It's time for another Chase

After 26 races and what seemed like 26 million different story lines that ebbed and flowed faster than the stock market, NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup is officially on to determine the 2016 champion.

And for the first time in recent memory, in spite of dominance in the Toyota camp, it can be said that at least nine drivers could garner a realistic chance at holding the waved checkered flag trophy at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November.

With exactly 10 races left in the season, here are a few good thoughts on the field, who will be talked about as they stand right now heading to Chicagoland Speedway. Please be kind and remember ... no wagering.

-Brad Keselowski: Four wins ... Las Vegas, Talladega, Daytona 2, Kentucky.

The 2012 champion hasn't been totally dominant in his wins this season, having led the most laps only at the Coke Zero 400 (115 of 160). Somehow, BK finds a way to get himself to the front at the times he's supposed to be there.

The No. 2 has no DNFs, and that will be a big key as the Chase moves forward. Don't put too much stock in the win at Talladega, though. When they go there again in six weeks, the fight for survival will be in high gear.

Prediction: Round of 8 

-Kyle Busch: Four wins ... Martinsville, Texas, Kansas, Indianapolis

Our defending champion is one of three drivers to win consecutive races, but the Toyota camp as a whole (read: Joe Gibbs Racing) finished with 13 wins in the regular season. There's no reason to believe Kyle won't be up there again.

Prediction: Championship Four...again.

-Denny Hamlin: Three wins ... Daytona 1, Watkins Glen, Richmond 2

He may have fallen just short in leading the most laps to Martin Truex Jr. (193-189), but Hamlin sent himself off to the Chase with huge momentum after his win at Richmond on Saturday night. Not only is he alone in third place, but the JGR driver is best in qualifying among the Chasers (average: 5.9). 

Remember, though: Starting well is one thing. Finishing well is totally different. Hamlin has a golden chance to prove himself as championship material here.

Prediction: Championship Four

-Kevin Harvick: Two wins ... Phoenix, Bristol 2

There are issues on this team with the pit crew -- he led 214 laps at Darlington, but had to rally back after a bad stop just to finish second -- but the 2014 champion hasn't let that deter him too much. 

Harvick's average finish is 8.5, best among the Chase field. Brad Keselowski is the only other driver in single digits (9.7). It will serve him well.

Prediction: Championship Four. Someone has to spoil the Toyota party, and Harvick is capable.

-Carl Edwards: Two wins ... Bristol 1, Richmond 1

The driver of the No. 19 Arris Toyota led the most laps in each of his wins, but they won't be returning to either track in the Chase. Those wins completed a three-week stretch where Edwards led the bulk of his laps on the season -- 551 of 742.

In the 10 races to the Chase, his average finish is 16.9, including 32nd at Richmond on Saturday. 

Prediction: Round of 8

-Martin Truex Jr.: Two wins ... Charlotte, Darlington

The No. 78 became part of the Toyota camp in 2016, and the difference has been clear in the first multi-win season of Truex Jr.'s career. We won't forget his other-worldly showing at Charlotte, and they return there to start the second round of the Chase.

Don't expect him to repeat that, but momentum is on the side of the 78 camp with a third at Richmond that nicely followed up the Darlington victory.

Prediction: Championship Four

-Jimmie Johnson: Two wins ... Atlanta, Auto Club

Since his wins that moved him past Dale Earnhardt on the all-time career list with 77, Johnson has fallen on seriously hard times. In the race to the Chase, Johnson not only has four finishes of 33rd or worse, but he finished last (40th at Watkins Glen) for the first time in his Cup career.

Over the last 10 races, the 48 is averaging a finish of 19.5. Title No. 7 will be waiting at least one more year.

Prediction: Round of 12

-Matt Kenseth: Two wins ... Dover, Loudon

Even though he's been part of a wildly successful season at JGR, Kenseth hasn't done much since his Loudon victory. Despite qualifying well at both Bristol 2 and Richmond 2, the finishes have been 37th and 38th, respectively. For the season, he's 13th out of the 16 Chasers in average finish (15.4).

