Rating the Hollywood Casino 400: 3 Stars ***

In perhaps the craziest race of the 2012 Chase, Matt Kenseth came out on top while nearly half the field did not finish the race, and that’s at a 1.5-mile track that typically produces fairly pedestrian racing. But all of that still wasn’t enough to get the final race of the season in the North anything above a 3 StarRating.

The wrecks began early and often Sunday at Kansas Speedway, and they affected nearly everyone regardless of running order or position in the points standings. Chasers Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart all spun. Aric Almirola even wrecked while leading the race.

All of the carnage had a chance to really shake up the points standings, but it turned out the Brad Keselowski maintained his seven-point lead on Johnson while narrowly missing several of the wrecks that led to a track-record 14 cautions.

However, the fact that Johnson stayed just seven points out of the lead is truly remarkable. Johnson spun in Turn 4 and smashed up the rear end of his car. The damage looked extensive enough to send the car to the garage for repairs, but the #48 pit crew went to work and fixed the back of the car to the point where it could not only maintain minimum speed, but to the point where Johnson could drive back through the field to finish ninth.

Races like that are why the #48 team has won five championships and competed for a championship nearly all of the 10 years it has existed. There might not be another team in the sport right now that could have fixed a car with that much damage without losing a lap and have a driver who could drive it back into the top 10.

As for Keselowski, he also salvaged a day when the #2 car was not good enough to compete for the win. He started in 25^th and hung near the top 10 most of the day, finishing eighth.

That’s not a bad day for Keselowski and the #2 team, but they are going to have to produce a couple of top-fives soon or Johnson will make his move and take the lead.

Other contenders Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne finished inside the top 10, and Denny Hamlin finished in 13^th. All three of those drivers will likely need top-five finishes the rest of the way to win the championship, and possibly just to stay in contention by the time the series reaches Homestead for the final race.

Hamlin’s big chance could be next week at Martinsville, where he has won four times. Unfortunately for Hamlin, who sits 20 points out of the Chase lead, Johnson has won there six times. Next week will still be one of the better chances for either Hamlin or Johnson to make up ground on Keselowski, who doesn’t have a win at Martinsville.

The funny part is there will likely be fewer cautions at Martinsville than there were this week at Kansas, although the number of cautions at Kansas was in large part because the track was repaved over the summer and speeds were up dramatically from past races.

But before we head off to the next race, Kenseth and the #17 team should be commended for their win at Kansas and second in the Chase. Kenseth sits 11^th in the points standings, is headed to the #20 car at the end of the season and does not have a realistic shot at winning this year’s championship. However, Kenseth and his team have continued to put together races consistent with his performance throughout his entire career.

Both the driver and team are very professional. It will be a shame to see that partnership broken up when the season comes to a close.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the STP 400: 3 Stars ***

The Sprint Cup Series visited its second consecutive mile-and-a-half racetrack Sunday and delivered nearly the exact same race with few cautions and long green-flag runs. The finish was closer this time, however, and gets the race at Kansas a 3 Star Rating.

Greg Biffle passed Jimmie Johnson with 30 laps to go to win the Texas race a week ago, and this week Denny Hamlin passed Martin Truex Jr. with 31 laps remaining to win the race. The Kansas race also set records for fewest cautions (three) and race speed (144.122). The race at Texas last week set similar records for that track. For whatever reason, the drivers are running these races as if we’re in the summer stretch at Michigan and Pocono.

That is a topic that will likely draw increasing scrutiny this week, but it is unlikely to last in the upcoming weeks with Richmond, Talladega and Darlington on the horizon. I those races set records for fewest cautions, then we’ll know that something is up.

Still, other than the one debris caution Sunday, NASCAR has done a very good job of allowing the races to play out naturally and not messing with the finish by throwing a caution late in the race.

As for Sunday, Hamlin obviously deserves congratulations for running a steady race and pouncing when he had the chance to race for the win, but Truex Jr. also deserves a lot of credit for his race.

Truex Jr. led 173 laps and is now second in the points standings, just 15 points behind Biffle for the lead. That’s the highest Truex Jr. has ever been in the points standings and has shown that he can run well on several different types of tracks this year. Even though it’s early, something drastic would have to change for him not to make the Chase this year.

