by Larry McReynolds

Updated: July 16, 2008, 5:46 PM EST 216 comments

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True, the win at Chicagoland Speedway was his seventh Cup victory of the season and his 14th in NASCAR's top three divisions. Also, it's not too hard to imagine him having 20-25 NASCAR wins this year.

That being said, there were some other cars that looked really good Saturday night that will challenge him for the Cup championship: Jimmie Johnson and that No. 48 team finally look like they are getting their arms around this new car. Jimmie knows he made a mistake on that last restart that cost him the win. The Roush Fenway cars just continue to flex their muscle, too. Carl Edwards in that No. 99 car looked awfully good until he had the splitter issue. Matt Kenseth in the No. 17 might have had the best car there, but he cut the tire down and had to make a pit stop under green. The youngster David Ragan looked awfully strong again this past weekend, too. My point is that there are teams that are definitely catching up to Busch and Co.

Sure, the No. 18 team has every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed. Kyle showed everyone once again that he has the desire, the will and the passion to win every race no matter what. In Kyle's mind, second place sucks.

But guess what? This title fight is far from being over.

Around the field

In this next stretch of racing before the Chase, there are several teams that have to be happy coming out of Chicagoland:

• At the top of this list has to be Kevin Harvick and the No. 29 bunch. Going into Saturday's race, they were out of the Chase, but by finishing third this past weekend, they are now up to ninth in the standings. Even though that group still has a lot of work to do, I think that they have to be feeling pretty good.

• The No. 24 and again the No. 48 are slowly pecking away at this thing called the COT. When you evaluate their performance now versus the first part of the season this year, they have absolutely come an awfully, awfully, awfully long way.

• There are some teams that aren't totally out of this deal right now. Brian Vickers and the Red Bull gang looked really good the other night. He finished sixth and less than 100 points out of the Top 12.

• Since we are talking about the Red Bull guys, AJ Allmendinger's team made a change last week — Jimmy Elledge replaced Ricky Viers as crew chief. I don't want to take anything away from Ricky and the job he did with this startup team for the last year and a half, but they just haven't been getting the finishes they needed. Saturday night was the best Allmendinger has looked in a Cup race, ever. He ran in the Top 10 most of the night and finished 13th. Jimmy Elledge is a great crew chief. I was really surprised that Chip Ganassi let Elledge get away from the organization, but he did, and Elledge has landed in a great spot. I think Elledge and Allmendinger will just continue to grow together. Allmendinger's confidence level will continue to escalate with performances like this.

• Even though we spoke about him earlier, it's worth mentioning that I still believe the one driver that is getting closer and closer to his first career win is David Ragan. He is just so solid every single week at a lot of different style racetracks. When you can get that consistency going like he has right now, you will win a race somewhere.

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In need of a boost

There are two teams that continue to bobble back and forth: Jeff Burton's No. 31 team and Clint Bowyer's No. 07 team. Now I think Burton is in pretty good shape, but Bowyer is not in the Top 12 right now. To be fair though, he is only 27 points out. But those are a couple teams that better get their act together.

Final thought

Folks may not have noticed it, but Chicagoland was the last 1.5-mile track on the schedule until we begin the title-deciding Chase for the Sprint Cup in September. However, teams will be able to use some of the things they learned about how the car reacts from last Saturday's race at two upcoming tracks, which are Michigan and Fontana, and then once we get into the Chase, Chicago's sister racetrack in Kansas.

One positive to take away from the weekend is that this car seems to be getting racier and racier, especially when we go to tracks it has been to with more than one groove.

Get ready for some fun and competitive racing the rest of the season.

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FOX race analyst Larry McReynolds has more than 25 years of NASCAR experience as a mechanic, crew chief and broadcaster. He and his fellow Crew Chief Club members take you behind the wall at www.crewchiefclub.com.

"How to Become a Winning Crew Chief" is on bookstore shelves, or you may order your own autographed copy from www.DWStore.com.