Tiers from three on down: the championship is over

Before we start our Texas talk, a quick Talladega chat. Let me begin by saying I love Talladega, it has always been one of my favorite stops on the circuit. When people ask me my favorite races to cover I've always said, "the night race at Bristol and any race at Talladega."

But things have changed. Too many crazy wrecks, too many torn-up race cars and too many fans hurt ... anything more than zero qualifies there. So what is the result of the craziness? What we watched Sunday. A race that was 90 percent single file.

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Single file for 90 percent of the race at ever-wild Talladega? What's going on? Bottom line, staying in line for most of a race at Talladega is the drivers' way of protesting. And who can blame them? As soon as they started to really race Sunday, both Ryan Newman and Mark Martin went upside down. As soon as they started to race at Talladega in the spring, Carl Edwards almost went into the stands. So why even race?

The fact is, the drivers cannot just not show up for a race at Talladega. Racing for the championship, sponsor commitments and everything but the on-track product forces them to race. But right now, if you took a poll and gave drivers the opportunity to skip a race, I would guarantee that they would pick one of the Talladega races. Mark Martin did when he went part time a few years ago (and probably wishes he would have last week).

So the drivers' way of showing their dislike for this style of racing, at this track, is that they simply don't race during the race. Single-file racing is their way of saying, "You know what, we don't like this. You put us in a narrow box? Fine, then we will just sit here and make it boring." When all 43 are on the same page, guess what? Drivers win.

Unfortunately, nobody can force them to do otherwise -- not the media, not the fans, not even NASCAR. The same single-file racing cannot be done at Daytona, however, the other restrictor plate track, because handling and the rough track will not allow the cars to stay single file for long periods of time. But Talladega is super smooth, super fast and handling doesn't mean a thing.

Unless someone can come up with a miracle solution that hasn't been thought of in 20-plus years of plate racing, for the foreseeable future expect Talladega races to be exactly like it was Sunday -- all single file until the last 20 laps when someone will have a big wreck and risk the chance of getting hurt. I'm sorry, that's not racing and it's not the drivers' faults.

TIER 1

Johnson

Jimmie Johnson (No Change)
Now it's over. Jimmie Johnson only needs to finish 10th or better in the final three races of the season to win his fourth consecutive title. Granted, there were three occasions where Johnson did not average a top-10 finish during a three-race stretch, but what is the real likelihood that while Johnson finishes out of the top-10 in three consecutive races, Mark Martin at the same time wins all three races? Yeah, not likely.

Texas was an odd race for Johnson in the spring. If you look at the final numbers he did finish second but it was struggle to get there. At one point during the race in the spring he called his car "evil." But Chad Knaus was able to figure out the car and get Johnson back into the top five.

How good is the 48 right now? Both their primary and their backup cars this weekend were driven from the pole to the win in their last starts. Johnson will use the car he dominated with at Dover a few weeks ago as his primary car at Texas -- and in case he needs it, his back up is the car he won with at Charlotte (scheduled to be used as the primary at Homestead). That's crazy. But to be honest, don't expect great things out of the 48 team in these final three races. Johnson and Knaus know where they need to finish. They won't push it much harder than they need to ... and why should they?

TIER 2

There is nobody in Tier 2 any longer -- this is a one-man show for the next three weeks. (Continued)