However, for all of the positives Truex Jr. and the #56 team can take from Kansas, the fact that they once again came up short has to be a nagging concern. When drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson or Kyle Busch dominate a race the way Truex Jr. did Sunday, they finish the deal and win the race. For whatever reason, Truex Jr. is still not to that level and he won’t be a true championship contender until that happens.

Once it does happen, he will likely go on a tear and win a bunch of races. It happened to Brad Keselowski last year.

Although they both broke into the Cup series full-time in 2006, Hamlin has now won 19 races and has the experience to know how to close out a race and win. Truex Jr. still has just that one win at Dover in 2007 and cannot close the deal no matter how well he runs throughout the day.

That will come as the #56 team continues to run well. Usually drivers have to be in contention several times before breaking through with a win, but once that win happens they find that path to Victory Lane much easier and more often.

Now that we’re done with the intermediate tracks for a while, the short track of Richmond International Raceway comes up next followed by the ever-interesting Talladega Superspeedway.

Next week will be interesting because the teams and drivers have two short track races under their belt and it’s getting to the point in the season where several drivers who are used to winning will look up and realize, “Wow, it’s nearly May and I still don’t have a win this year.”

That, combined with the typically close racing at Richmond should make for a great Saturday night race.

Have a great week, everybody.

Jimmie Johnson’s worst Cup season could start new era in NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson’s five-year championship run will likely end this year, and compared to the lofty standards Johnson has set, it will come crashing to an end.

Johnson visited Victory Lane just twice this season. While many drivers would love to have two wins in a season, two wins is a disappointment for the #48 team that has won at least three races and finished no lower than fifth in the standings during Johnson’s nine full seasons.

Wins aren’t everything in NASCAR. Just ask potential champion Carl Edwards, who could win the championship with one win on the season and none in the Chase. But, Johnson and the #48 team have not performed at the same level this year as they have for nearly the past decade and currently sit sixth in the points standings. The only race Johnson dominated this year was his win at Kansas Speedway in October.

For the last nine years, Johnson has been what Jeff Gordon was to the sport during the mid to late 90s. He won a lot, but he also tended to stink up the show in the races he won.

Johnson has also struggled compared to his career norm in categories other than wins. He has 14 top-five finishes and 21 top-10 finishes, which are both close to career lows. He also hasn’t sat on the pole once this season, another feat he has accomplished at least once in every season of his career.

Instead of a bunch of wins, Johnson has finished second or third eight times this year.

In the past, Johnson has been able to turn second- and third-place finishes into victories. Several of his wins would come on weekends where he qualified either on the pole or in the top five, and he would generally be on top of the speed charts in all of the practice sessions leading up to the race.

Those were the weekends where it felt like the race was just a formality to make his Victory Lane celebration official.

Now the championship streak is all but over, and it is amazing how fast the car that might as well have been painted in gold the last five years can start to look flawed. The #48 team’s pit stops have been inconsistent at best for much of the year, the setups have not been spot on and Johnson has been involved in several incidents late in the season that he usually gets out of the way before the Chase rolls around.

Johnson will be a championship contender for years to come, but we may have seen the end of his dominant days. Gordon looked unbeatable for nearly a decade, as well, but he since has struggled to be a consistent championship threat.

There doesn’t appear to be a steady, young driver that is ready to take Johnson’s place as the next dominant driver in the sport, so maybe the next few years will have one of the things the Chase was designed to accomplish in the first place: a little bit of parity.

NASCAR had a different champion in six of the seven years immediately before it implemented the Chase format. It can happen in NASCAR; it’s just been so long ago that many people have forgotten what life was like before Johnson’s championships.

It will look a little weird Nov. 20 to have somebody not in a Lowe’s firesuit raise the Sprint Cup Series trophy at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but there’s a chance that could be the new normal.

Rating the Hollywood Casino 400: 2 Stars **

Sunday’s race at Kansas certainly looked like a lot of Chase races in the past five years as Jimmie Johnson ran his trademark Chase-dominating race and scored his second win of the season. However, he stunk up the show, which turns in the fourth 2 Star Rating in the four Chase races.

Wow, has Kansas become the new California? In past years, the Chase race at California was the most predictable race of the season. Johnson would dominate. Period. Move on to the next race.

Well, he did the same thing Sunday.

While NASCAR may be pleased that the points standings are remaining close, this certainly looks very similar to the last five years. That #48 car was on a rail nearly the entire race Sunday. When that team hits the setup right, nobody can catch it.

