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This Week's Question: Tony Stewart's Home Depot team won this week thanks to some gambling that probably wouldn't have happened if he was racing for the championship. Is this kind of racing actually better for the sponsors than the Chase teams playing it safe?

The only track of similar size and shape to Kansas that I like better is Charlotte, and Kansas has supplanted Atlanta as No. 2 on my list. I think they do a great job there and the races are spectacular. This may have been the most exciting finish to a NASCAR race since Carl Edwards won in Atlanta. I agreed with the decision not to send the Hall of Fame to Kansas City, but it would be a criminal shame if this track is ever removed from the Chase lineup. Fortunately, I don't think that will happen.

The Cup Series heads to Alabama this Sunday for a run on the newly paved 2.66-mile tri-oval that is Talladega Superspeedway. With new asphalt and restrictor plate engines, every team is going to be holding their breath for 500 miles, hoping they can be in the right place at the right time and avoid the "Big One." Simply put, this is the week where it is better to be lucky than good.

10. Battling with Nick Lachey and Stacy Keibler over who will be the point guard for the Hollywood Fame ABA team that all three partially own.

Was this week's race at Kansas just an aberration, or are we finally beginning to see one of the "cookie-cutter" tracks come into its own and provide good racing?

This week, I had to laugh when the TV broadcast flashed the "Team Chevy Winning Moment" banner across the bottom of the screen. The accompanying picture was not a burnout or a victory lap, but simply the No. 20 car being pushed to pit road by the No. 11. Stewart won the race fair and square, but it was rather anti-climactic heading to the checkered flag, as both the first- and second-place finishers coasted across the finish line out of gas.

Growth is the primary goal for any American enterprise, and NASCAR is the epitome of an American business. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that, when you look at this year's TV ratings, NASCAR's popularity has not grown one bit... if anything, it's actually declined. Ratings are down in all but two races this season, and it appears fans are looking for some new energy to rejeuvenate their interest in the sport.

Blaise Alexander, just 25 years old, passed away on Oct. 4th, 2001, after injuries sustained in an accident in that night's ARCA EasyCare 100. Good friend Kerry Earnhardt was racing the young man hard for the win with three laps to go when his car touched Alexander's No. 75, sending it into the retaining wall beyond turn four even as Earnhardt's car was sliding on its roof toward the tri-oval. That slam into the concrete was all it took - in the blink of an eye, racing lost an up-and-coming star, and the sport lost another shred of innocence that had not been taken by the other losses - Adam, Kenny, Tony, Dale - that were still fresh in our minds.

Jimmie Johnson was blowing by the competition and looked to be heading for a win that could have got him back in the title hunt, but Tony Stewart calmly came in and stole the win away with a little extra fuel. The late-race fuel-mileage gamble left plenty of other Chasers looking for gas - and answers - at the end of the day, in the midst of several other spinouts and mechanical issues that threatened to doom their title hopes.

With a tricky turn 4, Chasers problems galore, a fuel-mileage finish, and so much more, Kansas looked like a speedway that's finally coming into its own. Now, if we could only say the same for the other five cookie-cutter tracks...