Here We Are...

After the Melee at Martinsville (or Brian Vickers’ Revenge), here’s where we stand.

Carl Edwards coughed up six points from his lead, but still maintains it with three races remaining. Tony Stewart beat Hendrick and Jimmie Johnson at its own game at Martinsville, and if there’s momentum, he has it.

Kevin Harvick stands third, 21 points out with three to go, and Brad Keselowski is fourth, 27 in arrears. Matt Kenseth had a disastrous day in VA and is fifth, 36 points away from Title #2. Johnson finished second and gained just seven points on Edwards, who was ninth at the end. He’s 43 points—a full race worth—behind Edwards. Hate to say it, Jimmie Nation, but the run ends at five.

Kyle Busch got caught up in the Kenseth late-race menagerie, and is 57 points out. He’s done, as in stick a fork in him. His brother is 58 points out and out of the title hunt, as are Junior (-73), Four-Time (-76), Hamlin (-80) and Rocketman (-89).

With Texas coming this weekend, followed by Phoenix and Homestead, we’re down to a two-man race with the possibility that Harvick could pull into it after Phoenix.

It’s down to Cousin Carl and Smoke, and there’s already a bit of snark going on. "He'd better be worried, that's all I'm going to say," Stewart said after the race. "He's not going to have an easy three weeks."

Not since Dale Earnhardt has there been a driver who means that the way Stewart meant it. He meant, ‘I’m not going to make it easy, and if you don’t keep an eye on where I am, you’ll find yourself the next to last speaker at the banquet instead of the last one…the champion.’

He also meant to play a little head game with Cuz, who is no shrinking violet when it comes to intimidation (of other drivers and his own teammates, for that matter). Remember the fake punch at Kenseth at Martinsville a couple years ago? The scuffle with Harvick? His own beef with Smoke at Pocono when Tony took a swipe at Clint Bowyer and wound up getting Edwards involved?

That day, I stood there and watched Carl, with a blank look on his face, say that if Stewart was within reach, “he’d be bleeding right now.” I know because I was working for Tony that day, and that’s kind of what I was being paid to keep an eye on.

It’s really an intriguing matchup. On the one hand, you have a guy that has won a lot of races, has kept his nose relatively clean and has been in battles for the title before. He’s been a favorite to knock Johnson off the top step for a few years now, and has come close, only to falter in the final races.

On the other, you have a two-time champion who has been there, done that and won the T-shirt, under the old system and the Chase system. He’s a racer, plain and simple, and if there’s a guy ahead of him, he’s capable of focusing solely on that and nothing else. He’s been in all but one Chase, 2006, and has, every time he’s been in position to do it, won the brass ring.

The tracks ahead favor Edwards, because Texas and Homestead are typically best for Fords, but the driver battle is in Stewart’s favor.

At least, that’s the way I’m leaning now, five days from the race at Texas.