Maybe it?s a matter of winning, not losing

 

It’s a simple case of the Cinderella story versus the truth of who has the best damn car on the track.

 

AVONDALE, Ariz. – This Chase race is a bouncing ball. Each week. Back and forth.

Intangibles run rampant. Let’s see.

On Friday, Denny Hamlin was in breakout mode. His crew chief, Mike Ford, has supposedly gotten under the skin of Jimmie Johnson’s crew, which, by the way, wasn’t the same as it had been a week earlier.

On Monday, Johnson still trailed by 15 points, but it seemed as if it was time to get the cases of champagne ordered. Hamlin had played it a bit too safe by pitting near the end of the Kobalt Tools 500, apparently not realizing that most everyone else was going to try to conserve fuel and make it to the end, and more importantly, that most were going to succeed.

At Phoenix International Raceway, Hamlin snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, leaving him to wander aimlessly out of the track’s media center, muttering that he didn’t think he had done anything wrong.

Meanwhile, there was Kevin Harvick lurking, eyeing the two in front of him with the stare of a vulture waiting to snatch up the pieces.

But what if we stopped putting so much weight into the tangibles? What if the tangibles are really going to decide who wins this heated contest?

What if what happens just … happens?

If Johnson emerges next week as the champion, the prevailing view is going to be that Hamlin’s crew chief, Ford, spat on Superman’s (Johnson crew chief Chad Knaus) cape and got what was coming to him. If Hamlin wins it all, it’s going be because he kept a level head and didn’t let anyone get to him.

If Harvick wins, well, it’s going to require some alleged choking or bad luck by not one, but two. Thus will emerge the Cinderella story.

But maybe, just maybe, this championship is to be decided simply by which driver has the fastest car. Maybe no one’s going to choke. Maybe the attention should be justly slanted toward a tale of winning, not losing.

If so, few will notice. What’s between the ears trumps what’s under the hood.

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