Let's Cut to the Chase

Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards might swap paint, roar to another narrow finish ahead of the pack, bicker and add another episode to their flowering rivalry.

Cool, but who's the poor sap in the smoking junker getting lapped?

As NASCAR's "regular season" nears its 26-event conclusion, there will be compelling drama in the murky dregs of the field in the Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway on Sunday.

A handful of bubble teams hovering around the 12th spot in the points standings -- the cutoff position for the Chase -- could have fans craning their necks to see who ends up 10th, 20th and, perhaps most importantly, 40th, in the 250-lap race.

This is both the charm and the curse of staging the second-to-last race of the Sprint Cup's qualifying season.

Having multiple teams engaged in a fight for a berth in the Chase is exciting. Having multiple teams already qualified with little more to gain is less exciting.

Fontana is race No. 25. The first 26 races determine who reaches the championship round.

Although all teams continue to compete in the remaining 10 events, only the top 12 are eligible for the Sprint Cup title. Since it's better to be relevant than irrelevant as a competitor, getting into the Chase becomes the focus for all those whose fate isn't yet clear.

It will make for a curious Sunday.

Consider the likes of Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Brian Vickers, currently 14th, 15th and 16th in the standings, and 156, 181 and 183 points, respectively, behind Clint Bowyer, who sits in the precarious 12th spot.

With their chances of passing several teams these last two races growing slim, and with nothing to lose, if I'm in Kahne's Budweiser No. 9, Vickers' Red Bull No. 83 car or Newman's Alltell No. 12, I'm putting the pedal to the floor and closing my eyes.

It seems reasonable for them to do anything and everything to shoot for the 185-plus points that go to the winner. Or even the 170-to-155-plus points available to the next four cars.

That would leave them one last race, next week in Richmond, to make up whatever ground they need.

Neither desperate nor complacent are the drivers sitting in the ninth through 13 spots -- Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Bowyer and David Ragan.

They are all within a 108-point range of each other, neither in nor out of the Chase, yet. Slightly better than average finishes for each the last two races would likely secure them spots.

But two disasters could easily cost them several spots in the standings and a freefall into NASCAR oblivion.

No points system is perfect, and Fontana-Richmond is where the Chase takes a hit. For Gordon and fellow Bubble Boys, it makes more sense to play it safe than to drive like Mr. Toad in pursuit of a victory.

If the best racing occurs when there is a first-place-or-nothing mentality, what kind of racing occurs when the smart thing to do is avoid trouble, take no chances, cruise off the pace, and shoot for something in the 10-to-18 range?

Not that guys who made it to the top level of auto racing in America think like that once they get strapped in behind the wheel. But at some point, it becomes a math problem, as well as an auto race. When owners, crew chiefs and even drivers are confronted with the reality of point standings, discretion is an issue.

Ironically, if history is an indication, the drivers who manage to hang on to a bottom spot, or squeak into the Chase by the seat of their fire-retardant pants, will count that as the highlight of the season.

Wild-card teams may have had decent success in places like the Super Bowl and the World Series, but lower seeds in the Chase have yet to do any serious damage.

Bowyer came closest, moving up from the 12th spot to third last year.

Kurt Busch finished seventh in the points standings in the Chase's first year, 2004, and won the championship, but he was a two-time winner in the qualifying season, not that far off the pace to begin the Chase, and never had to sweat making the field.

This year, with Kyle Busch and Edwards racking up significant bonus points in the Chase for their 14 wins (so far between them), and generally dominating the field these past seven months, it may just be a two-man championship race this year anyway.

Sunday's scramble of the also-rans, of course, is the Southland's last such race. Next year's schedule gives Fontana an October date -- a race in the middle of the Chase when 12th place is just 12th place, not a celebration.

(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton@PE.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)