Now that it's in everybody's rear-view mirrors, I think we can all agree that Sunday's crash-filled race at Dover was one of the Nextel Cup's most edifying competitions in recent memory. Contenders were identified and pretenders were exposed, none more so than Carl Edwards, who made the journey from the former to the latter in slightly more time than it took to run the actual race. The driver of the No. 99 Ford won the Dodge Dealers 400 with a brilliant performance, but then failed the post-race inspection and wound up getting docked 25 championship points, knocking him down all the way from third to sixth in the Chase standings.

Was the infraction ticky-tack? Yes. Did it provide Edwards with a competitive advantage? The consensus seems to be that it did not. Still, the No. 99 team should have known better. As my colleague, Lars Anderson, pointed out earlier this week, crew chief Bob Osborne and his gang got sloppy at the worst possible time. NASCAR had already docked Kyle Busch 25 points for a similar infraction earlier in the season, so it's not like every team in the Cup garage didn't know the standards. The fact that their error came with the tightly-regulated Car of Tomorrow-about which NASCAR has absolutely no sense of humor-only makes it more unforgivable.

This tiny mistake is what will separate the wheat from the chaff in the 2007 Chase for the Nextel Cup. At New Hampshire two weeks ago, just about every crew member I spoke to about the Chase said that no matter who did what, NASCAR's postseason was going to come down to a three-way competition between Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart. Drivers such as Edwards and Clint Bowyer certainly have a chance to win, but in order to come out on top, they're going to have to deal with the three best teams in the series.

And I think that the penalty on Edwards is a sign that his team might not be ready to do that. I can almost guarantee you that we will not be seeing a similar mistake in the next eight weeks from the teams of Gordon, Johnson and Stewart. Each of them has won championships, and each of them knows what it takes to take hom a Cup. Witness their runs at Dover, when none possessed race-winning cars, but all managed to coax respectable finishes out of their equipment despite the chaos all around them. It's no accident that they hold the top three spots in the Chase standings this week.

As for Edwards, it's hard to imagine a tougher break for a driver who has been remarkably consistent over the last two months. He deserves a better fate. I'll be curious to see how he rebounds this weekend at Kansas. Maybe his team will use Dover as a wake-up call. The pressure is on.

Tony Stewart talks about driving at Kansas:

"You aren't going to find any two tracks that are more identical than Kansas and Chicago. The only difference between the two tracks: the backstretch at Chicago is a little bit rounded while [the one at Kansas] is straight. It seems like in the last couple of years, in particular, both tracks have come around. They've seasoned, and it's gotten to where we can finally get off the bottom and move around the race track more. That's what you want as a driver. That's what the teams want. You don't want to be stuck following guys and not being able to move around and pass. It just makes you confident that you know you have options when you go into the corner where you can help yourself out as a driver. It makes this place a lot more fun to race when you're able to move around and find different grooves. The first couple of times we came here we all dreaded it because it was just single-file racing, and all you heard us talk about was aero push. Now, you can't really use the aero push excuse too much anymore because you have the ability to move around on the race track more."

• 3: Number of races won at Kansas by the 12 drivers in the 2007 Chase for the Nextel Cup; the victories belong to Jeff Gordon, who's won twice, and Tony Stewart.

• 0: Number of top-10 finishes at Kansas by Denny Hamlin, who's currently mired in 12th-place in the Chase standings.

• 65.3: Hamlin's driver rating at Kansas, the worst of any driver in the Chase.

• 6.5: Average finish in six starts at Kansas for Tony Stewart, the best of any driver in the Chase.

Now that's more like it! The ol' meter had been down. Stagnant. In the doldrums. Weeks went by without a single charge of race-fixing or even the most benign exchange of unpleasantries. What in the name of Tony Stewart was going on? But now, race fans, I am proud to announce the meter is back! And I didn't even have to send a nasty e-mail to Juan Pablo Montoya. Who would've predicted that Kyle Petty would step between the ropes and into the center of the ring? His helmet-flip flap with Denny Hamlin, while relatively tame, still sparked a melee in the garage. And when Hamlin slammed Petty's team after the race, it started to get nasty. For my part, I think Petty had good reason to be ticked, though my administration has never condoned helmet-flipping of any kind. But Hamlin's comments afterwards were out of line-a drastic departure from the way he handled his spat with teammate Tony Stewart last July. And his threat to punch the next man to flip his helmet was a move that reeked of false courage. The next time? Mr. Hamlin, you had your chance to punch somebody and you missed it.

Who says tailgating is only in the blood of football fans? Certainly not these fans at Bristol.

October 1, 2006: Tony Stewart coasts to victory on fumes in the Banquet 400 at Kansas Speedway. The win was Stewart's first after he failed to qualify for the Chase for the Nextel Cup. The No. 20 Home Depot Chevy would cruise to two more victories before the season was over, stamping Stewart as an early favorite to win the 2007 championship.