Overall, the race at Kansas emphasized the issues many NASCAR fans love to complain about. Johnson kicked the field’s butt, there were debris cautions and much of the race was devoid of any action. It’s wonderful that the middle of the field looks like a swarm of bees after restarts, but some of that action has to continue after the first few laps.

After the field settled down after the restarts, that was it. Everybody rode around until the next pit stops.

It’s not the drivers’ faults, necessarily. The racing, or lack thereof, we have seen in the first four Chase races isn’t terribly different than several of the races during the middle of the regular season.

Unfortunately, the current configuration of the cars makes it incredibly difficult to pass. Nobody made a pass at New Hampshire, the only lead changes at Dover came after a restart and Kansas looked similar to those past two races. The only difference was this track was a bit longer and had a tri-oval.

However, all is not lost. The lack of action in the first part of the Chase has kept the points standings bunched together. Right now eight drivers are still within 20 points of the lead, and the front three are separated by just four points. That could set up a wild run to the championship.

Also, the racing should get better in the coming weeks. Races at Charlotte are usually interesting and exciting more often than not. Talladega is a wild ride no matter the rules or style of racing and Martinsville has been the most exciting short track on the schedule the past few years.

So, shake off the early Chase cobwebs and get set for a stretch of races that hopefully turns up the excitement factor. Maybe excitement is too strong of a word at this point. A race that is a little more watchable would be a good start.

Thank goodness most of the Chase has yet to be run. Although the standings are tight, the races have had very little tension.

The next few races have to be better. But hey, they can’t be much worse.

Sorry folks, Jimmie Johnson will be a factor in this year's Chase

After two weeks of people thinking, hoping and even begging themselves to believe that Jimmie Johnson might be too far out of the points lead to come back and win yet another championship, he dashed all of those dreams in one week.

Johnson finished second last week at Dover and now sits fifth in the points standings just 13 points behind co-leaders Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards.

Of course all of the talk about the #48 team’s demise was incredibly premature. That would be like saying the New England Patriots won’t be a factor in the NFL playoffs. These teams are too good to suddenly fall apart.

However, I don’t think anybody expected Johnson to be so close after just one good run, and it is a little scary to think what he could do to the Chase standings if he puts together a string of top-five finishes.

When Johnson started the Chase with a 39th-place finish at New Hampshire in 2006, it took him until the eighth race of the Chase to make it back to the top.

This year Johnson cut his point deficit from 29 to 13 after finishing well outside the top 10 in the first two races and if everything fall right he could be back on top by Sunday at Kansas, but more likely it could be the sixth race of the Chase at Talladega or the following week at Martinsville.

While people may have thought, or at least wanted to believe, the new points system would make it more difficult for Johnson to dominate the Chase, it might actually make it easier for Johnson to run away with the trophy.

We saw earlier this season how much easier it is to gain ground in the points standings under this new system when Brad Keselowski jumped from 23rd to 12th in just six races.

That’s not to say that all 12 drivers, or even half of the Chase field will have a realistic chance at the championship as the season comes to a close, but the new system has made the standings more fluid.

When the new points system was announced before the season, a lot was made about how a bad finish hurt a driver more than in the past. But, the flip side of that argument is that a good finish helps in the standings more than ever.

It was never likely that the #48 to be out of the championship picture as the series heads to Homestead for the final race of the year, but the new points system may have made that even more of a pipe dream.

Yet, while the points system might make it easier for a driver to recover in the standings, it also makes it harder to keep the lead. No driver has dominated the standings during the regular season this year the way Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick did the past two years.

Right now the standings are tied, and the way the season has gone so far it would be shocking if the leader had more than a 10-point lead heading into the final race at Homestead.

Many fans will hope that leader is not Johnson, but last week at Dover showed it is going to take a substantial amount of bad luck to keep him from being a factor for the championship.

Rating the AAA 400: 2 Stars **

Somebody other than Tony Stewart finally won a race that didn’t come down to fuel mileage, but that doesn’t mean the race at Dover was any more exciting. The third race in the Chase gets the third straight 2 Star Rating to start the playoffs.

Kurt Busch put his name in the ring as a possible championship contender as he held off Jimmie Johnson to score his second win of the season. He had a surprisingly consistent car most of the day and didn’t have to lose his mind in anger over the radio during the second half of the race.

Overall, this was typical of a relatively poor Dover race. The car that jumped out front on the restart simply could not be caught. There may have been 24 lead changes, but many of them came during green-flag pit stops. Otherwise, Carl Edwards, Johnson and Busch dominated their three chunks of the race.

