Kansas has been the track title hopes go up in smoke

Kansas Speedway is rapidly gaining a reputation as a graveyard where championship aspirations go to die. Ryan Newman found that to be the case in each of the first two years of the Chase, and Jeff Gordon's 39th-place finish in 2006 eliminated him from title consideration.

But while most of the post-race spotlight during the 2007 Lifelock 400 was focused on whether or not eventual winner Greg Biffle maintained a "reasonable pace" on the final lap (watch video), for seven of the 12 Chase contenders, Kansas was the end of the road, yellow brick or otherwise.

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When the dust had settled -- or more correctly, the mud -- after a pair of rain delays and multiple wrecks that wiped out title hopes for more than half the Chase field, only Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kansas native Clint Bowyer survived without a serious points hit. And not so surprisingly, they finished 1-2-3 in the final standings.

The Chase carnage started early, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran into the back bumper of Kyle Busch, sending him sliding down the track and then hard into the outside wall in Turn 3. Busch, who was only 10 points out of the lead at the time, wound up 41st, and wasn't at all happy with the driver who would replace him at Hendrick Motorsports (watch video).

"I left a lane for him on the outside because I knew he was going to have a good run coming off the corner. He ran me over for no reason whatsoever," Busch said. "Just an unfortunate circumstance and I am sure these guys aren't very appreciative of the guy who is going to be racing for them next year just dumped their car that has a great shot for the championship."

But the real craziness was still to come. With heavy rain on the way, Tony Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli gambled and stayed on the track, even though the No. 20 was nearly out of fuel. The red flag was displayed one lap later. But that roll of the dice backfired when NASCAR officials were able to get the track dried and resume the race (watch video).

As the field began to roll, Stewart then pitted, putting him in the middle of the pack. And on the first green-flag lap, he found himself with nowhere to go when Ken Schrader spun in front of many of the lead-lap cars. Stewart hit Martin Truex Jr. -- already struggling to rally after an earlier cut tire -- who collected Matt Kenseth (watch video).

Both Truex and Kenseth were able to return to action later, but several laps down. Kenseth wound up 35th and Truex 38th.

"We had a lot of bad luck today, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong," Truex said.

Stewart's day went from bad to worse from that point forward. Damage to the fender was creating a tire rub, but Stewart wasn't willing to pit to make repairs. It turned out to be a fateful decision.

The tire blew on Lap 176, setting off a chain reaction accident that took out Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards (watch video).

"Tony had a tire rubbing for a long time, must have been going down or something," Edwards said. "I thought maybe Tony should have pulled in and fixed his car, but if our car started smoking, we would have been begging to stay out, too. So I see both sides of it. That's just how it goes, man."

An angry Stewart, who happened to use a profane word during a television interview earlier in the weekend, declined to comment after being credited with 39th. Edwards wound up 37th and Busch soldiered on to finish 11th.

"I thought we had a really fast racecar, it just didn't pan out on the fuel strategy," Busch said.

Denny Hamlin got collected shortly thereafter in an accident involving Paul Menard and Jamie McMurray, and finished 29th. Jeff Burton had fuel pickup problems and lost several laps in the pits, leaving him 36th (watch video).

Will a bad finish this weekend for one of the Chase contenders continue Kansas Speedway's reputation as a killer of title hopes? We'll know for sure late Sunday afternoon.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer