Chase push resumes, stress returns

It's been a few days since I've posted anything here, but there's no time like now to get caught up.
The first order of business is to congratulate this weekend's race winners, who all did their thing on road courses. In the XFINITY race Saturday at Road America, Paul Menard won the fuel-mileage gamble, holding off everyone in a final four-lap shootout to win the Road America 180. Four laps may not seem like a huge deal, but the fuel had to last for more than 16 total miles across 14 turns.
Somehow, Menard made it work and won in his home state. Who needs an off weekend when you can sleep in your own bed in addition to doing what you love? A win-win all the way around.
One downer: Park City's Michael Self was the leader at the race's final restart, but faded to 11th. Still his best run in only his fourth XFINITY start.
On Sunday, the Camping World Truck Series headed north of the border to Bowmanville, Ontario and Erik Jones won the Chevy Silverado 250, beating Matt Crafton by 1.665 seconds and claiming the points lead by three over the two-time defending series champion.
Tyler Reddick, who was the points leader at the start of the day, finished 19th and fell to third.
And despite their heavy hearts after last week's death of Justin Wilson, the IndyCar Series had one heck of a great race at Sonoma Raceway as Scott Dixon won the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma to claim the championship.
Dixon basically stole the title from Juan Pablo Montoya, who ran into difficulty early when he hit Penske Racing teammate Will Power and couldn't recover in time.
Montoya needed to finish fifth to clinch. He ended up sixth. Dixon won the title by having three race wins on the year to Montoya's two.
Meanwhile, the Sprint Cup Series drivers scattered everywhere and enjoyed the final off week of the 2015 season. As the series heads to Darlington for the first of the two remaining races before the Chase field is set, five drivers are still sitting on the proverbial bubble.
As the standings sit at this point, the bubble is slowly becoming a solid rock for Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman, Menard, Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer. The separation Bowyer enjoys, as discussed in a previous post, is 35 points over Aric Almirola and 37 over Kasey Kahne.
With only the Bojangles Southern 500 and the Federated Auto Parts 400 left to run, the drivers on the outside of the Chase field may need to go after one thing.
A win, and only a win, may be what matters. Points racing is a non-existent phrase in the vocabulary.
After Almirola and Kahne, the rest are so far behind, they may need a road map to find Victory Lane.
Here are the front five drivers not in the Chase and just how much hope they really have of making the playoff: Points behind are in relation to Bowyer:
-Almirola (-35): Hasn't won since the rain-delayed affair at Daytona last July and has exactly one top-5 finish since then, a fifth at Dover in May. It's win or else for the 43, I'm afraid.
-Kahne (-37): Won at Atlanta last year to make the Chase. Sorry to say, but that race was replaced by Darlington, where his average finish in 12 career starts is 16th.
Kahne's best finish of the year was fourth at both Phoenix and Dover. Since an eighth-place finish at Sonoma eight races ago, his best run has been 15th. Like Almirola, it's win or get to testing for 2016.
The remaining drivers in this group are clearly in win-or-else mode.
-Greg Biffle (-83): The Biff hasn't won since Michigan in June of 2013. Over the last 80 races, he's been as high as a runner-up just twice. Not good, and not optimistic he'll snap out of the funk.
-Austin Dillon (-91): Love him or hate him, Dillon is in only his second full-time year in Cup. He put a scare into everyone at Michigan two weeks ago as he led 19 laps -- most in his career to date -- before finishing fourth.
-Kyle Larson (-104): The Northern California native impressed in his rookie season, with eight top-5 finishes, but has only one in his sophomore year, a third at Dover in May. Over the last 10 races, his highest finish was 9th at Indianapolis.
Time to collect the parting gifts and get ready for 2016.
But for the rest of us, it's easy to nitpick on our favorite driver's chances, but winning will absolutely change everything.
Followers and comments are more than welcome on Twitter @Tomzsports.
NEXT WEEK'S RACES
Darlington Raceway (1.366-mile egg-shaped oval), Darlington, S.C.
-SPRINT CUP: Bojangles Southern 500, Sunday, 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, NBC. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.
Race distance: 501.3 miles, 367 laps.
2014 champion: Kevin Harvick
-XFINITY SERIES: VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200, Saturday, 3:30 p.m ET/12:30 p.m. PT, NBC. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.
Race distance: 200.8 miles, 147 laps.
2014 champion: Chase Elliott
-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Off until Sept. 18 for the American Ethanol E15 225 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Tony Stewart not about to retire

Racers are a driven bunch, and that line isn't necessarily intended to be funny in the case of Tony Stewart. At 44 years old, the questions are starting to circulate and whispers are growing louder.
Is one of NASCAR's few multiple-time champions on the downhill s;ide to the end of his career? The answer will be up some pretty heavy debate in the days and weeks to come.
At the top of the ledger, Stewart has been through things that would crush the spirit and drive of mere mortals like us non-racer types. First there was the broken leg after Stewart's wreck in a Sprint car in 2013 that caused him to miss the final 15 races of the season.
Then there was the tragedy of the incident at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in upstate New York on Aug. 9, 2014, where Stewart struck and killed Kevin Ward Jr. during a race caution. Stewart was exonerated from any criminal wrongdoing by a grand jury, but he clearly has not been the same since.
The stats clearly show it.
Since his last win at Dover in the spring race of 2013, Stewart has missed 18 races, earned only three top-5 finishes (none this year) and eight top-10s (one this year at Bristol, where he finished sixth).
Sure, Stewart has the added duty of team ownership on the resume, but that's old news now. He's used to the multitasking.
Stewart is also on his 10th year of owning Eldora Speedway, a dirt track located in Rossburg, Ohio, and the Camping World Truck Series will be there for the third straight year next Wednesday night in the 1-800CarCash MudSummer Classic.
No matter how full the plate is, no matter how much Stewart has put into the sport, the time always comes where stepping out of the car is the best course of action for future health and success.
Stewart has three Sprint Cup championships on his resume (2002, 2005, 2011) to go with 48 career wins. That's first-ballot worthy for the Hall of Fame when the time comes, no doubt.
But to see the Indiana native run like he's running right now is rough to watch. Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch are the class of the Stewart-Haas Racing garage, and Danica Patrick is marketing gold for the team as well.
Jeff Gordon will be 44 in August. He's in his final year of full-time racing. Kenny Wallace announced Tuesday he'll make his final NASCAR start in the No. 20 XFINITY car for Joe Gibbs Racing on Aug. 1 at Iowa Speedway.
Wallace made 344 starts in 18 years in Sprint Cup (1991-2008), 546 in the No. 2 series (not including the upcoming start at Iowa), and 13 more in the Camping World Truck Series. That's 903 in total, and that's huge.
Racers are happiest strapped into race cars and turning laps at break-neck speeds. Whenever the time comes to walk away, the pushback between ego, pride and general uncertainty seem like they could go on forever.
And that's exactly where the mindset of Tony Stewart is at this point in his life. Patience isn't a virtue for a racer, but it's necessary for the fans. Only he will know when it's time to go.
Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports.