If you're looking to do a little handicapping as to who to bet on in the Chase, the next two weeks may be your best chances. New Hampshire, which hosts a Chase race in late September, and Indianapolis, because every team brings their best stuff to the Brickyard.
For all the talk about how mile-and-a-half tracks dominate the Chase (there are five of them in the 10-race Chase), last week's race at Kentucky was the only one on the schedule between the Coca-Cola 600 in May and Chicagoland, which is the first race in the Chase. That's 13 races or exactly half of the regular season. Crew chiefs and engineers figure out a lot of stuff in 13 races.
And I don't know that you can take much of anything from the Kentucky race; it was a brand-new surface and an aero package we won't see until 2017, if at all. But that's not the hardest part: the one thing you won't know, this week especially, is who is really trying to win and who is trying out some new ideas?
You didn't want it to be easy, did you?
