Five things to ponder after crazy Northeast weekend (cont'd)

2. Suddenly human?

By any and all standards, Kyle Busch has had -- and continues to have -- an incredible year. He has won a total of 15 events combined in the Craftsman Truck Series, Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series, more than anyone else in the modern era in a single season.

But he has cooled off a bit in the last two Cup events, leaving one to wonder if he really is going to cruise to his first points championship in the top series while posting one of the best seasons in recent memory. Remember, it was only last season when Jeff Gordon racked up four early wins and appeared to be on the same sort of roll -- only to eventually settle for second in points to teammate Jimmie Johnson, who won the second of his back-to-back championships.

Gordon ended up winning six races, the same series-high total Busch has at the moment with 15 events still left to be run. Of course two of Gordon's 2007 victories came during the Chase, when Gordon truly challenged Johnson before Johnson went on a roll of his own and won four in a row to remove all doubt.

It's not like Busch is on a long dry spell; he's only two races removed from a two-race win streak (the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona and the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland). But after finishing 36th Sunday at Pocono (following a 15th-place finish at Indy), young Kyle at least is showing some signs of possibly being human that could make the remainder of this season more interesting for the rest of the field.

3. The Carl rises

And if Kyle Busch were to falter, who is best positioned to take advantage? Why Carl Edwards, of course. After flipping out over another victory at Pocono -- his fourth of the season -- he's up to third in points and appears to be gathering momentum for the stretch run (watch video).

More importantly, with the four victories, he's racked up 30 bonus points to take into the beginning of the Chase. That means he would start the Chase seeded second behind Busch, and he realistically has a chance now of catching Busch to grab the No. 1 seed and whatever slight advantage that would give him over the other 11 Chasers.

Meanwhile, it was good to see guys like Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. gamble on fuel Sunday to give them a shot at victory. In the end, because Edwards and some others did the same, it wouldn't have worked out anyway. And it hurt both Gordon and Earnhardt when they ran out just before reaching the finish line, turning what would have been top-five finishes into 10th and 12th, respectively. But at least these guys are starting to realize that maybe they had better start thinking more about getting wins and the bonus points that go along with them for the Chase than about conservative points racing just to get into the Chase.

4. Whatever happened to ...

Maybe the biggest surprise at Pocono was the mediocre 23rd-place finish by Denny Hamlin, who hadn't finished lower than sixth at the venue in five previous career starts. That dropped Hamlin two spots to 10th in points on a day when he figured to be moving forward in the standings and not taking a step back.

Another who lost two important spots in the standings and now sits on the outside of the Chase cutoff in 13th after Pocono is Matt Kenseth, who has never missed a Chase since its inception in 2004. That was particularly frustrating for him because he managed an 11th-place finish, but still fell from 11th to 13th in points because fellow Chase contenders such as Kevin Harvick (fourth), Clint Bowyer (sixth) and Kasey Kahne (seventh) finished ahead of him at Pocono.

The biggest points loser of all Sunday was Juan Montoya, who dropped three spots to 25th after a sour engine ended his day early and relegated him to 40th. As hard as it is to believe today, he was in the top 12 ever so briefly earlier this season after a strong run at Talladega -- but he has since dropped like bad stock.

5. So now it's off to ...

The Centurion Boats at the Glen, the second and last road-course event of the season -- and perhaps the only place where a guy like Montoya came make a final stand on what has been an otherwise miserable season. He won his only Cup event at Sonoma two years ago, finished sixth there earlier this season despite encountering some adversity not of his own doing, and last year at the Glen never got the chance to show what he might be able to do because of an early accident that took him out and relegated him to a 39th-place finish.

There are plenty of others to watch, though, including defending champion Tony Stewart and long-time road-course ace Jeff Gordon, both of whom are hungering for their first wins of the season; Fellows and fellow road-course "specialists" such Boris Said and Cup regular Robby Gordon; plus other Cup regulars like Hamlin, Edwards, the young Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson, who finished strong there last year and have proven they can get it done wherever they run.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer