By SCOTT ADAMSON, Scripps Howard News Service

For the sixth consecutive year, Richmond International Raceway will be the venue where the Chase for the Championship field is finally determined. And if you're a fan of NASCAR's playoff system, you gotta love the drama.

After 25 races this we know -- Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin are in, regardless of what happens Saturday night.

As the Indy Racing League season winds down, officials with the sanctioning body are placing a lot more focus on Danica Patrick.

Not because she's closing in on a championship.

She's not.

But she is the champion of their cause, and their cause is to maintain some level of interest and popularity in the United States.

With the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series taking the weekend off, the Nationwide Series has a rare opportunity to get all the attention on Sunday when the NAPA Auto Parts 200 is held at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

The road course, situated on a man-made island, has become a regular stop in the support series, and will have a strong contingent of Cup regulars.

As TV ratings wane and Mother Nature continues to rain on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series parade, maybe it's time to spice things up.

I know -- cross promotion. NASCAR could do a tie-in with "Cops," or the "Jerry Springer Show" or any one of those ridiculous programs where the dregs of society share their sordid lives in front of a live but brain-dead studio audience.

There are plenty of things about NASCAR that irritate me -- cookie-cutter tracks, night races that start on one day and end on another, the Car of Tomorrow -- somewhere along the line the sport lost its focus and it gets harder and harder to stay interested in it.

One thing that does fascinate me, however, is the phenomenon known as "start-and-park."

Watkins Glen has a rich motorsports history -- no denying that fact. For more than 50 years it has hosted virtually every kind of racing imaginable, and this weekend the stock car guys return to the road course by the lake.

Since joining the National Football League in 1966 the Atlanta Falcons have managed to win one NFC championship (and earn the accompanying Super Bowl berth that goes with it), along with three division titles.

That's seeing the glass as half full.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is still the coolest kid in class.

Winless on the season and ranked 22nd in Sprint Cup points, "Little E'' is 446 points out of the 12th and final spot in NASCAR's Chase for the Championship. Barring a minor motorsports miracle, that means Earnhardt Jr. will once again be left out of the hunt for a title when the playoffs begin with 10 races to go.

On the plus side, this year's NASCAR race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway almost certainly won't be as bad as last year's. On the other hand, the Brickyard isn't exactly a great place for stock car racing anyway, so be prepared to spend a lot of time snoozing on Sunday.

Either NASCAR has the worst drug testing methods ever conceived or Jeremy Mayfield is a liar.
Regardless, it's all over for the Owensboro, Ky., driver.