not be another change this week because Kyle Busch isn’t exactly the king of New Hampshire, although he certainly was the king of Kentucky last week.

Six drivers currently sit within 22 points of the top spot. While it will be nearly impossible to jump five spots in the standings, there is almost a guarantee that the standings will be close heading to the Brickyard in two weeks. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t matter.

Since the beginning of the Chase era, sitting atop the points standings at the end of the regular season meant little, but it has continued to mean less and less with every change to the system. In the first concoction of the Chase, the leader after 26 races was at least guaranteed to start the Chase on top. Next, the number of wins a driver had decided where they would start the Chase, and now it will determine the last two Chase participants.

Some people hate the new system, and others think the wild-card setup is the greatest thing ever. One thing’s for sure: It’s different. Consistency no longer is the king of strategies, but come Chase time, the driver with the most points, not the most wins, will still lift the trophy.

Perhaps, NASCAR has a system that finally combines everyone’s complaints.

Consistency still matters, but not much. Winning finally matters, until the Chase starts.

The system will never be perfect, and it is bound to change again a few years down the road, but this year it appears there might be more than just a few drivers in play for the championship come Homestead in November.

That is, of course, unless the #48 team pushes the perfection button again once the green flag drops at Chicagoland to start the Chase.

New points system a nice compromise

After an offseason of rumors, NASCAR finally announced the new points system, and it’s actually the lesser of many evils.

The basic points structure has been totally wiped away in favor of a straight-forward system that gives 43 points, plus three bonus points, to the winner on down to just one point for the driver who comes in dead last.

However, of the changes that had been discussed, this system isn’t too bad. NASCAR didn’t expand the Chase to 15 drivers, put in an elimination-style format and implement whatever other ideas were thrown around in the last three months. Instead, the Chase will still have 12 drivers, except the final two spots will go to the drivers with the most wins who are between 10th and 20th in the points standings after the fall race at Richmond.

Sure, some teams in other sports have come into the playoffs through the wild card and won the championship, but it is much harder to do that in NASCAR. The two wild cards in NASCAR are rewarded by making the playoffs, and that’s where the benefits should end. Yes, Jaime McMurray ran well during the Chase last season, but he still wouldn’t have been a serious threat for the championship and whoever is in those spots this season probably won’t be either.

For years and years, NASCAR was similar to the old baseball system where the best team in each league played for the title at the end of the year — no playoffs. NASCAR’s Winston Cup points format was similar. The driver with the most points throughout the season won the championship.

Then NASCAR jumped into a playoff system in 2004 that radically changed the sport. All of a sudden 10 drivers had a shot at the championship with just 10 races left in the season instead the two or three, sometimes more, drivers who had any kind of realistic shot at that point in the season under the old format.

At least with this system NASCAR will still look similar to its recent past. Nobody is going to be willing to revert back to the original points format, but this latest version is a pretty good combination of several ideas. Winning races can now get a driver into the playoffs, even if they don’t run up front consistently each race. But, consistency still counts, which is important.

This time NASCAR could have completely cut ties with its past by restructuring how points were awarded after each race and created a one-race free-for-all where several drivers would be guaranteed a chance for the championship going into the final race. Thankfully, it didn’t and the final 10 races will still be similar to past years, the only change in that regard is how many points are talked about, because the percentages are similar. Now, 46 points will basically mean the same thing 190 points meant in the past.

While many people will continue to hate the Chase, just be glad NASCAR chose a bit of a middle ground instead of throwing a debris caution to the wind and completely changing the sport again.

Most important days of 2011 season might be in January

Now that we can finally stop talking about 2011 and start living it, the time for NASCAR to make some of its most important decisions of the season is less than two weeks away.

The second round of testing will begin Jan. 20 at Daytona, and this time all of the teams will participate in three days of drafting in the large packs that will be a staple of the 2011 Daytona 500.

While the teams focus in on how to get their cars set up for the biggest race of the year on the new pavement at Daytona, the heads of NASCAR will announce the final few important decisions left before the season can start, including what method the sport will use to crown its champion in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series, what time the races will start and what size the restrictor plates will be when everybody returns for Speedweeks in February.

The announcement about the possible changes to the Chase is scheduled for Jan. 21, but one can expect a variety of tidbits to come out of that session. For the first time in three years, there actually is testing at Daytona in January, but rarely, if ever, has that test session been as anticipated as it is this year. Not only will cars be back on the track, which eases every fans heart that life isn’t so bad and there is something to hope for in the coming weeks, but the news will be flying from the speedway as fast as a full 43-car drafting pack.

Last year this moment came during the NASCAR media days in Charlotte when NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton told the boys to “have at it.” This year that type of moment will likely happen in Daytona when the big announcements are made for the 2011 season.

How much impact will these announcements have? They might make Jan. 21 the most important day of the 2011 NASCAR season. Whatever NASCAR says that day could shape the sport and its fan base for the next 11 months. In every decision, some people will love it and others will hate it, but it’s not too often that one could polarize a sport to such an extreme.

The interesting thing about these announcements is they will affect everybody involved in the sport from the owners to the drivers to the fans to pit crews, etc. Most of the time announcements made during the season that come from one team or another affect one or two drivers, teams and their fans, but when NASCAR holds court, everybody’s season is at stake.

If changes are made to both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series, they could effectively determine who has the best chance to win the championship, or at least in the Nationwide series who won’t win the championship.

Finally, although it’s extremely unlikely, no major changes could be made to the sport for this upcoming season. Last season came down to the closest battle in the short history of the Chase and anyone who cared about the sport was excited for the final two months of the season and couldn’t wait for the next race to start.

