Who's Chasing who?

The battle is on

Meet the Chasers:

1. Jimmie Johnson
2. Carl Edwards
3. Greg Biffle
4. Kevin Harvick
5. Clint Bowyer
6. Jeff Burton
7. Jeff Gordon
8. Denny Hamlin
9. Tony Stewart
10. Kyle Busch
11. Matt Kenseth
12. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Analysis:

• Spencer: How Johnson won it all
• Tays: History will tell how great J.J. is

Photo galleries:

• Phoenix weekend
• Texas weekend
• Atlanta weekend
• Martinsville weekend
• Charlotte weekend
• Talladega weekend
• Kansas weekend
• Dover weekend
• Loudon weekend

Now the question becomes ... are you a Racer or a Chaser?

I look at these 10 races and I see three guys that are racers: Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson. Those guys go out there every week and don't leave anything on the track. They give it all they got. So we know they are racers.

But I also look in the pits, and I think who wins the Chase and who doesn't win the Chase is more about who is on top of that pit box. Knaus, Steve Addington and Bob Osborne are gamblers. We have seen all year long that they are willing to roll the dice when the time is right. Those guys have orchestrated winning strategies all year long.

Beyond the top three contenders, to me the rest of the guys are Chasers. They are going to watch, sit back and hope. All they can hope for is that those three front-running drivers beat themselves somehow; they are going to hope the race comes to them.

Busch, Johnson and Edwards aren't going to wait for the race to come to them. They are going to take it to you. That is the strategy I believe will win the Chase. If you want to look at how to win the championship, look at how Johnson did it last year. He won all those races in the Chase, got a comfortable lead and no one could catch him. He basically coasted to the championship.

If any of those top three can do the same thing this year, it will work the same way for them. They will be able to go into those final few races with a nice pad in the points and only have to worry about finishing the race. The first eight races you want to go as hard as you can and win as many as you can so that you have a cushion.

The goal should be to go into the last race of the season, which is Homestead, with a 50- or 60-point lead where you don't have to push the issue. That will let you drive a smart, conservative race and win the championship. We saw it last year, and we saw it the year before that. I would bet we will see it again this year.

So we've got Racers, and we've got Chasers. As I said, there are three Racers and nine Chasers. Watch and see if the Racers are the ones who win the championship.

Oh, by the way

I know I said last week that I felt you needed to win a race to qualify for the Chase. All I am saying is if you knew that in those first 26 races that you had to win one race to qualify for the Chase, how exciting would it make every one of those 26 races? How many chances would you take? How much gambling would you do? I would rather see a guy out there putting on a show and trying to win a race than watching a guy run 10th every week. That's just my opinion.

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If you look at the Top 12, you will find there are five of the 12 that haven't won a race this year. Look at Kasey Kahne. He has two wins, and he is not in the Chase. What about Ryan Newman? He won the Daytona 500, and he's not in the Chase. I just think the 26 regular-season races would be more exciting each week if you had to win a race to qualify for the Chase.

One final 'Oh, by the way'

We saw what I thought was some really good short-track racing at Richmond this past weekend. Going to a short track is a lot different than racing at a speedway, where you are going 190 to 200 mph. On a short track, you can do a little more rubbin' and can be a little more aggressive. You might nerf a guy out of the way or move him up the hill, and he might spin out. On a short track, he isn't going to hurt himself.

That's what I love about short-track racing. Maybe you can even the score with someone for something in the past. Now, I am not saying that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got even with Kyle Busch this past weekend, but the opportunity was there and he sure didn't turn it down.

That's what short-track racing is about. There is an old saying in short-track racing that eight tires are better than four, which means if there is a guy on the outside of you that has four and you have four, it's a good thing. The other theory of short-track racing is if you have tire marks down the right side of your car, then that means you are passing people. But if you have tire marks down the left side of your car, well, that means you are in the way and you were getting passed a lot.

Short-track cars were built back in the day based on the three "L's" — low, light and left. Whoops, that doesn't apply to this new car, so you can forget that.