Right now Dover might be a track that Goodyear needs to continue to test and tweak the tire compound. The style of racing Sunday was basically a mirror image of the race at New Hampshire. Nobody could run side-by-side even when the race came down to the finish.

There have been races at both New Hampshire and Dover that have been exciting throughout the years. At Dover, the three-way battle between the Roush-Fenway drivers in 2008 that Greg Biffle won and the race that following spring where Johnson beat Tony Stewart after a spirited battle.

That type of race has disappeared for the time being at Dover. For whatever reason, the tires are laying down an incredible amount of rubber in the turns and it has made for follow-the-leader racing.

Right now the racing styles at Dover and Bristol are flipped. The drivers can race all day long at Bristol side-by-side but they can’t run more than a lap or two that way at Dover.

Fans want to see the single-file racing at the half-mile Bristol track because that track is short enough that drivers can move each other out of the way to gain a spot. At the mile-long Dover track, side-by-side battles are far more exciting.

Anyway, the other part to Sunday’s race involved the championship standings. Right now we’ve got a tie between Kevin Harvick and Edwards, but the intrigue begins with Busch and Johnson in fifth and sixth.

Both drivers moved up five spots and have shut down the talks that both of them are already out of the championship battle. Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin might be out of the championship picture, but not these two past champions.

Next week the series will head to Kansas for another go around on the ever-exciting Kansas Speedway. Don’t worry folks, only one more week before the Charlotte, Talladega, Martinsville stretch.

The championship might be decided in those three races. The next race at Kansas will just be another week teams have to be careful not to cause a problem that will put them behind when the interesting part of the Chase begins at Charlotte.

Keselowski's win could change NASCAR fuel-mileage strategy

Brad Keselowski came in along with Tony Stewart to pit on lap 210 of the 267-lap STP 400 Sunday at Kansas Speedway. That would be the last time Keselowski visited pit road, but that wasn’t the case for Stewart or anybody else in the field.

To make it the final 57 laps when the best mileage by anyone else was 52 laps, Keselowski pulled out a trick. For much of the final run, he pressed the clutch pedal at the end of the straightaways and coasted into the corner before releasing the pedal when he wanted to pick up the throttle.

Drivers have forever looked for ways to save fuel and stretch the mileage as far as possible.

Often, they will cut off the engine while running under caution, as several did at Charlotte the previous week, and even times where they’ve shut off the engine under green at places such as Infineon Raceway where they can coast down the hill on the second half of the track, but Keselowski’s move isn’t a typical strategy.

It worked, though. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin pitted on lap 215 and still had to soft pedal their way to the finish line. Had they been comfortable enough with their mileage, both drivers could’ve caught Keselowski because they would have been able to run without having to worry about saving fuel.

Instead, Keselowski’s method allowed him to keep a pretty close pace to the other two, who had pitted five laps later.

The other factor in Keselowski’s favor was what happened at Charlotte in the Coca-Cola 600 where several cars ran out of fuel in the closing laps. Maybe Earnhardt Jr., Hamlin and even Stewart could have been more aggressive with their fuel strategy but were cautious because of what happened the week before.

In any case, Keselowski’s method of using the clutch to stall the motor as the car drifted into the turns could become the new preferred way to for drivers to save fuel in the future. Keselowski not only made it to the finish line, but he also had plenty of fuel for a victory salute to the fans and a burnout. That car may have been able to go more than 60 laps before it ran out.

Teams might have to reconfigure their fuel windows in the future if this method catches on and drivers are able to take the next step in saving fuel.

Rating the STP 400: 2 Stars **

The Sprint Cup Series drivers endured another extremely hot day of racing Sunday at Kansas Speedway. Although the drivers were hot, the racing wasn’t. The first-ever spring race at Kansas gets a 2 Star Rating.

For the second straight week, everything came down to fuel mileage. Unfortunately, this week’s strategy did not carry as much drama.

Brad Keselowski definitely used some fancy tricks to save fuel, including pressing the clutch at the end of the straightaways and letting the car coast into the corner, and it looked like Dale Earnhardt Jr. might have the magic strategy to win the race, but the intrigue couldn’t match what happened the previous week in the Coca-Cola 600 where drivers were falling victim to fuel mileage left and right.

