Last Lap: Catch me if you can, Harvick

I plead guilty. No reason to sugarcoat or make frivolous excuses.

For having prematurely conceded the 2003 Winston Cup points championship to one Matthew Roy Kenseth, no one is as blameworthy as I.

And while my stance remains unchanged ? Kenseth will still win the title going away, just not as "away" as I once assumed -- Kevin Harvick and Todd Berrier have significantly humbled me.

After the first 15 races, Harvick was 11th in points, with two top-five finishes and an outside shot at the top-five. After the second 15, he's second in points on the strength of eight top-fives, including a win at Indy and four runner-up efforts, with an outside shot at the gold chalice.

Impressive? Please. Try unfathomable. And more impressive yet is his assault on Kenseth's point lead, which over the past two weeks has dwindled from 436 points to 259.

That's nearly 50 percent.

One hundred seventy seven points. Gone. A blown engine at Talladega and a pair of crashes at Kansas, and Kenseth's lead is chopped in half.

History helps a bit, but not overwhelmingly. Kenseth needs only finish eighth or better in the final six races, regardless anyone else's performance, to clinch Roush Racing's first championship.

It doesn't matter if Harvick leads all 2,131 laps remaining on the schedule, he still won't win the championship if Kenseth manages to average 140.5 points per week. Under that scenario ? Harvick earning 185 points per week to Kenseth's 142 -- Harvick would finish the season with 5,125 total points. Kenseth, 5,134.

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Obviously, Harvick faces a daunting task. Only once in the modern era has a driver erased such a deficit in just six races. But by no means is a mammoth points swing out of the question.

See: 1992. With six races left, Bill Elliott led Davey Allison by 154 points while third-place Alan Kulwicki lurked in the proverbial shadows, 278 points back. What happened over the next six weeks was magical. Fairy-talish. A Hollywood script, NASCAR style -- minus Cole Trickle. (Thank goodness.)

During that span, Kulwicki erased an average of more than 48 points per race to upend Elliott in the closest Winston Cup championship finish ever. Kulwicki -- and Allison, too, for that matter ? stormed back on the strength of strong performances coupled with Elliott's misfortune.

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Elliott finished 26th or worse in four of the five races leading up to the season finale at Atlanta, dropping him to third overall. Entering Atlanta, Allison held a 30-point lead over Kulwicki, but an early-race accident took Allison out of the title hunt. That left Kulwicki and Elliott to duke it out for the championship.

Elliott won the battle. Kulwicki, ever the strategist, won the war.

Elliott won the race and Kulwicki finished second, but Kulwicki knew the laps-led bonus would be the determining factor for the title. Kulwicki led just one lap more than Elliott to claim the five-point bonus.

Had Elliott done so, he'd have been the champion. The pair would have finished with precisely the same amount of points, but Elliott, by virtue of having the most victories, would have claimed the tiebreaker.

As it was, Kulwicki walked away with an improbable 10-point edge to claim the Winston Cup.

Can Harvick pull a Kulwicki and catch Kenseth for the championship?

Beaverly: I do not believe that he can. They have six races left. That would mean Harvick would have to pick up 43.16 points every week. I guess Matt would have to continue his bad luck and Harvick would need to continue his good luck.

If they both keep having days like yesterday Harvick will catch Matt, but I just do not foresee that happening. But you have to agree with Matt and that is it is never over until they hand you that trophy.

	Matt Kenseth

I think we all agree, Gary Payton, that the No. 17 bunch has to experience trouble in order for Harvick to even enter Kenseth's area code. History says it's unlikely.

In his three full Winston Cup seasons-to-date, Kenseth's average finish over the final six races (18 races, total) is 16.3. Harvick's is 22.3 in 12 races. Dale Earnhardt Jr., meanwhile has a finish average of 16.8 in 18 total races.

Oh yeah, and Kenseth has gone to Victory Lane at three of the remaining six tracks on the circuit (Charlotte, Phoenix and Rockingham.)

TRACKSIDEJOE: I feel that Harvick can catch Kenseth. Look at the lead the Sterling had last year. The luck that Kenseth has had in the last few weeks was bound to come.

