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Carl Edwards (car No. 99), Greg Biffle (car No. 16) and Matt Kenseth (car No. 17) battled for the win in the Camping World 400 at Dover International Speedway on Sunday.

The last three weeks of Sprint Cup racing have produced thrilling finishes. Will the streak continue?

BY DAVID POOLE

McClatchy Newspapers

Capped by a tremendous three-way battle for victory over the final 40 laps at Dover, the Sprint Cup Series seems to be riding at least a ripple of renewed competition as the Chase moves into its third week at Kansas Speedway.

The Chase opener at New Hampshire featured a good late-race battle between Greg Biffle and Jimmie Johnson, and the regular-season finale at Richmond was a duel between Johnson and Tony Stewart.

The question now, then, is whether the run of good racing is a trend that bodes well for the remainder of this year. Or is it merely a confluence of circumstances traced to the venues for these recent riveting races that won’t continue when the Cup teams return to a 1.5-mile track like Kansas?

“I think we understand this car so well, and the cars are so much the same from car to car, that we’re going to be able to go to Kansas and be pretty close to on the money,” said Biffle, who has certainly been on the mark in winning the past two races. “I think you’re going to see a really good race at Kansas.”

There’s a consensus building that Cup teams are getting a better handle on the new race car, which is making its Kansas debut this week.

“Everybody in this garage is working as hardas they can to get these cars driving better,” David Ragan said. “I know our cars are driving better than they did a year ago. We still have some distance to go, but the cars are easier to drive and we know going into the race what to expect so we can make better decisions.

we were shooting in the dark at a lot of the problems that we faced. Sometimes we would hit it and sometimes we wouldn’t. Now we have more good notes to go off of. If I’ve got a problem, we have a list of things that have helped in the past and we can get the cars driving better sooner. That makes for more competitive racing with everybody.”

Tony Eury Jr., crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr., is not as convinced that the racing at Kansas is going to look like the competition at the shorter tracks Cup teams have been on recently.

“At the shorter track this car puts a lot of it back into the drivers’ hands and brings out some exceptional racing,” Eury Jr. said.

Ragan

Burton

Fennig

“When you get to the point where you’re going 200 mph that’s when the car becomes more of a handful and things start to spread out.”

Jeff Burton suspects the same thing. “The faster you go the more spread out the cars are going to get,” Burton said. “That’s simple math. If you’re off 1 percent at 200 mph, you’re further away than if you’re off 1 percent at 90 mph. Some of it is that the smaller the track, the better the racing.”

But, Burton said, there are factors pointing toward better results on intermediate-style tracks such as Kansas and the other 1.5-mile circuits that remain in the Chase.

“The weather is starting to get cooler and the tracks won’t be as slick,” he said. “We had really slick conditions this summer, and the slicker it is the more spread out the cars get. …With this new car, when you don’t have grip they don’t have any grip. …When we said we had no grip in the last car it still had more grip than this car. And the slicker it gets the harder it is to make these cars work.”

But making these cars work is the only choice Cup teams have, said Jimmy Fennig, Ragan’s crew chief.

“Everybody is working harder and harder,” Fennig said. “At the beginning of the year when we hadn’t tested you would miss the setup here and there and it just shot you out to lunch. But this is what we’ve got to deal with.”

CAMPING WORLD 400

Where: Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile paved, banked tri-oval located in Kansas City, Kan.

When: Sunday at 2 p.m. (all times ET). Qualifying is 4:10 p.m. Friday.

TV: ABC.

Radio: Motor Racing Network.

Purse: $6,134,923.

Last year's winner: Greg Biffle.

Also this week: Kansas Lottery 300, Nationwide Series, Kansas Speedway, 3:30 p.m. Saturday, ESPN2.

Worth mentioning:Elijah Kelley, who had a lead role as Seaweed J. Stubbs in the movie “Hairspray!,” will perform the national anthem before Sunday’s race. Kelley, 22, and the “Hairspray” cast earned a Critics Choice Award for Best Ensemble in a Motion Picture, as well as a SAG Award Nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION

Whose performance surprises you most in the Chase so far?

