Burton- Never heard of him

Racing Ruminations

Any hack columnist can predict the top five Banquet 400 finishers. I predict the top five and the guy who will finish 17th!

LAST WEEK Top five: 1/5 17th: 0–1

SEASON Top five: 44/140 17th: 0–28

1. Jeff Gordon

2. Mark Martin

3. Jimmie Johnson

4. Kasey Kahne

5. Jeff Burton

17. Bobby Labonte

According to NASCAR’s good friends at NBC, Jeff Gordon will battle with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart for a victory this week in Kansas. Technically, Junior is still part of the championship hunt, but trailing by more than 100 points, Junior’s in trouble. The only role Tony Stewart plays in the Chase is his weekly bitch session after the race. (“People are driving too mean.” “The Chase is all about luck.” “McDonald’s won’t Supersize my fries anymore.”)

Meanwhile, Jeff Burton is actually leading the points after two races. Former champ Matt Kenseth is just 12 points behind Gordon in third. Think those guys might play be battling Gordon this weekend?

Now I know Burton is about as sexy as Candice Bergen (post-Murphy Brown Candice, of course), but that doesn’t mean he can be tossed aside like an IRL driver not named Danica Patrick.

The whole point of the Chase was to raise the excitement level when the leaves are changing and football is king. NBC’s star fucking is tolerable during the regular season, but come playoff time, would it kill them to pretend to care about the drivers who might actually win the championship?

Hyping irrelevant drivers defeats the purpose of the Chase. To generate more interest at this time of year NASCAR needs to push its dramatic points race, not a bunch of guys who have as much chance of grabbing the 2006 Cup as Richard Petty (or for that matter Kyle Petty).