Maybe most of the crew chiefs learned their lesson at Charlotte and simply didn’t want to run out of gas for a second week in a row, but with 10 laps to go Keselowski was the only driver among the leaders who legitimately was running well beyond his fuel window.

It looked like Earnhardt Jr. was set up to make a run on Keselowski for the win because Keselowski was in major fuel-conservation mode, but after coming up empty at Charlotte the #88 team played it safe this week and had Earnhardt Jr. slow down to make it to the end as well.

Although it cost him a shot at finally winning a race, this was still a smart call by his crew chief, Steve Letarte. Earnhardt Jr. sits third in the points standings and is in a very good position to make the Chase heading into the summer months. At this point, it wasn’t worth the risk to try and win the race if it meant Earnhardt Jr. might fall back out of the top 10. It’s points racing, but this team has to take that into account considering where it has been in the standings in recent years.

A Chase berth will be worth much more than winning this race, there will be many more opportunities to win a race and it wouldn’t have been smart to put the Chase berth in any risk by trying to go for one win. Shoot, Earnhardt Jr. could just win a race or two in the Chase. That would be the best situation for him and his team because they would likely contend for the championship.

Other than the fuel-mileage finish, Sunday’s race had several of the same issues many bad races dealt with in the past few years. There were three debris cautions and basically three leaders for the majority of the race. Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart were the class of the field and without fuel mileage one of those three, likely Busch, would have easily won the race.

In fact, other than Landon Cassill hitting the wall and Earnhardt Jr. spinning, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of action on the track. Plus, Cassill’s wreck was caused because the field was bunched up again after one of the debris cautions.

Without that, there was one legitimate caution the entire race, and even with that one Earnhardt Jr. didn’t totally spin out, although it would’ve been difficult to go all the way around the track if he missed the entrance to pit road.

So, get ready for more spread out racing this week as the series heads to Pocono Raceway. The triangle track is tough on the cars, but the teams that bring the best equipment usually come out on top. This could be another race where the top teams dominate the top 10 the entire day. Have a great week!

NASCAR heads to Kansas to begin important stretch of Cup season

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Kansas this week for another weekend that is different from where the series usually races at this point in the season.

In the past several years, the first weekend in June meant a trip to Pocono Raceway and the start of the TNT Summer Series. However, among the several changes made to the Cup schedule this season is this weekend in Kansas. The series has traditionally run at Kansas on the first weekend in October, but this year the race in June was added.

Kansas does fit at this point in the season, though. While June isn’t always the most exciting month of racing, with tracks including Pocono, Michigan and up until this year, New Hampshire, it is one of the most important as far as the championship battle is concerned.

In the years before the Chase, June was the month when the championship contenders began to separate themselves from the rest of the field. The tracks during this month were big, so they required strong cars and the variety among those tracks required teams to be consistent across several types of setups, from big flat tracks to big sweeping tracks with a road course thrown in for good measure.

With the Chase, June is the time for drivers to either get themselves in a comfortable position to make the Chase, or for drivers outside the cutoff to start putting together a charge to get back in contention. It’s tough to make up a bunch of ground in June, but a bad month makes it very difficult to be in a good position come Chase time in September.

The weather during the race weekend at Kansas in October has usually been on the cooler side, or at least it hasn't had the blistering heat that will be at the track this weekend. The forecast calls for temperatures in the low to mid 90s while the cars are on the track.

Hopefully the teams are prepared for the heat and have the cars setup for a long, hot day so the race doesn’t turn out like the one a few weeks ago at Dover where everybody seemed to be chasing their car around an unexpectedly hot and slick racetrack.

This will likely be another good track for the Ford cars. Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle have been good at this track in the past, and although it has much less banking than Charlotte and Dover, the track in Kansas is still 1.5 miles long and Fords have won two of the first three races on tracks of that length.

If somebody is going to jump up and contend with the #99 team in the points standings, they better start getting after it now because Edwards’ lead is up to 36 points. In the past that would’ve barely been any lead at all, but now it is almost a full race’s worth of points.

Now is the time for someone to work on breaking down that lead, or Edwards could end up being this year’s Kevin Harvick or Tony Stewart as he goes on to dominate the regular season. But, it takes more than consistency these days to win the championship.

Wins might not be as important toward the points standings as some people would like, but they are as important now as they have been at any other time in the sport’s history.