With a return trip to both of his wins on tap, he'll need repeat performances just to keep going.

Prediction: Round of 8

-Joey Logano: One win ... Michigan 1

The second driver of the Penske camp hasn't been overly spectacular, but delivered solid finishes in the stretch drive. Logano has been consistent, finishing 10th in three of the last four races, sandwiched around a fifth at Darlington.

That's the kind of momentum that advances drivers through the Chase.

Prediction: Round of 8

-Kurt Busch: One win ... Pocono 1

The driver of the No. 41 for Stewart-Haas Racing hasn't been running well since his Pocono win. Busch the Elder has just one top-5 run since then (fourth at Kentucky), and his average finish is 16.5. It's made worse with crashes at Bristol 2 (38th) and Darlington (34th) in the last four weeks.

Prediction: Round of 12

-Kyle Larson: One win ... Michigan 2

Once he finally got his first career win three weeks ago, Larson has followed up with a third at Darlington and second at Richmond. He's led laps in all three (101 total) and it's a building block for good things ahead.

Prediction: Round of 12

-Tony Stewart: One win ... Sonoma

In his final season as a full-time driver, Stewart left all of us with a beautiful memory when he won for the third time in Northern California. Two passes on the final lap in a duel with Hamlin doesn't normally happen there.

Stewart's stuck on 49 career wins. I'm sorry to say he's not going to make 50 or get a shot at title No. 4, not with three finishes in the 30s in the last four weeks.

Prediction: Round of 16

-Chris Buescher: One win ... Pocono 2

Let's get him out of the way. Buescher deserves hearty congratulations for making the Chase field.

He has a fifth at Bristol 2 on his season resume, but runs like the last three -- 35th at Michigan, 17th at Darlington and 24th at Richmond 2 will not advance him very far. He's with the big boys now.

Prediction: Round of 16

-Austin Dillon: No wins

In his third season as a full-time Cup driver, Dillon is starting to come into his own. He has four top-5 runs on the season, the most in his career. That includes a career-best third at Talladega and fourth at Martinsville, which will both be run in the Chase.

Prediction: Round of 12 with potential to go one more as long as the top-10s are there.

-Jamie McMurray: No wins

He has only one top-5 all year, but it was a fourth at Talladega. McMurray has won there before, but will need to go rounds to get a shot at a deeper run.

His last three races: Eighth, 15th, seventh. 

Prediction: Round of 16

And finally...

Chase Elliott: No wins

The heralded rookie started the year with a bang by winning the pole for the Daytona 500, but wrecked early and finished 37th. 

Elliott's problem: He's way too hard on himself at times, and it's shown up on track. In the 10 races to the Chase, his average finish is 20.4 with four coming 31st or worse.

He's only a rookie, though. He'll get much better.

Prediction: Round of 16.

Next week, we'll look at the XFINITY and Trucks Chase fields.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Chicagoland Speedway (1.5-mile D-shaped oval), Joliet, Illinois

-SPRINT CUP: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400, Sunday, 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 400.5 miles, 267 laps.

2015 champion: Denny Hamlin

-XFINITY SERIES: Drive for Safety 300, Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT, NBC. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 300 miles, 200 laps.

2015 champion: Kyle Busch

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: American Ethanol E15 225, Friday, 8:30 p.m. ET/5;30 p.m. PT, Fox Sports 1. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 225 miles, 150 laps,

2015 champion: John Hunter Nemechek.

Like it or not, Kyle Busch owns Brickyard

As social media lit up following Kyle Busch’s latest dose of domination over the weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the usual, hackneyed howls of disgust from his non-fans sounded a little louder than normal.