Cast your vote at: www.thatsracin.com

LAST WEEK’S QUESTION

Can Kyle Busch and his team rebound from their difficult start in NASCAR's playoffs and still contend for the title?

Number of votes: 3,769

Response	No. of votes	Percent
No.	1,650	44%
Who cares? Let's race.	1,077	28%
yes	1,042	28%

WHO'S HOT

Havrick

Greg Biffle: Talk about getting hot at the right time.

Carl Edwards: No wins in the Chase, but the points lead will do nicely.

Kevin Harvick: Eight consecutive top 10s. He still has time to become a player in the championship.

Matt Kenseth: position in the Chase standings may not have improved much, but it was good to see him fighting for the win.

WHO'S NOT

Kyle Busch: He’s as low now as he was high during much of the season.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.: On the verge of falling out of the championship hunt.

- Jim Utter

SPRINT CUP POINTS LEADERS

The top-40 drivers as of Sept. 21:

Rank/Driver Points Rank/Driver Points

1. Carl Edwards . 5390
2. Jimmie Johnson . 5380
3. Greg Biffle . 5380
4. Jeff Burton . 5308
5. Kevin Harvick . 5289
6. Clint Bowyer . 5284
7. Tony Stewart . 5277
8. Jeff Gordon . 5272
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 5261
10. Matt Kenseth . 5223
11. Denny Hamlin . 5197
12. Kyle Busch . 5180
13. Kasey Kahne . 3262
14. David Ragan . 3227
15. Martin Truex Jr. 3067
16.Ryan Newman . 3032
17. Brian Vickers . 2987
18. Kurt Busch . 2833
19.Jamie McMurray . 2765
20. Bobby Labonte . 2742

21.Travis Kvapil . 2686
22. David Reutimann 2657
23. Elliott Sadler . 2650
24. Juan Montoya . 2645
25. Casey Mears. . 2604
26. David Gilliland . 2510
27. Mark Martin . 2430
28. Paul Menard . 2402
29. Michael Waltrip . 2236
30.Reed Sorenson . 2192
31.Dave Blaney . 2189
32.Robby Gordon. . 2130
33. Scott Riggs . 2106
34.Regan Smith . 2076
35. Sam Hornish Jr. 2052
36. Patrick Carpentier1713
37. A.J. Allmendinger 1690
38. Joe Nemechek . 1578
39. Michael McDowell 1466
40. J.J. Yeley . 1263

NATIONWIDE SERIES POINTS LEADERS The top-20 drivers as of Sept. 20: Rank/Driver Points Rank/Driver Points
1. Clint Bowyer . 4222 2. Carl Edwards .4036 3. Brad Keselowski 3974 4. Mike Bliss . 3779 5. David Ragan . 3721 6. David Reutimann 3676 7. Kyle Busch . 3673 8. Mike Wallace . 3381 9. Jason Leffler . 3348 10.Marcos Ambrose. 3321	11. Jason Keller .3276 12. David Stremme . 264 13. Steve Wallace . 3109 14. Kelly Bires . 3023 15. Bobby Hamilton Jr.3002 16. Scott Wimmer . 2675 17. Kenny Wallace . 2595 18. Kevin Harvick . 2406 19. Brad Coleman . 2271 20.Denny Hamlin . 2121
NEXT RACE: Saturday, Kansas Lottery 300, Kansas City, Kan.

TRUCK SERIES POINTS LEADERS The top-10 drivers as of Sept. 20: Rank/Driver Points Rank/Driver Points
1. Johnny Benson . 2858 2. Ron Hornaday .2857 3. Matt Crafton. . 2694 4. Erik Darnell . 2634 5. Mike Skinner . 2631	6. Rick Crawford . 2612 7. Todd Bodine . 2601 8. Jack Sprague . 2456 9. Dennis Setzer . 2395 10.Terry Cook . 2366
NEXT RACE: Oct. 4, Mountain Dew 250, Talladega, Ala.

