by Darrell Waltrip

Updated: October 3, 2007, 11:41 PM EST 229 comments

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It got off to a pretty good start at New Hampshire, but boy, Dover, then Kansas and you know what's going to happen at Talladega. Goodness gracious! I don't know if it's the pressure. I don't know if guys are just trying harder this year than they've tried in the past and getting themselves in trouble. I really can't put my finger on what's creating all this chaos, but certainly something is, and it's really shaken up the points.

As I wrote last week — no matter what the point system is — the championship field narrows to seven or eight at this time of year. By the time we get to Homestead, it'll be two or three. That's just history. You can't deny it. In the season finale, one driver will have enough of a lead that if he doesn't have a bad day, he should be able to win the title, just like Jimmie Johnson did last year. Then you'll have a driver that's still in the Chase and another guy that's mathematically got a chance. Everybody else is just out there getting ready for next year, as they always like to say.

But back to Kansas. There was talk about not even starting the race on time because of the high winds blowing strong. They were concerned about the cameramen on the roof, but nonetheless, the race got started on time. All that wind blew in a big thunderstorm so they had to stop the race immediately for rain, which didn't last too long. They got cranked up and going again, getting a good bit of the event under their belt before weather kicked in again and stopped the race.

Watching on TV, I said, "Well, that's it. Tony Stewart wins the race. They stay out on fuel. That was a smart call. Two years in a row, he wins the race by fuel mileage." And I didn't watch anymore. To tell you the truth, I was pretty shocked when a friend of mine called me and asked, "Are you watching the race?" So I turned it on in time to see the finish. It was very controversial, and not just Greg Biffle winning the race out of fuel. But just the way things unfolded with the wreck on the restart after the red flag and Tony's fender rubbing on his tire, which eventually went down.

There are rules of unintended consequences, and I don't fault NASCAR for getting the track dry and restarting the race. That's their job. That's what they're supposed to do. If I have a concern, it's how many different hats the same people have wear. The people in the tower have to think about the track, the fans, the drivers and the TV ratings. They have to consider a lot of elements when they make decisions. It was one of those times when you have to look at the whole picture and what not restarting the race would have done. It would have shaken up the Chase standings dramatically.

Little did they know — and this is where the rules of unintended consequences kick in — that when they restarted the race, there was going to be a big crash that affected the Chase just as dramatically as if they hadn't restarted it. All of us sitting at home and watching and even Rusty Wallace and Andy Petree in the booth knew that the intensity was going to pick up when the race restarted after the second red flag.

When weather and time are factors, and the race is going to be shortened, guys take chances and do things that they wouldn't normally do in a race that goes the distance. So a crash was pretty much a given. Before the restart, the track had just been blown dry. The jet blowers do dry the track, but they also put down a residue from the jet fuel. It usually makes the track pretty slick for a lap or two. Down into Turn 1 they went, and lo and behold, there was a big crash, taking out a lot of good cars. Now, people are saying, "Oh, man, they never should have restarted this thing."

There were a bunch of cars on the tail end of the lead lap, and if I were running the sport, that's one rule that I would change immediately. When you're on the tail end of the lead lap, you get to go all the way around and come up behind to the back of the field before you go back to green. You restart at the end of the longest line. That way, drivers that are supposed to be racing each other will be racing each other and drivers that are not supposed to be racing each other will be on the lead lap but at the back of the field.

That's what they do in Indy Car, and it works so well. As a matter of fact in the last race of their season, championship contenders Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon were on the tail end of the lead lap. They got to go around and come up behind the field. It left them clean and green to race each other and not have to worry about lapped traffic. How many wrecks have we seen because cars are on the tail end of the lead lap in front of the leaders, and they get in trouble trying to stay in front of the leader to get back on the lead lap? It's unnecessary. It's one of those things that could be adjusted, and it would certainly fix a lot of problems on restarts.

Sorry folks, I got off track there for a moment. But there are several things I want to cover with you, including Tony's fender rub. I felt bad for No. 20 crew chief Greg Zipadelli. He should have brought in the car and fixed the fender, but with the race being shortened, I could understand leaving his driver out and thinking it would clear itself. We've just seen too many cases lately where a left front tire rubbing in that fender is going to get you in trouble. It happened to my brother. It happened to Jimmie Johnson, and now it happened to Tony. If they had to to do over again, I'm sure they wouldn't have done what they did. But that's what happened, and now he's way behind in the Chase and not a very happy camper.

Then, there was the finish itself. I'm 100 percent in agreement with NASCAR's call that Biffle won the race. If that car ran out of gas going down the back straightaway, and it had to coast to the inside and come to a stop, everybody would have passed him. But we're not talking about a time during the race. We're talking about the last lap of the race.

Coming off of Turn 4 to get the checkered flag, the thing started sputtering and running out of fuel. He dropped down on the apron. The car was under its own power. Nobody was assisting himl, which is the only thing that you can't do on the last lap of a race. You can't get assistance. His car maintained enough speed to cross the start/finish line under its own power. It may not have been running, but it did it on its own accord. So that's all he had to do. Biffle didn't have to stay right up behind the pace car. He just had to maintain a reasonable speed. That's always been the rule, and we've always known it so it was a good call on NASCAR's part.

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The transponders on the cars that record timing and scoring reported the No. 07 in 1st, the No. 48 in 2nd, the No. 25 in 3rd and the No. 16 in 4th as three cars passed Biffle at the end of the race. That's the way it came across the scoring monitor, and people immediately said, "Clint Bowyer won the race." There was a lot of jubliation and excitement because he's from Kansas so it made a lot of people happy. But Biffle won the race fair and square. There was no hanky panky and no conspiracy theory. Just because NASCAR penalized Carl Edwards 25 points last week at Dover — which by the way was totally wrong — doesn't mean that they make it up to Roush Fenway Racing this week by giving Biffle a win.

It just doesn't happen that way. It appears that way a lot of times, and that's the thing about our sport. It is unique. You have to make calls on the fly. There's just no way to write a rule book when you have 43 cars, and you're racing for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. At Kansas, it was 6 hours, and circumstances change when you're on the racetrack that long so there's no way to write a rule for every situation. That's why the people up in the tower are called officials. They know the rules and understand the circumstances as they watch the race. They make the calls, and you have to trust them to make the right calls. Do they get them right every time? Heck, no, but they get it right more times than not.