“This is getting ridiculous, seeing one driver dominate the whole race,” cried one Facebook post.
“If a NASCAR record falls in an empty forest, did it really happen,” Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel mused on his page.
With what Busch did in winning both the XFINITY Lilly Diabetes 250 and Crown Royal Combat Wounded Coalition for Veterans 400 and the canyons of empty seats, one thing certainly led to another.
As we discussed here last week, Kyle Busch is dominating NASCAR’s Saturday series and isn’t eligible to run for its championship. Busch won for the seventh time in 11 races and 83rd in his career. It clearly wasn’t close.
With the Dash for Cash feature in place, Busch led all 20 laps of his heat race, then went out and led 62 of 63 laps in the main. Sure, there were three overtime laps, but when you’re as good as Busch is on restarts, it’s like the field is Charlie Brown and he’s Lucy yanking the football away at the last possible moment.
It was the same deal for the Cup race. Busch had to work through 10 overtime laps, but it didn’t matter. He led 149 of the 170 laps around Indy’s 2.5-mile oval and won for the second straight year.
Busch has also won the XFINITY race at Indy three times in the last four years.
Even with the dominance of one driver, there are likely more reasons than just the racing as to why no one – or so it seemed in the massive facility that is Indianapolis Motor Speedway – bothered to show up and watch.
At the top of the list, it was ridiculously hot at the track. At the time of the green flag – around 3:19 p.m. local – it was 95 degrees with 71 percent humidity. In weather terms, that means it felt like it was around 103.
No matter how you slice it, staying cool was hard to do while sitting through 170 laps for nearly three and a half hours. If you were able to last until the end, thank the high-quality cooler for what you got to witness after the checkered flag.
Jeff Gordon returned for the first of two races in relief of the still-recovering Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Axalta Chevrolet. He qualified 21st and finished 13th, then got back in the car and drove one more goodbye lap with none other than Tony Stewart, who finished 11th in his final Brickyard 400.
Gordon has kissed the bricks at Indy five times. Stewart has done it twice, along with some good fence climbing. The pair has combined for seven Winston/Sprint Cup championships – four for Gordon, three for Stewart.
And both are in retirement mode with a catch. Like Gordon is doing, Stewart is open to substituting in a pinch if one of his drivers can’t go due to injury.
“We will talk about it at some point, but I am definitely open to that scenario,” Stewart said in a press release put out by Chevy Racing. “if it were to happen down the road and we needed somebody, I would be open to doing what Jeff is doing this weekend.”
The old guard may be changing – we still don’t know when Earnhardt will be back – but it’s a cool thing when they get the chance to go out on high-quality terms.
As for the future, those who do the winning aren’t really going to care about the haters. It’s time for those who aren’t fans of a Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart to strap in, sit back and embrace what’s coming.
It’s going to be awesome.
Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports and email tominator19@yahoo.com.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Pocono Raceway (2.5-mile tri-oval), Long Pond, Pa.

-SPRINT CUP: Pennsylvania 400, Sunday, 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 400 miles, 160 laps.

2015 champion: Matt Kenseth.

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Pocono Mountains 150, Saturday, 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT, Fox Sports 1. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 150 miles, 60 laps.

2015 champion: Kyle Busch.

-XFINITY SERIES: US Cellular 250, Iowa Speedway (.875-mile oval), Newton, Iowa, Saturday, 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 250 laps, 218.75 miles.

2015 champion: Ryan Blaney.

Kenseth cruises to second win of season

There was a lot of buildup leading into the New Hampshire 301 on Sunday. Brad Keselowski had won the last two races and was starting in the top 10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was noticeably absent due to medical issues.