However, Brian France hasn’t been known to hold back from making drastic changes in the past, so a statement Jan. 21 that everything will remain status quo is unlikely.

In any case, the intrigue for the new season will start before the calendar has a chance to turn the first page.

Rating the Kobalt Tools 500: 4 Stars ****

Just when it looked like we might have a good idea of who would bring home the 2010 Sprint Cup Series title, Denny Hamlin pitted from his second-place position while Jimmie Johnson held on to finish fifth. Now, the champoinship battle is tighter than ever. The second-to-last race of the year gets a 4 Star Rating.

Overall, much of the race was pretty typical Phoenix-style racing. Similar to New Hampshire, it is really hard to pass, and therefore the leader can stay out front forever. However, and I think the spoiler has helped this issue in the majority of races this season, the leader never immediately jumped out to a two-second lead. The car in second was able to hang with the leader for long stretches throughout the race. Mark that down as a change that worked.

As the race headed into its final 100 laps, it looked like Hamlin would finish off a dominating performance and take a Johnson-type lead with him into Homestead next week.. Instead, the caution with 79 laps to go set the stage for what turned into a stomach-churning, drama-filled finish. This had to be one of the “game seven” moments NASCAR had asked for when it debated changing the Chase format. Harvick’s missing lugnut could have ended his chances, Johnson could have run out of fuel and Hamlin likely would have run out of fuel if he hadn’t pitted. Not only was the race on the line that last run, but the season was on the line.

Fuel-mileage races always bring with them an added amount of drama, but the addition of a championship battle made it all the more tense. This race actually had the feel of what most of the fall Richmond races are like, ironically, except for this season. I said at the end of the regular season I would take a good championship battle instead of a close battle for 12th at Richmond, and that is what we have.

People have talked a lot about possible changes to the Chase, and many ideas centered around an elimination-style format. But, that type of format would have actually taken some of the drama out of the finish to this season. Right now Hamlin and Johnson will go toe-to-toe next week and whoever finishes higher will likely win the title, but the fact that Harvick is still well within striking distance brings in an added element of excitement. If Hamlin and Johnson both falter, the #29 car will do burnouts after the race.

So, now that we have the closest championship battle in the Chase’s short history, let’s dream a little bit. Johnson is only 15 points behind Hamlin. Now, depending on who has what as far as bonus points are concerned, 15 points could be the difference between first and second. Carl Edwards got 20 more points than second-place finisher Ryan Newman, who didn’t lead a lap. Think about this, Hamlin and Johnson drive their way to the front throughout the race and end up first and second on the final run. They then give it everything they have and end up in a battle simlar to the one Kurt Busch and Ricky Craven had at Darlington in 2003, and the race comes down to a photo finish for the race and the championship. That would be thrilling.

Before we move on, congratulations to Edwards and the #99 team. It’s been a long time coming, but the Ford camp has picked up its game during the second half of this season and might well have somebody in the championship hunt at this point next season.

So here it is, the race we’ve all been waiting for. This year’s Chase will go down as one of the greatest ever, and the stage is set for the race at Homestead to be one that NASCAR fans for years to come will look back on and say, “Wow. What can we do to make the racing more like it was in 2010?”

Rating the AAA Texas 500: 5 Stars *****

A terrific race at Talladega is followed up with possibly an even more exciting race at Texas. The final 500-mile race of the season included a record amount of lead changes, a new championship leader and there was a fight. Texas gets a very well-deserved 5 Star Rating.

What more can this sport offer right now? We have an incredibly close championship battle between Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, 5 Star excitement in back-to-back races and the emotion is back. Football is great, but right now every week is hold-your-breath excitement at the race track.

As he said earlier in the season, all Hamlin does is win. He brought home trophy #8 and now leads the points standings by 33 points with two races to go. For the first time since 2005, somebody other than Johnson leads as the series heads to its penultimate race.

Along with the Chase excitement, plenty of action took place on the track, not the least of which was the backstretch throwdown between Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton. After an altercation coming out of turn 4 before the caution flew, Gordon drove up alongside Burton to express his displeasure (he wasn’t the only one Sunday who exercised his freedom of expression) for what had happened. Burton then turned Gordon straight into the wall and both cars came to a rest on the backstretch. What happened next was a scene straight out of a movie.

Gordon walked down the backstretch to meet Burton where the two dropped the gloves and had at it. There have been several feuds between drivers this season, but this one takes the cake. There have even been drivers get out of their cars on the track and yell and push each other, but this fight brought back images to the finish of the 1979 Daytona 500 between Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers.

The other driver who had issues expressing his displeasure Sunday was Kyle Busch. First, he gets spun out and, while trying to stay on the lead lap, speeds on pit road. Then as he sits in the pits for his penalty, not-so-subtly tells the NASCAR official he or she is #1. That cost him two more laps in the pits and took him completely out of contention.

Finally, the other unusual occurrence during the race happened when Chad Knaus replaced his own pit crew with the #24 team after Gordon wrecked. Now, this is a team that has won the past four season championships, and their crew chief decided to replace them in one of the most important races of the season. It’s incredible. Granted, the #48 crew struggled early in the race and the #24 group was flawless on the final three stops. Still, it added another dramatic element to the race and now the rest of the season, as the #24 guys will pit the #48 car the rest of the season.

So now the stage moves out west where the wild show goes to a one-mile track that acts like a short track. There’s nothing better to follow up a highly emotional race such as what took place at Texas. If people aren’t tuning in now, it’s not NASCAR’s fault. This sport is on top of its game right now.

For everybody who loves this sport, congratulations. These are the moments that make us remember why this sport is so great. The competition is as tight as can be, and the tension will only climb now that Johnson is behind. These next two weeks should be fascinating. Enjoy.