Dover turned into a prize fight for the Chase drivers (cont'd)

Kurt Busch, who had avoided most of the mid-race carnage, slammed hard into the outside wall coming out of Turn 2 two laps after a Lap 384 restart, bounced into Reed Sorenson, was rear-ended by teammate Ryan Newman and collected at least seven other cars in the smoke, including Martin Truex Jr. and Johnson (watch video).

Lap-by-Lap

Follow all the hardships of the Chase drivers in Carl Edwards' wreck-filled win at Dover.

• Lap-by-Lap, click here
• Race Video, click here

"I just caught the fence in Turn 2 and it collected so many top cars and everybody, for that matter," Busch said. "It's tough when everybody puts a lot of hard work into building these cars and one little problem like that took out a lot of cars.

"It was a nice top-five that was developing, we actually had 30-lap fresher tires then anybody and something broke."

Newman had perhaps the best view in the house.

"I know [Busch] got high and bounced off the wall," Newman said. "It looked like something broke. If I would have known it was going to be that big of a mess, I would have just hit him and tried to knock him out of the way instead of crossing my car up and blocking the racetrack."

Race-winner Carl Edwards and fifth-place Kyle Busch, who used a free pass late in the event, were the only Chase drivers left on the lead lap at the checkered flag.

Burton (seventh), Stewart (10th) and Jeff Gordon (11th) -- who fought a loose-handing car all afternoon -- managed to finish one lap down, as amazingly did Bowyer (12th) and Truex Jr. (13th), whose No. 1 Chevrolet was puffing steam from a broken radiator.

Matt Kenseth led 192 laps and finished 35th, victim of a blown engine (watch video).

And somehow, when the judges' cards were tallied, the Chase remained a split decision. Gordon leads Stewart by 2 points, Edwards by 3 -- pending a possible penalty after his winning car failed NASCAR's post-race inspection -- Johnson by 4 and Kyle Busch by 10. In fact, the top eight are separated by 75 points -- perhaps the difference between a lead-lap finish and going one lap down at Homestead.

The title -- or cup, in this instance -- remains vacated, awaiting a worthy defender. The rematch? Sunday, Sunday, Sunday -- at Kansas Speedway.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer