Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That...

Take 43 of the best stock car drivers...

Pair them up with the best Crew Chief they can find...

Have the best teams in the business run them...

And watch one driver dominate?

Not one team, but one driver.

The Sprint Cup races this year have me baffled. Each week there is some good racing throughout the field, and we have seen a lot of different winners this year but still there is no consistancy. A while ago I was championing this as a good thing, variety being the spice of life as they say. However this variety has me wondering how one driver can hit on a set up so much better than all the others that they dominate a race like Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team did at Kansas.

What did that team do which made them the best, on that day, by some margin. You would have thought out of the other 42 cars someone else would have hit on that magic formula as well and given the 48 a run for his money. Stewart got close at times but only ever looked like he had a second place car and not one able to battle for the win.

It's not as though one team is dominating, as last Sunday Gordon had an average race and Earnhardt and Martin were never really in contention. In fact if one driver in a team is winning you can almost guarantee that the others in the same team are nowhere to be seen. If Tony is winning then Ryan is average. If the 48 is up front the 24 is at the back, and visa versa. If Brad is hot, Kurt is not and again visa versa.

You may say track position, and being the lead car, has a part to play in this but I don't buy it. The racing behind Johnson was good and proved overtaking was possible using the various grooves through the turns.

Is it down to the edgy nature of the cars? They are hard to drive ane we often hear Crew Chiefs talk about the fine line between a car that works and one that doesn't. However with the regulations for the cars being so tight, or to put it another way all of the cars are more or less the same, you would think that more than one team would find a setup that works on a given weekend. Also considering the limited number of car builders, Hendrick for Chevy, Roush for Ford, Penske for Dodge and MWR/Gibbs for Toyota, you would think the secret formula for the ultimate setup would not be secret for long.

I look forward to the race when all the top drivers find a setup that works at the same time, Homestead perhaps, and then we will have a race on.

I am not complaining, I am just puzzled. It looks like the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion will be the driver and team who can hit on that magic setup the most over the coming weeks, and not fall that far when they miss.