Kyle Busch came into Loudon as the points leader, having won a series high 8 races so far in 2008.  He began the day 30 points ahead of 2nd place Carl Edwards, and 40 ahead of 3rd place Jimmie Johnson.  Less than 20 laps into the event, the sway bar broke, Busch began dropping like a rock, and never could get the car to handle right the rest of the day.  After trying like hell to spin out for about 50 laps, he finally did, and just as it looked like he was trying to turn the car around, Jamie McMurray plowed into the side of the 18.  Shrub couldn't have had a worse start to the Chase.

Now he finds himself 74 points behind the points leader Carl Edwards, who wins the tiebreaker over Jimmie Johnson right now due to having more wins.  While Kyle Busch finished 12 laps down in 34th, Johnson led the most laps and finished 2nd, while Edwards also led laps early in the event and finished 3rd.  He also lost 6 positions in the standings, and finds himself out of the top 5 in points for the first time this year!  So is it time to stick the fork in Shrub?  Is he already finished?  Oh how I wish...but let's not kid ourselves.

In the 4 years of the Chase, only once has the eventual series champion finished outside the top 10 in Loudon, and that was Jimmie Johnson who finished 39th in 2006.  Johnson finished 6th in the first Chase race last year, Tony Stewart led the most laps and finished 2nd in 2005, and Kyle's brother Kurt Busch led the most laps en route to winning the Sylvania 300 in 2004.  However, in 2006 when Johnson finished 39th, he dropped 7 spots in the standings to 9th, 139 points behind Kevin Harvick who took over the points lead by winning the race that day.

With that said, Shrub can still win this championship.  It's only 74 points, and with the Chase, he could be back into the lead in the standings by the end of the day at Dover this Sunday.  Flat tracks have been Shrub's Achille's heel this year.  He's had some of his worst finishes of the year at these types of tracks, take a look...

38th at Martinsville
43rd and 36th in 2 races at Pocono
15th at Indy without ever being a threat
25th and 34th in 2 races at New Hampshire

However, take a look at the tracks left on the schedule...
Dover - Busch won the race here back in June
Kansas - virtual twin to Chicagoland where Busch won in July
Talladega - the WC in the Chase, but he won here back in April
Lowe's - finished 3rd in the Coke 600
Martinsville - This could be the disaster waiting to happen.
Atlanta - He won the race here back in March
Texas - finished 3rd in April
Phoenix - finished 10th in April
Homestead - new banking has made this track more like Atlanta

So of the 9 remaining races, he's returning to 7 tracks, all but 1 of which he finished in the top 10 the first time he was there this year, and 2 of which he won the first round.  He's also heading to Kansas, which is nearly identical to Chicagoland Speedway, and Homestead which is no longer a flat track.

Don't count him out just yet.  Every driver has a mulligan, and both Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth used their mulligan in Week 1 of the Chase.  Kenseth is 12th in the standings, 177 points back.  Nobody is eliminated just yet, and that includes Kyle Busch.  However, if he has another bad finish, say if he were to wreck out and finish a ton of laps down again at Martinsville, his championship hopes will go out the window.  He's down, and he dug himself a bit of a hole, but he's by no means out of it.

Until next time, I'm your NASCAR VP saying anybody can still win this Chase!

BK over and out