auto racing

We've known for a couple of weeks that Jimmie Johnson's quest to win a sixth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup title would come up short. All that was missing was mathematical elimination.

That came at Phoenix for the 48 Chevrolet driver, with Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart now the only men who can claim the 2011 championship.

Just for the contrast of it all, I'd like nothing better than for the final week of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season to come down to a battle between Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart.

There are a lot of different ways to remember the 2011 fall race at Talladega Superspeedway.

One can choose to look at last Sunday's event as yet another installment of "Let's Make A Deal." Or perhaps the better title for this motorsports game show is "Let's Break A Deal."

Safety and technology advances have come so far and so fast in motorsports -- whether it's NASCAR, IndyCar or Formula One -- that sometimes we forget how very dangerous the sport of speed truly is.

Sunday at Las Vegas, we were reminded.

For a while, the situation read like a movie script.

Jimmie Johnson, winner of five consecutive Sprint Cup championships, was struggling. Jeff Gordon -- the four-time titlist and teammate of Johnson -- was poised to claim a fifth title of his own, and first since 2001.

Talladega Superspeedway has been known as a lot of things during its long and storied history.

For years it was billed as "The World's Fastest Speedway," and later became "NASCAR's Most Competitive Track."

It has provided unparalleled drama with its three and sometimes four-wide racing and has often served as a game changer in points battles.

There's already a famous play called "The Iceman Cometh."

If the NASCAR Chase for the Championship plays out like it has so far, perhaps some enterprising writer can pen "The Iceman Melteth."

Jimmie Johnson would, of course, be the protagonist.

Just a few months before the 2011 Sprint Cup season started, NASCAR CEO Brian France hinted that there could be some major changes coming to the sport -- and possibly some really big adjustments to the Chase format.

I guess it depends on how you define "major."

Now that the 12-driver Chase field is set, the drama that leads to the drama is over for 2011. No longer will fans have to worry that Tony Stewart won't make the chase or Dale Earnhardt Jr. will fade out of contention.

Smoke and NASCAR's Most Popular Driver made the cut.

With Danica Patrick now in the waning days of her IndyCar career, the open wheel organization finds itself scrambling to find a new "It Girl."
Oh, league officials would never come out and say it, of course, but they're thinking about it.

When Danica arrived in the series, it was a novelty that quickly evolved into a money machine for what was then known as the IRL.