Rating the Coca-Cola 600: 3 Stars ***

Memorial Day weekend is arguably the best racing weekend of the year, and it certainly has been this year with nail-biting finishes that literally came down to the final turn. The first three-quarters or so of the Coca-Cola 600 was worthy of 2 Stars and the finish was worthy of 4 Stars, so the entire race gets a 3 Star Rating.

Kevin Harvick usually comes out of nowhere to win his races, but this was the most unlikely win of them all. He sat between 20th and 25th for the first part of the race and was yelling at his team about how terrible the car was.

The next time we heard about him he was fifth in line for the final restart. Even at that point he wasn’t looked at as much of a threat because of all the cars and issues in the first two rows.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove one of those cars and took off on the final restart and drove away from the field. As he came through the frontstretch to take the white flag it looked like this was finally going to be that magical race Earnhardt Jr. fans have been waiting for so long. Some fans may have even done a double take.

Is that really the #88 car out in front on the final lap? After the years of disappointment, it looked like this win was finally possible. There was no lapped traffic, and the caution laps had to preserve some fuel, right?

Almost.

The #88 machine simply ran out of gas coming into Turn 3 and the guy who seems to always be in the right spot at the right time, Harvick, drove by to take a very unexpected victory.

Although there is heartbreak and frustration for Earnhardt Jr. fans to have their driver come so close to winning, it is a positive he drove a very good race and this team is starting to perform at a winner’s level week in and week out. That first win is always the hardest.

Harvick went through a similar stretch after his 2007 Daytona 500 win. It took until the spring race at Talladega last year to finally crack the code to Victory Lane again in a points event. Once that first win happened, several more followed, and now he is even running into a few just for having four wheels and an engine that runs.

Sure, Harvick drove a hard race to get into position to have a chance, but he said in Victory Lane this win was a gift. But, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good because any win, no matter the path, is very difficult to achieve.

As for the overall quality of the race, the majority of the 600 miles were similar to both the Dover race and the All-Star race the past two weeks. Maybe it’s because summer-type weather has finally arrived, but all of a sudden teams are having a difficult time keeping up with the racetrack and it is hurting the quality of racing.

Unfortunately, there’s little reason to think any of that will change next week in Kansas, and several of the same drivers should be a factor there. Kansas Speedway is the same length and a fairly similar configuration to Charlotte. Plus, Ford drivers have run well at Kansas in the past and right now they have the best cars in the field on intermediate tracks.

Rating the Price Chopper 400: 2 Stars **

After a couple of weeks on traditional one-mile ovals, NASCAR moved out to Kansas and added an additional half-mile. However, the added distance did not mean added excitement. Kansas gets a 2 Star Rating.

Congratulations to Greg Biffle, the #16 team and the entire Ford stable. The Roush-Fenway Racing cars have finally come to life, with three cars in the top 10, and the Richard Petty Motorsports cars swept the front row in qualifying.

Coming into the season, one of the most often asked questions were about whether or not the Roush and Richard Childress Racing organizations would improve on sub-par 2009 season. The Childress group jumped out front early and has debatably been the best overall organization this season. Roush, on the other hand, continued to struggle through much of the regular season. Several Roush drivers would put down consistent finishes, but they were never really a threat to win.

Then came Sunday. At one point Ford held the top four positions on the track. What is the difference? One obvious answer is the new engine program finally has the kinks worked out and is running full speed ahead. However, the cars are handling much better.

On a track that caused drivers such as Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson to spin out in practice, Biffle’s car was on a rail for much of the day. Lots of cars can make horsepower, but the ones that carry speed through the corners will be at the front in the end.

The only real drama Sunday dealt with the points standings. While Johnson once again has the lead in the Chase, the overall standings are as close as ever. Eight drivers are still within 100 points of the leader, the most ever in the Chase era.

So far all of the folks hoping for a close Chase battle have been treated to exactly what they were looking for. Now, the possibility of having an elimination format has been thrown around so much it might as well already be in place. But why would NASCAR want to eliminate drivers early in the Chase? Right now 11 of the 12 drivers could mathematically leave California next week in the lead. Wasn’t one of the main reasons for the Chase to have more drivers compete for the title? Well, they’re competing — but Johnson is once again in the strongest position.

A positive from Sunday’s race was the lack of cautions. As I said earlier in the year, this group of drivers has, for the most part, been on the track together for a while now. The lack of developing Nationwide drivers has helped, but right now each and every week there are surprisingly, and refreshingly, long stretches of green-flag racing. NASCAR helped hand last year’s race at Kansas to Tony Stewart when it threw a debris caution late in the race and everyone came in to pit.

This time, however, Biffle had a Denny-Hamlin-at-Michigan-type lead and NASCAR allowed it to finish under green. Kudos, NASCAR. The integrity of the race is has remained intact of late. Now that Clint Bowyer penalty situation, that’s a story for another day.

Next week the series moves out to the final fall race at California with Johnson in the lead. The racing may not be the greatest, but the race will be important in terms of the championship situation. Hamlin and the rest of the Chase field have to put up a good finish to keep Johnson from running away for championship number five.

Even if Johnson wins, the championship isn’t over. The #48 team has struggled at more tracks than normal this season and the competition has remained in stride for much of the season. Be ready, Homestead might actually mean something this year.

Rating the Price Chopper 400: 2 Stars **

The NASCAR teams are not in Kansas anymore, but the race Sunday afternoon left plenty to chew on. Some not-so-exciting racing, combined with some rather questionable calls from NASCAR during the event gives this Kansas race a 2 Star Rating.

As expected, Hendrick Motorsports came out and filled up the front of the field early. Surprisingly, the #88 car led the field throughout the first run. But, in what has become all too typical for them this season, a problem on pit road – this time a loose lug nut – put Dale Earnhardt Jr. a lap down and he was not heard from again until the end of the race when his engine started to leak.

Another surprise Sunday was the race put together by Greg Biffle and the #16 team. For much of the season the Ford camp has really struggled, but in the last two weeks they have had a car in the top five. Granted, Biffle got to the front because he took two tires, but he was able to hang on to the lead both times they used that strategy. This was unexpected because I thought the tires would give up a lot more than they did. However, Ford still needs to start getting that new engine on the track. Their cars simply cannot run up front on a consistent basis with the package they currently are running.

Alright, now let’s discuss NASCAR’s putrid day in the control tower. Many fans have grumbled about NASCAR playing favorites before, but this week that issue came to the front and center. Brad Keselowski had a great weekend in the #25 car. He qualified third and ran in the top five for much of the race before getting shuffled back on a round of pit stops and a poorly timed caution. Then, he gets in a battle with Juan Montoya and races him hard, even trading some paint. Okay, finally there is a side-by-side battle on the racetrack. However, while this is going on NASCAR issues a warning to Tony Eury Jr. advising him to tell Brad to back off because he is racing a Chase contender. This is absolute bogus. NASCAR took away the old points system because they wanted to inject more excitement into the latter part of the season. Yet they issue warnings telling the non-chasers to give the other guys plenty of room so they don’t cause these drivers to lose valuable points that will keep the standings close as the Chase wears on. This is exactly what everybody feared would happen when the Chase was announced. The big complaint back then was that only the Chasers would be focused on and everyone else would be forgotten. NASCAR made a huge mistake here. If this is how it’s going to be, please bring back the old points system. Even if the standings weren’t close – and many times they were – at least every driver had a chance to give everything they had to try and win a race. That is what the sport is about after all. We don’t tune in each week to see how close the points battle is, we tune in to see drivers go door-to-door to try and win that particular race.

Secondly, Dale Jr.’s engine leaked fluid at the end of the race. Maybe. The fluid was never shown but isn’t it amazing that the caution came out with 31 laps to go in a race that was shaping up to be a fuel mileage finish. Here comes my conspiracy theory. It seems to me that many of the leaders, including Jimmie Johnson, were well short on fuel and it would be a big stretch to make it to the end. But, there were a few teams saying they were really close and could possibly make it. Now, we saw what happened at Michigan both times this year when some of the leaders ran out of fuel. They finished back around 30th or so. Had that happened Sunday, there possibly would have been a few Chase drivers run out of gas and drop way back in the finishing order, thus losing many points in the Championship Chase. NASCAR is already hurting for TV ratings and a finish like that would have really spread out the points battle. So, instead Tony Stewart wins in a boring finish and the points are still really tight. Congratulations NASCAR, I too hope there are at least six drivers with a chance to win the Cup at Homestead.

That’s it this week. If you made it this far, well, thankfully I don’t have much more to say. Next week is the ever exciting Jimmie Johnson domination show at Auto Club Speedway in front of a bunch of red and yellow bleachers. After next week, however, some better tracks are on the schedule and the racing should be better as we move in on halfway in the Chase to the Championship.