iNSIDE SCOOP: Eye of the Hurricane

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Here we are. In Talladega.

The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, the birds would be chirping...if there were any silly enough to be close to this place with the cars zipping around at better than 200 mles per hour.

Homestead-Miami Speedway is the place where the Chase will crown its champion, but Talladega is where the Chase will be decided for four drivers.

Among them are a six-time champ, the perennial Most Popular Driver and the 2012 champion. Only one of those three can advance, reasonably, barring major catastrophe elsewhere in the field.

Matt Kenseth is a single point out of the top eight and controls his destiny. Keselowski, Johnson and Earnhardt Jr. do not. Keselowski is seven points closer than the 48 and 88, so he has a slim chance of making it in if the Big One falls just right. 

The other two? Even slimmer chances of moving on by points.They're teammates, and the possibility of working together is there, though not very workable, Johnson said.

"The rules package doesn't allow a whole lot of help, and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's Junior or my mom, I'm there to win."

There you have it.

Johnson said he's thought of nothing else since Charlotte.

"I've put a lot of time and thought into my approach for this weekend," he said. "There's no clear vision on how to make it work."

That's it in a nutshell. There's no way to predict what happens in the hurricane, because they are by nature unpredictable. He could be the fastest car out there, lead a lot of laps...and have it all disappear in a few feet and a cloud of smoke.

That's the nature of racing at Talladega. You ride, you move, you plan...and at the end, you're at the mercy of other cars, wind, the draft, the double yellow line.

Earnhardt is in the same boat. He's got to win to go on. Of course, he's won here a lot, but that was with a different team and in different cars.

These Gen-6 beasties roll a completely different way, fast and way loose. They aren't the old Monte Carlo, they race more like slot cars.

It all depends on how it shakes out. 

That's where we are. The top seven aren't safe, either. One big crash and it's a new ball game. Usually, when the big one happens, there are cars that are good for scrap, some that are relatively OK except for the aero and cars that are cosmetically damaged.

If the top seven are in the first category, all four of the drivers on the bubble could be golden and the rest fighting to get the cars back out for those important championship points.

We're in the eye of the hurricane. In two more days, it thunders into Sweet Home Alabama.