Matt Kenseth stole the spotlight when it counted and enjoyed some lobster for the second straight time by winning on the relatively flat oval at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that runs just over one mile around.
The race didn’t have the most exciting feel as Kyle Busch (133) and Martin Truex Jr. (123) took turns at the front of the field. With only 301 laps to go around – hence the name – that left Kenseth to take control and grab hold of his second win of 2016 (Dover).
After a brief time in the lead before a debris caution at lap 265, Kenseth didn’t take long to get back to the front and earn his 38th career victory. The driver of the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry slugged his way through four cautions in the final 37 laps and led for the last 31.
(UPDATE: ESPN.com reported that Kenseth's car failed post-race inspection. Penalties will likely come by Wednesday after the No. 20 is evaluated at the R&D Center).
Once Kenseth found his way to the front, it was all about who would finish second. To the surprise of some, Tony Stewart was the one who did what he had to do to help strengthen his spot in the Chase with a runner-up effort, his second straight top-5 after wrecking at Daytona.
A final shot at a fourth Sprint Cup championship is getting more likely for Stewart by the race. He sits 28th in points with seven races to go until the cutoff and is 67 ahead of Brian Scott.
Among the other newsworthy items of the weekend:
Earnhardt – who has only been the most popular driver for the last 13 seasons – did not run at New Hampshire due to concussion-like symptoms. It was a big blow for a driver who could not only use a win, but is barely hanging on to a spot in the Chase.
Through Race 19, Junior is hanging on for dear life. He’s the 16th and final driver in the field with only a 14-point cushion over Trevor Bayne.
While Alex Bowman was Earnhardt’s replacement in the No. 88 Chevrolet this week – he qualified 20th and finished 26th as the last car on the lead lap – all signs are pointing to Jeff Gordon coming out of retirement to fill in next week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway if Junior isn’t cleared to race.
Hendrick Motorsports general manager Doug Duchardt said in a USA Today story that a final decision on whether Gordon will run at the Brickyard 400 – a race he won five times, the last in 2014 – will be made by Wednesday.
No one at HMS is saying that Earnhardt’s concussion problem is career-threatening, but there’s no timetable for when he’ll return. The whole of the racing community may already be up in arms over Junior missing New Hampshire, but to treat it as a sky-is-falling scenario is just plain wrong.
Saturday’s XFINITY race was another exercise in the continuing world domination of Kyle Busch. Not only did the driver of the NOS Energy No. 18 Toyota win for the sixth time on the season, he did it in just his 10th race.
Busch led 190 of the 200 laps and earned the 82nd win of his career in NASCAR’s No. 2 series.
Consider these stats and you’ll appreciate just how mind-boggling Busch’s achievements are.
He’s run in only 321 XFINITY/Busch races over his career. It translates into a win every 3.9 times he gets in the car.
Busch’s finishes in 2016: Six wins, three seconds, one fourth. He’s been in front for 1,298 of a possible 1,692 laps, a staggering 76.7 percent of the time.
On the upcoming schedule, Busch will run at Indianapolis in the Lilly Diabetes 250, then at Watkins Glen two weeks later. Good news: After that race, he’ll chill on Saturdays until Richmond in September.
For the debut of the XFINITY Series Chase, only three regulars – Erik Jones (two), Daniel Suarez and Elliott Sadler – will be in the 12-driver field based on their victories earned. That speaks loudly to how high a standard Kyle Busch has set.
It’s only impossible for those who don’t try.

Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports and email tominator19@yahoo.com.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2.5-mile oval).

-SPRINT CUP: Crown Royal Presents the Combat Wounded Coalition 400, Sunday, 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 and the IMS Radio Network.

Race distance: 400 miles, 160 laps.

2015 champion: Kyle Busch

-XFINITY SERIES: Lilly Diabetes 250, Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 and the IMS Radio Network.

Race distance: 250 miles, 100 laps.

2015 champion: Kyle Busch.

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Aspen Dental Eldora Dirt Derby, Eldora Speedway (.500-mile dirt oval), Rossburg, Ohio, Wednesday, 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, Fox Sports 1. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 150 laps, 75 miles.

2015 champion: Christopher Bell.

Keselowski gets breakthrough win at Daytona

For Brad Keselowski, restrictor-plate racing at NASCAR’s two main tracks has been a mixed bag of success. More like polar opposites, in fact.

