Now the chase is really over.  Jimmy Johnson has captured his third Cup Championship in three years.  I think that after all is said and done, old JJ will be mentioned in the top lists of drivers of all time.  Just don’t hold me to that.  Even with the win this week, Carl Edwards just couldn’t overtake a huge deficit that JJ had built up.  For all his efforts he’ll have to wait until next year to try and get on the podium.  In third place was Greg Biffle who had two wins this season, followed by Kevin Harvick who was consistent all year, but couldn’t manage to get to victory road.  Clint Boyer rounds out the top five.  The bottom five were Jeff Burton in sixth and Jeff Gordon in seventh, win-less all season for the first time in his career. In eighth place was Denny Hmlin and in ninth was pudge-Tony Stewart.  Kyle Busch rounds out the top ten and Matt Kenseth and dale Jr. bring up eleventh and twelvth places.  A dissapointing finish for Jr. after the off-season moves got everybody excited again.

The NASCAR season is drawing to a close and we will have the same result that we have had for the last two seasons.  Jimmy Johnson standing up and accepting the championship for the third year in a row.  Maybe he is pretty good after all.  It would take a complete collapse of unseen proportions for him to lose the Chase.  He would literally have to start his engine at the start/finish line and blow his car up on the first turn, and not be able to continue in order to lose.  Oh, and then Carl Edwards would still have to win the race which I’m sure thirty other drivers would have something to say about that.  It seems like the big teams with all the money just keep getting better and more money and keep winning week in and week out.  It’s doesn’t seem to be about the drivers so much anymore as it does the money and how much the team spends.  Oh, wait.  If that was the case, then Jr. would have won this year instead of having to tell his legions of blinded fans-”Wait ’till next year.” And then he walks off into his trailer drinking a Mountain Dew and counting the money that he can pretty much print.

I thought that Dale Jr. was going to have a break-out year this season.  I thought that he just needed a fresh start with a top notch team and to get away from his late fathers ex-wife.  What happened?  I mean, it’s true that he did make the chase, up to second and third place at one point.  But he just can’t seem to finish it off and this year will end like all the others, with Jr. watching someone else win the championship and him and every other Jr. apologist saying “Wait ’till next year.”  If people sat back and looked at it from an unbiased, which I know is nearly impossible, point of view; they would realize that Dale is no more than an average driver at best.  Maybe a little above average, but not elite and definitely not near the caliber driver his dad was.  Not that many are and I know it’s unfair to even compare anybody, let alone Jr. to his dad, but people who thought he was the second coming of the Imtimidator need to wake up and face reality.

NASCAR is entering its playoff season with 11 drivers within 100 points of the lead, but I think everybody can agree that this year’s championship is Carl Edwards’ to win or lose.  Any other year, the same could be said of Jimmie Johnson, who has 4 wins and 15 top 10 finishes, or Kyle Busch, with a ridiculous 8 wins and 17 top tens.  But, the momentum seems to be in Carl’s corner this year.  Rounding out the top ten are Johnson, Biffle, Earnhardt, Burton, Hamlin, Stewart, Busch, Bowyer and Harvick.  Jeff Gordon is 11th and still in the hunt, but he better win a couple races before the season is over is he wants a real chance.  Earnhardt is in 4th place right now, but at only 50 points behind, still has a legitamate chance of winning.  He just needs to put 9 good races together.  There is no room for error this late in the year.

Did I hear right?  Is Lance Armstrong training for another go at the Tour de France?  Didn’t he already win it like seven times?  Well, one things for sure, it may be highly unlikely, but if he does race in next years event I’ll have to put my money on Lance.  He’s already proven that he can win.  He’s already proven that he can make a comeback, and he’s already proven that he’s determined enough to win whatever he puts his mind to.  It’s not like he’s MJ and returning to a crappy team that has no business winning, he has a chance to make history again.  They say cycling is a team sport, but I don’t think that Lance needs a team.  He’s like Chuck Norris in that respect.  Sure, some help would be nice, but like Chuck, Lance can round-house kick his way to victory by himself.  It’s just too bad that the race is in Europe, and Lance has to subject himself to France one more time.

NASCAR needs more fighting.  There, I said it.  I think that everybody else was thinking it, but I went ahead and said it out loud.  I might catch a little flack from my friends here in North Carolina, but I think that NASCAR needs to do something to make the races more interesting.  You might ask, driving a stock car 150mph around an oval track isn’t exciting enough for you, you need something else to spice it up?  Firey crashes and explosions, as long as no one gets seriously injured of course, don’t do it for you?  I say no.  It’s boring.  Let the guys get out of the cars on pit row and duke it out.  Hell, let them stop in the middle of the track and engage in fisticuffs.  Let them beat the crap out of each other.  No one’s going to get hurt anyway, with those giant space helmets they wear.  It’s like when football players start throwing punches at each others helmets; what are they trying to prove, about the best that’s going to happen is a broken hand for the puncher.  There was a fight on pit-row between two crews this weekend at the Truck race.  It was the only high-light that I watched.  Who cares about the race.  All I’m saying is let them fight without fear of a fine being handed out.  It’s not like it’s assault or anything, they aren’t real people anyway.  They’re on TV.