Saturday night, NASCAR will hold its final race before the 100% contrived Chase for the Nextel Cup. Thanks to it, Jeff Gordon's huge points lead will completely evaporate, essentially rendering his first 26 races meaningless.
The next day, the Indy Racing League will hold its season finale. Despite not having a contrived playoff or any of the other ways NASCAR "improves competition," the top two contenders are separated by just three points.
If you've been following the season, you know how things stand. Indy 500 champ Dario "Mr. Judd" Franchitti leads Scott Dixon by three, despite all of his incidents this year. Tony Kanaan, meanwhile, remains in the peripheral of the fight, 39 points back (however, his only chance is to win and have the other two wreck early).
Given all the drama that's already transpired, what will happen when everything's on the line? Looking at how the points are distributed, it's clear that in most cases, whoever has the best finish between Franchitti and Dixon is going to win the title. After 16 races, it's impossible to get any better than that. That is, until you throw in that all the recent unpleasantness has caused a lot of tension between the teams, meaning the teammates are likely to get involved as well.
The only problem? The race is on at 4 pm on the first NFL Sunday of the year. Missing football for a race might seem sacrilegious, but this time it's very worth it.
And who knows? Maybe Danica will win this time.
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