At Talladega Superspeedway, Keselowski earned his first career Sprint Cup win in 2009 and has added three more since. At Daytona, he had managed only three top-10 finishes in 14 prior starts.
Everything changed for the better on a night when the rain stayed away.
Keselowski was finally able to answer any and all challenges as he won the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday night on the 2.5-mile oval. It’s not the 500, but it certainly doesn’t matter, especially when it gave team owner Roger Penske his 100th win in the Sprint Cup Series.
The driver of the No. 2 Ford Fusion was so good, he led 115 of the 161 laps, almost three times as many as in his previous Daytona starts combined (38). What likely helped was his ability to stay away from trouble.
More than half the field – 22 of the 40 cars – got involved in a huge pileup at lap 90. Keselowski, who qualified fifth, was in front at the time and stayed there. Not only that, it was just the second time he started inside the top 10.
In the 2012 July race, BK qualified ninth and finished eighth. Considering his average finish in 14 prior trips was 22.1, it’s no coincidence that starting near the front makes a difference when any mistake, no matter how small, can take out a lot of cars.
Case in point was the Lap 90 mishap. Jamie McMurray got loose as Jimmie Johnson closed in, made contact with teammate Kyle Larson, and ignited the chain reaction.
Such is the fact of life at Daytona and Talladega. Restrictor plates keep the field in big packs, and any politeness the drivers may have had in the earlier stages of the race goes away when it’s go time.
The perfect symbol of what the big wreck does came when Brian Scott’s No. 44 car ended up on top of the hood of Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 for a short period of time. Better that than in the fence like Austin Dillon at last year’s rain-delayed Coke Zero 400, but we digress.
“You really think it’s going to happen from Lap 1,” said Harvick in a NASCAR Wire Service story. “It’s hard to make ground, so you have to be pretty aggressive when you start making ground.”
There are now nine races to go until the Chase field is set. Tony Stewart, who won a week ago at Sonoma Raceway to end a three-year drought, wrecked with 11 laps left and finished 26th. In spite of the bad break, Smoke is officially in the top 30 in points and eligible for his last title shot.
Stewart is only three points in front of Scott, and as we said last week, backsliding isn’t an option. The No. 14 car got as high as fifth by lap 140, but couldn’t hold on to the momentum.
As for the race broadcast, NBC Sports took over the coverage for its second season of work. Let’s just say they need to shake the rust off a little bit.
We get there is a need for commercials on a broadcast. What we don’t need is commercial breaks that don’t allow the storylines to truly develop.
According to the web site cawsnjaws.com, there was 47 minutes of commercial time out of 190 minutes that were measured during the Coke Zero 400. Race fans didn’t get to see nearly a full quarter of the race so the advertisers could make their money.
In total, there were 124 commercials, up from 96 last year. That’s way too much.
It’s another part of a big puzzle as to why NASCAR is struggling to regain the foothold it had on the fan base through the early part of the last decade. Fans aren’t buying seats at tracks with the voracity they once did, and when they can’t see the good parts of a race on TV, it only adds to the problems.
New drivers like Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney are giving fans hope for a brighter future for the sport. It’s time for the broadcast partners – TV or radio – to ensure it remains vibrant for generations to come.

Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports or email tominator19@yahoo.com.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Kentucky Speedway (1.5-mile oval), Sparta, Kentucky.

-SPRINT CUP: Quaker State 400, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 400.5 miles, 267 laps.

2015 champion: Kyle Busch

-XFINITY SERIES: Alsco 300, Friday, 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local PRN affiliate.

Race distance: 300 miles, 200 laps.

2015 champion: Brad Keselowski

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Buckle Up in Your Truck 225, Thursday, 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT, Fox Sports 1. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 225 miles, 150 laps.

2015 champion: Matt Crafton.