Not so, Joe. Not even. Though Marlin led the point standings for 25 consecutive weeks before his injury at Richmond, he never led the second-place driver by more than 143 points all year. Kenseth's swelled to more three times that.

baylei: Believe it or not, racing is about winning races and not about the championship. You have to get dirty to be remembered and Matt is not getting dirty, rubbing is racing, so tell Matt to do some rubbing and start racen.

I hate to say it but Ryan Newman is the one that is racing out there and doing alot of rubbing to get there. I am a Jr. fan but if you want a true champion that has been putting forth the effort then you have to go with Newman. He has been the most exciting car to watch.

	Ryan Newman

Hey Champ, if you think Newman has "rubbed" his way to Victory Lane all year, you're wrong. The only rubbing he's done is on that magic lamp, hoping his fuel load will last to the finish line.

You can't deny their talent or accomplishments, but they're winning on strategy, not by moving people out of the way.

Hurricane29: Who knows? That is what makes this sport (and this point system) so unique. As a biased fan of Harvick's, I believe that he can catch Kenseth, but not without some falterings by Matt.

However, it is interesting that ever since Kenseth and his team have had to look in their rearview mirror and "think about it" they've had problems:

A blown engine from a team that never nlows an engine; a couple of lapses of judgment in practice and racing by a guy said to be just like David Pearson. One has to consider the question of who wants this Championship more? Kenseth or Harvick?

I disagree wholeheartedly, Isabel. Just because Kenseth has had some trouble the past two weeks doesn't mean he's gotten lax.

The blown engine? It's a team issue that must be addressed. Before Talladega, Kenseth was the only Roush driver not to puke an engine in 2003. The wreck Sunday? It happens to everybody eventually. How's he supposed to know Mikey's going to wad it up right in front of him?

	Kevin Harvick

Speaking of, how about that 17 crew? I'm here to tell you, watching those boys completely rebuild the entire front of that car in 40 laps was amazing. That effort alone gained Kenseth 21 points, from 43rd to 36th in the final running order.

And considering the discussion we're having, those points could prove huge.

Ask Sue Ellen Ewing Lockwood:

Jrh8er: Ya know, I think it's too bad that Kenseth had to wait all the way til now to have bad luck! I was hoping he'd have it wrapped up by now! I've been pulling for him all year to win it, being a die-hard Mark Martin fan. I'd rather him not have any bad luck at all, but it doesn't work that way does it?

Matt will hold on to win it by over 100 points. I do think that the team needs to give him more competitive cars though, because for much of the summer (and before Talladega), he would just kinda hang out in the top-20 barely and end up in the top 10.

	Mark Martin

I just wanna see him completely dominate a race, not win it on the last pit stop. But great job to the crew for repairing his car in 45 minutes, and he was only a half-second slower on average than the leaders! That's a championship racer for ya!

Asking to be that dominant these days is a tall order, Sue Ellen. Look at last Sunday. Bill Elliott was untouchable, and still didn't win the race. What did? Pit road. It's everything these days.

Kevinzgrl: Of course he does! Hey, the Cubbies are in the playoffs and the Bears won their first game this year in the new Soldier Field. This Chicago girl is yelling "GO KEVIN!" cause good things come in threes!

DeLana, you just had to mention baseball, didn't you? For the past two weeks, since my column regarding the comparable misfortunes suffered by Roush Racing and the Boston Red Sox, countless people have blamed me for Kenseth's downfall.

Don't kill the messenger. It's not like I build his engines.

200MPHTAPE: Oh yeah... I think its a damn shame if he does though. I think with the strong program the 17 bunch ran last year they sat back and looked at what they had and wondered if we don't blow the engine up and cruise, we can use it last run of the race and finish in the top 10 and not rough anyone up. Now he's gonna be forced to maybe get up on the wheel and drive a little.

Only time will tell what happens. But in reality there is only 5 races left to erase the margin! To really knock him off the perch, it's gonna take muscle not 35 points this week 15 the next he will probaly race the rest of the season about like the previous 25 races or he could score the upset and give ROUSH another Charlotte win.

Duckie has a valid point, to a degree. Seems like every week Kenseth is MIA all day long, but when the checkers fall and you look at the final rundown, there he is in the top 10.

But saying he's not up on the wheel? That's unfair at best. Did you see Indy? Bristol?

The gas was matted -- no pun intended -- and will continue to be through the Ford 400 at Homestead, when Jack Roush walks off into the sunset with the Winston Cup that has so long eluded him.

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The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.