THAT’S RACIN’S TOP PICKS

1. Greg Biffle (car No. 16):You have to go with the hot hand and right now Biffle is red-hot right up to his elbow. Last week: 4.

2. Carl Edwards (car No. 99): Biffle has won the first two Chase races but Edwards takes the points lead to Kansas. Last week: 2.

3. Jimmie Johnson (car No. 48): Still right there. You still have to beat this team to get to the head table in New York. Last week: 1.

4. Kevin Harvick (car No. 29): Sixth-place finish at Dover was his eighth straight top 10 and his ninth in the past 10. Last week: 7.

5. Kyle Busch (car No. 18): Even without a Chase this team would badly need a turnaround after the past two weeks. Last week: 3.

6. Jeff Burton (car No. 31): Still hanging around in this championship. Now would be a nice time for a hot streak. Last week: 8.

7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (car No. 88): Unless this team steps up its game pretty soon, it’s a non-factor in the title race. Last week: 6.

8. Matt Kenseth (car No. 17): Bounced back smartly with a runnerup finish at Dover after a bad start to the Chase. Last week: 12.

9. Jeff Gordon (car No. 24): Paging four-time champion Jeff Gordon. Please report to Chase as soon as possible. Last week: 10.

10. Clint Bowyer (car No. 07): A Kansas win would mean more to him or Edwards than just about anyone else. Last week: 11.

For the rest of the top-40 rankings, go online and visit www.thatsracin.com

Absolute control is absolutely the NASCAR way

There are two guiding principles one must always keep in mind when dealing with NASCAR on any significant issue.

Rule No. 1: Whenever possible, NASCAR finds a way for somebody else to pick up the tab.

Any program or initiative in which a team, a manufacturer or a sponsor can be cornered into paying the bills has an infinitely better chance of being implemented than one in which NASCAR has to write a check.

Rule No. 2: NASCAR loves and maniacally defends its control over the sport. It is only slightly less likely to spend its own money than it is to let anything — even a black-andwhite rule in its own rulebook — dictate how it handles a given situation.

NASCAR always likes to leave itself wiggle room. The latter rule is clearly in play in regard to changes to NASCAR’s substance abuse policy announced last week.

The new policy goes into effect for the 2009 season. All drivers in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck Series as well as all NASCAR officials will be drug tested before the start of next season. Additionally, team owners must verify that they’ve had all licensed crew members tested by a certified lab before the new season begins.

Drivers, over-the-wall crew members and officials will thereafter be subjected to random testing. At least two drivers, two over-the-wall crew members and two officials will be tested per series per race weekend. So if all three series are running on a given weekend, a minimum of 18 tests will be administered.

The NASCAR policy is that the misuse or abuse of any drug is prohibited. NASCAR’s press release Saturday said, “This means that a violation of the policy can be triggered with the use of any drug or medication if NASCAR believes it has been abused or misused.”

Of course, that also means that NASCAR has the discretion to decide that a positive test for any drug doesn’t necessarily constitute that abuse or misuse.

Shouldn’t there be at least some kind of list of substances that are absolutely banned, no matter the circumstances?

There’s no circumstance under which a positive for cocaine or heroin, for instance, should leave any room for discretion. Why not just simply ban them as part of an official policy?

The same thing can be said for the penalty phase. A first offense calls for immediate suspension with “detailed criteria” for consideration of reinstatement. Those criteria, however, are not delineated publicly.

NASCAR can handle each penalty phase on an individual basis. Is that just being smart, or does it give NASCAR the room to play favorites? That’s the kind of skepticism NASCAR is perfectly willing to deal with rather than cede any more control.

Originally posted on David Poole’s blog, “Life in the Turn Lane,” available online at turn-lane.blogspot.com.