COLUMN: Maybe it's a snowball effect ... in summer

            BROOKLYN, Mich. – Well, what the heck. Let’s take stock of stock cars with three races remaining in the Sprint Cup regular season.

            The latter Michigan International Speedway race was a positive weekend for NASCAR. The crowd was better – probably by about 10,000 or so, though it’s hard to figure due to the, uh, erratic nature of officially unofficial estimates – than the earlier race.

            Kevin Harvick’s victory served the purpose of increasing interest in the upcoming Chase. Mr. Consistency has now won two of the past six races, fueling the suspicion that Harvick is picking up his pace at just the right time.

            Will Jimmie Johnson’s rule of NASCAR end with a single four-year term? He looks vulnerable … wait a minute. No man with four consecutive championships can look too vulnerable. If he’s in the Chase – and, of course, he will be – Johnson is the favorite. It should be impossible for Johnson and Chad Knaus to lull anyone into a false sense of security. Those two might just be getting their bad luck out of the way.

            A couple winless drivers, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, are rustling a bit out in the sticks. Edwards’ average finish in the past six races is 5.7.

            Jeff Gordon is, well, Jeff Gordon, though Jeff Gordon now isn’t what Jeff Gordon used to be.

            Make sense? I didn’t think so either, but hear me out. The Gordon of the new century isn’t much like the Gordon of the 1990s. That Gordon won more, but this one is probably smarter. At the moment, though, Stewart and Edwards appear closer to wins than Gordon.

            Denny Hamlin regained his form with a runner-up finish to Harvick. He and Johnson still have two more wins than Harvick, even though, if there were no Chase format, Harvick would be booking a band for the celebration gala right now.

            As the old song reminds us, “That’s not the way it is.” The Chase puts 12 drivers in position to win the title, but that doesn’t mean they all have a chance. Most of them, in fact, don’t, but we don’t know definitively who they are.

            At this point of the season, though, we’ve got our suspicions.

You may contact Monte Dutton at mdutton@gastongazette.com.