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

Every week you sit down and analyze the data when you go to make your picks for the weekend. You look at the stats to see who's historically good at the track that weekend. You look at all the information available to you and try to come up with a reasonable estimation of what the weekend will look like.

But really, racing is so unpredictable. I tell people with a twinkle in my eye that it's so unpredictable that it's hard to predict. As I look at the numbers, Greg Biffle is the hottest thing on the circuit. He has won the first two Chase races plus he is the defending champion of the Kansas race. The Biff is pretty darn good at K.C. and with the momentum he has got right now you have to probably say he is your number one pick.

Carl Edwards is leading the points right now. He has been very consistent. This is not a bad track for him and if you look at its sister track, Chicago, Carl had a great car there too until he had a mechanical problem with the splitter. You really can't bet against Carl. For that matter, you really can't bet against any of the Roush Fenway Racing cars right now.

Look at their other teammate Matt Kenseth. He had a disastrous start to the Chase at Loudon but fought back hard last week at Dover. That's just the kind of team they are. These guys never do anything easy. They seem to thrive on doing it the hard way. Kansas is a good track for Matt too.

When you look at who knows how to win the Chase and the championship, you naturally look to Jimmie Johnson and his crew chief Chad Knaus. This is a typical Jimmie race track. He would have won at Chicago if Kyle hadn't lifted him up on that late race restart. So it is a strong bet that Jimmie and the No. 48 car will be a strong factor.

So when you look at it, you have to agree that the Roush Fenway cars and the Hendrick Motorsports cars are the class of the field right now. But there are two guys that I am anxiously watching to see if they can finally break out in this thing. Those two guys are Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon.

My pick for the weekend is Smoke. I believe this is a race he is going to win. He has one win there and three top fives and he runs really well at this racetrack. I know he doesn't want to go through this whole year without at least one win too. I know he also wants to win for his team and for the Gibbs organization before he leaves at the end of the year. So I am putting a few bucks down on ol' Smoke this weekend because I think he is going to get it done.

I would like to think that Dale Earnhardt Jr. would be tough this weekend. This is a track he runs well this weekend. He and his team have to show me that they can be around at the finish. Can they take a car and continue to make it better throughout a race and be a threat at the end? We know he can run good for half a race; heck, he even admitted that himself. They just have to prove to me they can tune on that car and make it stronger at the end of the race than it was at the beginning of it. If he could do that, Jr. could win several of these last eight races. That would be good for him, his owner, Jr. Nation as well as NASCAR.

Jeff Gordon in my opinion is in the same boat as Earnhardt. Jeff and his crew chief Steve Letarte have to prove to me that they also can make their car better and be a factor at the end of the day. They seem to start off well, even winning a pole, but they seem to fade during the race. They have to fix that if they are going to be a contender.

Denny Hamlin had another issue last week with burning up a gear. He is going to have to get up on his soap box and hammer on his team and see if he can get himself caught back up.

Kevin Harvick has been my dark-horse pick all along. Unfortunately this is not a great race track for the RCR cars. Kevin has been so consistent lately. He is on a run of eight consecutive top-10 finishes and out of those, three were top-fives. His owner Richard Childress and that team know how to win a championship. If Kevin could pick the performance up just a little bit, then my dark horse could become a shining star in Kansas City.

Speed Mail Darrell Waltrip
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So my picks this weekend are Tony to win, Jimmie to be second, Carl third, Biff fourth and Kevin to finish fifth. We will see how that turns out. Jeff Burton is another one that needs to pick up his performance if he wants to be a factor. They hang around but they really need to step things up.

As I said last week, Kyle Busch is simply going to have to go out and win the next eight races. Now I know you said there isn't any way it can happen, but I never expected him to win eight races all season let alone a total of 19 NASCAR races over three series. He has been good on every track we have coming up. I know he is in a deep hole and many of you want to say he is done, toast, cooked and he is finished, but don't count him out until we get another couple races under our belt. Remember, we still have a couple wild-card races coming up where you could very quickly get caught up in someone else's problem and those are Talladega and Martinsville.

Oh, by the way

Bobby Hillin Jr. is going to attempt to make the Nationwide race in Kansas. Twenty years ago Bobby and his wife, my wife and I and Lake Speed and his wife founded MRO — Motor Racing Outreach. I haven't talked to Bobby in a long time and he hasn't raced in eight years, so it will be interesting to see if he can shake the rust off and make the race. It would be good to see him back out there. I like seeing those old guys make returns. Since Scott Speed is out racing, I wonder if his cousin Lake Speed will come join him?