Guys like Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne and maybe even Jimmie Johnson have one bad race (okay, Busch has had two), and they're done? There's no way for them to make a Hail Mary and somehow, surprisingly get back in this thing? What that makes drivers do is race not to lose. If they were rewarded handsomely in the standings for winning, they'd be rewarded, y'know, for winning. Heck the whole original idea behind the Chase was to take drivers who, by the letter of the law, were "out of it," and give them new life in a "playoff" system by smooshing the points back close together again. Wouldn't giving a points incentive for wins do the same thing?

Last Week: Mea culpa. I never did get a head-to-head selection online in time for it to be of any use to you, the reader, and so I had only my straight-up picks to fall back on. Kenseth had the best car, and I had him as my #1 pick, but he ran out of gas at Dover, so Jeff Burton won the race. I, uh, didn't have him. So that's a losing week, our first in two months. We lose 0.5 of a unit (three bets of 1/6th of a unit), which brings us down to a positive net 18.77 units on the season. We've still won you money in 19 of 27 events.

Note: Please come back late Saturday or early Sunday when we'll post our head-to-head selection of the week. We'll do it when the online books post their head-to-head odds. We promise.

Take Matt Kenseth (6-1), 1/6th unit. I think Kenseth is as close to a lock to win a race as you can get with 43 cars starting at a track where he's never won. In my mind, everything is in alignment. First, he's peeved because of the happenings at Dover last week. Next, he's peeved about not winning at Chicagoland this summer, when Jeff Gordon (8-1) bumped him aside; Chicagoland is a rough parallel to this weekend's race in Kansas in terms of track-style. In addition, Kenseth was excellent on the two-milers in California and Michigan (he won two of the four races at those venues), which are some others that give good indications about Kansas performance. Finally, he was excellent at the Kansas race last year, when he finished fifth (and three of his Roush teammates finished ahead of him). All in all, despite the fact that he's still close to the points lead and has incentive to take it relatively cautiously, I think Kenseth wins this week.