Tony Stewart

So there they are, the 12 drivers that will battle for NASCAR's top prize, the Sprint Cup. Exactly the 12 you had in right? Me, not so much. So first off let me apologize to Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt, Junior, Brad Keselowski and all their fans. Clearly I underestimated the strengths of your team this season. Now that the field is set, let me take another crack at picking the field. Who will step up their game, who has used up all their chips just to get in it? These are my thoughts, take them with a grain of salt....

Tony Stewart won another round in the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, edging points leader Carl Edwards on Sunday in the "Texas Title Fight" to close the gap with two races left. Stewart raced to his second straight victory, and fourth in the eight Chase races, finishing just ahead of Edwards at the 1½-mile, high-banked track. Stewart cut his points deficit from eight to three with a winning margin of 1.092 seconds. The series returns next week to Phoenix, where the track has been reconfigured and resurfaced since Edwards and Stewart finished 1-2 there in March in the third race this season, and then to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the finale.

For sale: Prime real estate on the hood of cars driven by former Cup champions Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. Gordon and Stewart, who have six championships between them, are NASCAR's two biggest stars looking for additional sponsorship for next season. They're chasing corporate America's dollars just as much they're driving for a title over the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Corporate sponsors have dried up to the point that Kyle Busch says he may have to fold his truck team next season.

Clint Bowyer has stormed out of the gate in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship by snapping an 88-race drought and winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Bowyer had the most dominant car Sunday but lost the lead to Tony Stewart on a restart during a flurry of cautions late in the race. Bowyer couldn't catch the two-time champion with speed, but pounced when Stewart ran out of gas with a lap to go. Bowyer was nursing his own fuel tank to the finish line, and barely held off Denny Hamlin for the victory.

Jimmie Johnson has won the pole for Saturday night's race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The four-time defending NASCAR champion turned a lap at 123.475 mph in Friday's qualifying to put his Chevrolet on the front row. Johnson bettered Carl Edwards, who earned the second starting spot with a lap at 122.937 in a Ford. Joey Logano has qualified third in a Toyota. Tony Stewart qualified fourth and David Reutimann bounced back from a bout with food poisoning to qualify fifth.

Joe Gibbs Racing announced Friday that Jason Ratcliff has been named crew chief for its No. 20 Sprint Cup Series team, replacing Greg Zipadelli who is leaving the organization to pursue an opportunity with Stewart-Haas Racing. “We appreciate everything Greg has done for us here at Joe Gibbs Racing. He has been a big part of our success, but we felt the timing was right to make this transition for our race team which allows Greg the opportunity to pursue a director of competition position with Tony (Stewart)

By .007 of a seconds, Tony Stewart beat Clint Bowyer to the checkerd flag to win the Nationwide race in Daytona. Kansas native Bowyer, lead for of the final laps of the race, while Stewart had to restart 11th after the final caution with 9 laps to go in the race. Bowyer and Stewart had drafted together for most of the race before that caution. For the final 9 laps, Bowyer hooked up with Dale Earnhardt Junior, while Stewart picked up the unlikely dance partner in Landon Cassell.

So Kyle Busch wins, again on a short track. No big surprise, it seems these days, only a handful of drivers even have a chance to win on a track that is less than a mile. In fact in the last year, there have been just 4: the younger Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin. Is it no shock that these were also the guys, minus Busch competing for a championship? It's funny how many guys just look lost on a short track considering its where many got their starts. But it seems as if there is an attitude of survive and advance that is also prevalent at the restrictor plate track and road courses.

Matt Kenseth had a dominating run at Texas, breaking a 76-race NASCAR Sprint Cup winless streak Saturday night. Kenseth led 169 of 334 laps at the 1½-mile, high-banked track for his 19th career victory, his first since California in February 2009. Since his other win at Texas in 2002, Kenseth had four runner-up finishes, including last fall behind Denny Hamlin, and six other top-10 finishes at the track. This time, the No. 17 Roush Fenway Ford was only trailing late behind Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch when both of those drivers were out of sequence on stops and trying to stretch fuel in hopes of catching a caution.