At long last, Stewart breaks winless drought at Sonoma

Since I began my career in sports writing nearly 20 years ago, one of the bigger lessons I was taught was when it comes to being a good reporter, you simply have to keep cheering out of the words you put on a page.
With what went down at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., on Sunday, it was next to impossible to jump up and down like a kid about to be let loose in a candy store.
For all the heartaches, all the bad luck, all the stress and pain, Tony Stewart finally grabbed a dose of nirvana at a track he’s more than familiar with.
Stewart got a break when a well-timed pit stop put him in front, then he worked a final restart to perfection and had to hold off a hard-charging Denny Hamlin to win the Toyota/SaveMart 350. It was Stewart’s eighth road-course win (third at Sonoma) and 49th career Sprint Cup win, but it meant so much more than an average race day.
The last time Stewart won came at Dover on June 2, 2013. Three years and 24 days later – a stretch of 84 races – Stewart found his way back to Victory Lane.
And if you can’t appreciate how it unfolded, please go back and check yourself for a pulse, heart or soul.
At lap 83, Stewart and his No. 14 Chevrolet sat in 17th place. Five laps later, the race’s fourth and final caution came out. All of a sudden, Stewart found himself in front of the field.
He didn’t let it go over the final 22 laps, including one precarious restart and two bump-and-run exchanges with Hamlin in the final three turns.
Just like Kyle Busch before him one year ago, Stewart – despite missing the first eight races – has met the first requirement for making the 2016 Chase. One checkered flag in the win column.
Now comes the harder part. Stewart still needs to get to the top 30 in points, but he’s closer than you think.
With 10 races to go until the Chase, Stewart is 32nd in points, but only nine behind Brian Scott and three behind Regan Smith. Since he returned eight races ago, Stewart had struggled with only one top-10 and three straight early exits.
But after a seventh-place run at Michigan two weeks ago, it had the feeling of a turn-the-corner moment for the entire Stewart-Haas Racing organization.
When the checkered flag flew, the picture captured by the Fox cameras of Stewart’s father, Nelson, wiping away tears showed you just how special the breakthrough moment was. Stewart led laps only one other time on the 2016 season at Kansas, but ended up 12th.
In the bigger picture, Stewart may have the win, but he can’t afford to backslide into finishes he endured at places like Dover (34th), Charlotte (24th) and Pocono (34th) if he wants one last shot at a fourth Sprint Cup title.
Smoke is also one win away from becoming the 13th driver in NASCAR history to reach 50 career wins. After what he’s been through since his last one, from the broken leg that cost him 15 races in 2013 to the tragic accident involving Kevin Ward and missing the first eight races this year due to a non-racing injury, Tony Stewart has definitely risen from the ashes.
Stewart said he wasn’t having much fun driving a Sprint Cup car to the media on Friday. What a difference a little luck can make to improve the feeling.

Follow Tom Zulewski on Twitter @Tomzsports.

NEXT WEEK'S RACES

Daytona International Speedway (2.5-mile D-shaped oval), Daytona Beach, Fla.

-SPRINT CUP: Coke Zero 400, Saturday, 7:45 p.m. ET/4:45 p.m. PT, NBC. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 400 miles, 160 laps.

2015 champion: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

-XFINITY SERIES: Subway Firecracker 250, Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT, NBC Sports Network. Radio: SiriusXM Channel 90 or your local MRN Radio affiliate.

Race distance: 250 miles, 100 laps.

2015 champion: Austin Dillon.

-CAMPING WORLD TRUCK SERIES: Off until July 7 for the Kentucky 225 at Kentucky Speedway.

Side note: At least John Wes Townley and Spencer Gallagher can go to their neutral corners after their little wrestling match at Gateway that happened with five laps to go Saturday night. It's all raw emotion, though, and it definitely got everyone talking.

As Stewart steps down, what's next?

Maybe I didn't want to believe it at first -- I wrote a post on this very blog saying he wasn't ready to do it -- but the impending announcement coming Wednesday from Tony Stewart shows me one thing.

I do not have a future as a psychic.

All self-deprecating humor aside, Stewart is set to announce his retirement after the 2016 season as a NASCAR driver. Considering what's happened to him over the last three years, it may be for the best.

We all know about the broken ankle suffered in the Sprint car racing accident in Iowa that cost him the last 15 races in 2013. We all know about the accident at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in New York that killed Kevin Ward Jr. before the Watkins Glen race last August.

Those items are all old news. Stewart still has the wrongful-death lawsuit hanging over his head in a federal court in New York to boot.

But here's the bottom line -- at least a bottom-line opinion -- on why Stewart is walking away from Sprint Cup racing after what will end up being an 18-year career.

Maybe (and we as fans and media can speculate all we want) it's just not a whole lot of fun anymore.

