After three races in NASCAR's Chase for the Cup, things are beginning to get interesting.
Last weekend's Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway helped tighten things in the standings, with the Top 6 drivers leaving the Midwest separated by less than 100 points and two more within 114 of leader Mark Martin of the Hendrick team.
Going into the race, only four drivers were within 100 points of Martin.
The biggest gainer on the weekend was race winner Tony Stewart, who moved one spot up the standings to fourth, just 67 points out of first.
Stewart was also the biggest loser under the Chase system, which sees the Top 12 drivers' points reset to 5,000 after the first 26 races with 10 bonus points added for each win in the regular season. Under these rules, Stewart saw his 179-point cushion after 26 races turn into a 10-point deficit to Martin to begin the Chase.
But don't expect the two-time NASCAR champion to complain about the Chase points system.
"I don't even talk about the old system because we don't use it any more.
It's not even a factor in the equation. It's like, yeah, we know we would have, but that's not what system we run under," said Stewart, who has won titles under the old system in 2002 and the new in 2005.
"Now we've got six guys within 100 points of the lead after three races."
Previously, NASCAR simply tallied all the points from the 36 races and the driver with the most at the end of the year won.
Now, only the Top 12 point scorers after the first 26 races are eligible to battle in the 10-race Chase for the Cup.
Early leader Martin extended his advantage by eight points to 18 over teammate and reigning three-time champion Jimmie Johnson.
Former Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya is 51 points behind Martin in third. Stewart's success put him fourth and knocked 2004 champion Kurt Busch one spot back to fifth.
Denny Hamlin is sixth with four-time champion Jeff Gordon seventh. Greg Biffle rounds out the Top 8.
While he's stayed in the lead for the first three Chase stops, Martin is certainly not counting on anything yet.
"What is there, seven more to go? I don't think we should be getting all hyped up about the tally right now, you know," said Martin who is trying to win his first NASCAR title at 50. "We've got a lot of racing to go."
With three Hendrick cars in the hunt - Johnson, Martin and Gordon - and the team taking the win in two of the first three races, many are betting that one of its drivers will hoist the Sprint Cup at the end of the Chase.
But Gordon, who has not won a title under the new system, cautioned that it's too early to start assuming a Hendrick driver will cruise away with the championship.
"Even though the Hendrick cars started off the first two races strong and we were strong today, that doesn't mean that this thing is over and there's a lot of racing left to go," said Gordon, who is 103 points behind teammate Martin.
"There's a lot of great competition, and the competition is as even as I've ever seen it. Even though we've had some dominating performances, to have so many different guys in the Chase running up front at different racetracks is impressive."
A big loser on the day was Ryan Newman, who dropped 54 points and two spots to ninth in the standings after a 22nd place finish in Kansas. But Newman's bad day paled in comparison to Brian Vickers.
Saying that things also did not go well for the Red Bull driver would be a bit of an understatement. Handling problems, a spin, and a blown engine helped ruin Vickers's day in Kansas. In the end, Vickers's Chase chances may have gone up in smoke when his Toyota motor gave up on lap 208. He now lies dead-last in 12th in the Chase standings, 250 points behind leader Martin.
"I just want to get out of Kansas to be honest with you. It's been a long weekend for me," he said. "I don't think we're out of it yet, but it definitely doesn't help. It hurts quite a bit."
But just as a couple of drivers went backward in the standings, three were able to take a big bite out of Martin's lead to stay in contention for the title.
Stewart feels the tight standings simply demonstrate the competitiveness of NASCAR's championship format.
"The guys that were up front there had average days, and a lot of guys closed on them today," he said.
"It just shows that you're going to have to be on for 10 weeks to win this thing, and if you have a bad day, there's going to be guys that are going to capitalize on it."
