By BILL WHITEHEAD, Scripps Howard News Service

Throughout sports, games and life, this statement's often been uttered by many: "I'd rather be lucky than good."But how does that saying relate to this year's NASCAR title hunt? Where does the role of being good or lucky come in to play as 12 drivers try to win The Chase For The Spring Cup Championship?Greg Biffle -- Very good.

Forget for a moment that a Ford other than Carl Edwards's No. 99 won Sunday, forget that the NASCAR's most dominant driver was rendered insignificant in the Chase opener and forget that the Big Three just might not be unbeatable after all in The Chase for the Cup.Just remember Greg Biffle.

With NASCAR's regular season now behind us and championship possibilities afoot -- all of our points have been reset now -- it's time to start thinking about title contenders and Chase pretenders. There may be a list of 12 drivers eligible, but in actuality we're likely talking about three drivers here.

During all the years, from growing up at Martinsville Speedway to presiding over the track, Clay Campbell has heard the sounds during NASCAR driver introductions -- the general applause, inattentive claps, cheers and boos. But it's the jeering that rings loudest.

After following Kyle Busch for all those laps around Bristol, running second to the multi-colored Toyota that has dominated most of 2008, Carl Edwards took matters into his own hands and did his part to make The Chase for the Championship a little more interesting.

All the NASCAR signs seemed to point to driver Ryan Newman joining Tony Stewart's new Stewart-Haas Racing during the weekend at Indianapolis, the home track to the pair of Hoosiers. But the numbers all finally began to add up earlier this month at Michigan. And this whole situation between the pair of Indiana natives is about numbers -- some that work, some that don't.

If you've ever wondered why perennial mid-packers and backmarkers continue to come to the track with a remote chance of beating the Big Boys of NASCAR -- Hendrick, Gibbs, Roush, Childress and Evernham -- then the venerable Wood Brothers showed at Watkins Glen why they show up each week.

If you were to summarize the past few weeks of NASCAR driver Ryan Newman's 2008 season, it would come down to off-track issues rather than on-track performance. In fact, it would come down to three words: choices, choices and choices.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- As the saying goes, "Where there's smoke, there's fire."That was certainly the case 10 years ago along the east coast of Florida.

On Feb. 15, 1998, an ecstatic Dale Earnhardt sauntered into the press box after winning the Daytona 500, pulled a stuffed monkey from the back of his famous white racing suit, fired the furry critter to the floor and proclaimed loudly, "Man, I finally got that (expletive) thing off my back!"