On the positive side, Stewart has 48 wins in 582 Cup starts. He has three championships, including the memorable all-out dogfight he had with Carl Edwards in 2011.

Before that year's Chase began, a championship was the furthest thing from Stewart's mind, a point he accentuated pretty emphatically when he thought his No. 14 race team -- which was in only its third year of existence under Stewart-Haas Racing ownership -- wasn't anywhere close to good enough to do anything in the Chase.

As things turned out, Stewart was only playing major-league mind games with the rest of his challengers.

Tony started the 2011 Chase with wins at Chicago and New Hampshire on back-to-back weeks, then won three of the final four races, including the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, to end up in a dead-on flat-footed tie in final points with Edwards.

Stewart won the title because (insert drumroll here) he had those five wins to Edwards' one.

It was one of the best Chase battles up to that point.

Stewart had three more wins in 2012 and finished ninth in the Chase, but hasn't been anywhere close to his former glory.

Since his last win at Dover in the spring race of 2013 -- a stretch of 69 races and counting -- Stewart has a total of seven top-5s and 14 top-10s.

From 1999 through 2012, Stewart was averaging 13 top-5s and 23 top-10s per year. His career high in the latter category was 25 when he won his second Cup championship in 2005, and he had at least one win every year until 2013.

This year, which has been his first full season of racing since 2012, Stewart has exactly no top-5s and two top-10s -- sixth at the Bristol spring race and ninth at the Pocono race in August.

It's certainly not the way any driver wants to go out from what is most definitely a Hall-of-Fame worthy career.

And with everything else going on in Stewart's life, from the Ward lawsuit to ownership of a race team and race track (Eldora Speedway), no one should blame him for stepping away.

Being a racer may have driven Stewart all of these years, but being human always finds a way to catch up in the end.

Followers and comments welcome on Twitter @Tomzsports.

One year later, Stewart still struggling

When the Watkins Glen race weekend came into view in 2014, Tony Stewart's struggles were no great mystery. The three-time Sprint Cup champ was still trying to find his racing mojo after injuries from a Sprint Car accident cost him a major chunk of the 2013 season.

After the Zippo 200 was run, Stewart had something happen that likely brought his Sprint car racing days to a sad end.

It will be the one-year milestone tomorrow of the accident where Stewart struck and killed Kevin Ward Jr. at Canandaigua Motorsports Park. One of the lasting memories I had of that night was how I struggled getting to sleep mainly because social media offered every reaction under the sun over what happened.

Many of them thought Stewart's life should have been over. Call him a murderer, lock him up and throw away the key, cried the keyboard lynch mob. I wrote about it at this link.

Thankfully, those who would speak on the keyboard didn't have the final say.

A grand jury in Ontario County declined to press any criminal charges on Stewart. Life moved on, Smoke returned to the No. 14 three weeks after the tragedy at Atlanta, but he has not been -- and never will be -- the same since.

Emotionally, the sarcasm and fire is at a slow boil. Mentally, the focus comes and goes. Competitively, Stewart hasn't won since the May race at Dover in 2013.

And now he's got another wrench of emotional ugliness to deal with. In what can only be described in the court of public opinion as a shameless money grab, the family of Kevin Ward Jr. has filed a wrongful death civil suit against Stewart.

Specific dollar figures haven't been cited in the suit, but Ward's parents said this in a statement published in USA Today:

“Our hope is that this lawsuit will hold Tony Stewart responsible for killing our son and show him there are real consequences when someone recklessly takes another person’s life.”

Within the link included above the quote, a copy of the 14-page lawsuit is presented. One thing is clear from reading it, at least in my opinion: the case is reopening old emotional wounds for everyone involved.

No one on either side has offered any sort of comment on the matter, but if I could offer the best piece of personal advice, it's simple.

Read about the case at your own risk, Stewart fan or not. Anything to do with winning or racing is secondary at this point until this lawsuit is resolved.

Tom Zulewski is passionate about racing and has written and talked about it through an 18-year journalism career. He welcomes comments and new Twitter followers @Tomzsports.

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.