The Curse of the Monster Mile?

Miles the Monster is a cunning beastie.

He laid a trap for several of the Chase drivers and they fell right in, with Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and point leader Tony Stewart finishing 23rd, 24th and 25th, respectively.

Meanwhile, Kurt Busch went from ranting and raving at New Hampshire to cheering and hoo-rawing at Dover, winning the race and leaping five spots in the points to third, tied with Stewart.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

I mean, the first couple of Chases, it was new, it was something other than run around and finish on the lead lap, get a lead and keep it, like Matt Kenseth did the final year of the old system.

The first Chase was something unreal, because Busch didn’t dominate. He kind of had to play defense, and came a whisker from having the whole thing go banjax on him at Homestead, but it worked out and he won by eight measly points.

Yip-yip-yahoo! That was something. In 2005, Stewart put on the Summer of Smoke, winning five of seven races between Sonoma in June and Watkins Glen in August, then top-five and top-10-ing it the rest of the way to win by 35 points.

In 2006, we witnessed the beginning of the Johnson Era. Five-Time stole the title by wearing them out in the Chase. He finished top-five in almost all 10 races, and won by 56 points.

In 2007, JJ just wasted the field, winning 10 of the 36 races, wining four of the final five in the Chase and cruising to a 77-point victory. In 2008, he held of Edwards and won going away, despite Cuz winning three of the last four races. In 2009, it was the same story.

Last year, he had to overcome Denny Hamlin’s late surge to win his fifth, and it was exciting as well. It came down to Homestead, and Hamlin wasn’t able to close the deal.

The Chase, it seems, was made for the steady driver to win titles, and JJ’s five straight bears that out. It all boils down to the final 10 races, and whoever is best over that span is the winner.

With the move to the single-point system, it is, through three races, getting more and more exciting. And that’s a good thing, because interest in the series seems to be on the wane.

Hate to say that, because NASCAR is my life, but sponsors are bailing left and right and teams and drivers and crews are all scrambling. It’s worse in the Nationwide Series, where sponsors are dropping at an alarming rate. Reed Sorenson, in the thick of the points battle, is out of the No. 32 Turner Motorsports machine, replaced by Brian Vickers, as that team “evaluates” its presence in the series.

Ron Hornaday, who along with Mike Skinner and Jack Sprague turned the Truck Series into the best pure racing series in NASCAR, doesn’t have a ride past the end of the season, either.

As I sit here shaking my head, I wonder what the implications will mean for the 2012 season. It’s one hope that the exciting Chase can at least make it a little better than I suspect it will be.

Tune in on Sunday from Kansas and look here for some pithy updates as it happens! Stay tuned to the blog on www.onmc.com, and on Facebook and Twitter!