Just a mirage in the desert, or a real sign of progress?

Strange things happen in the American desert southwest. If conspiracy theorists are to be believed, the U.S. government is quarantining alien spacecraft in an off-limits area not too far away from Las Vegas Motor Speedway. If Martin Scorsese movies are to be believed, mob henchmen take potential stool pigeons for long car rides and never bring them back. If the more paranormally inclined are to be believed, unidentified flying objects converge on the region like fire ants to a picnic basket. There's something about all that heat, all that unyielding sunlight, and all that vast openness that sometimes seems to knock things slightly askew.

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There's been no shortage of feel-good stories early in this NASCAR season, but who's been the biggest surprise?

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Maybe that's what happened in Sunday's Sprint Cup event on the 1.5-mile speedway in Las Vegas, where normal went out with low table limits. Sure, Kyle Busch won the race and Jeff Gordon returned to the top of the point standings. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But a track-record-shattering 16 cautions? Nine cars suffering engine trouble throughout the course of the weekend? Three-time champion Jimmie Johnson spinning out all on his own? Driver after driver wobbling through Turn 2 or speeding on pit road? Somebody over at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site must have cracked a window.

And that wasn't the half of it. How strange was it to see David Reutimann and Bobby Labonte -- the former without even a career top-five finish, the latter without a victory in more than five years -- in the mix for the win at the end? Reutimann finished fourth, Labonte fifth. Don't blame this one on dry air. Those strong results continued an interesting early season trend, one where each week several unusual suspects are nudging guys like Johnson and Carl Edwards aside to secure positions at the front of the field. We saw it in Daytona, where Richard Petty Motorsports drivers A.J. Allmendinger, Elliott Sadler and Reed Sorenson nearly swept the first three places. We saw it at Fontana, where Brian Vickers, Juan Montoya and David Stremme all enjoyed solid runs. We saw it at Las Vegas, where Reutimann and Labonte held their own with the leaders, and David Gilliland came out of nowhere to place 14th.

Granted, it's very early in the season, the Daytona results are almost surely a restrictor-plate aberration, and there are plenty of championship-caliber drivers lurking down in the standings. But given the results at Fontana and Las Vegas -- both high-speed intermediate tri-ovals of the kind that compose the majority of the race tracks on the Cup schedule -- are we perhaps seeing the beginnings of this long-awaited leveling of the playing field NASCAR has sought to accomplish through the implementation of the new car and the ban on sanctioned testing? The answer is a definitive, absolute, maybe.

"It's nice to see that there are different groups that are up there, for sure," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition. "I think that's what our goal is, to make every attempt that [the racing] is more competitive. But I also believe it's too early to tell. Three races doesn't make a season, but we have had some other teams that have shown to be very competitive and have some very quick cars, so that's good to see."

No question, it's early. This young season still has been dominated by one driver (Matt Kenseth), and four teams (Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, Joe Gibbs Racing and Richard Childress Racing) have combined to win 35 of the past 39 Cup events dating to the start of the 2008 season. Last year only six teams reached Victory Lane -- a far cry from 2001 when 13 organizations won, among them teams like the Wood Brothers and Bill Davis Racing and Andy Petree Racing and Cal Wells' outfit. Some of those teams were wiped out and others marginalized by the economic slowdown and consequent sponsor freeze that followed the 9-11 terrorist attacks. But while it lasted, it was maybe the closest modern NASCAR has ever come to parity.

And, to be honest, we've been here before. Three races into the 2007 season, Stremme, Gilliland and J.J. Yeley were all in the top 12. Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman were in there at this time last year. None of them lasted. The difference may be that NASCAR has kept its rules package consistent since the start of last season, avoiding the kind of changes that teams with more money and manpower are better able to adapt. That kind of stability, Pemberton said, typically tightens competition. And the lid on the technological box surrounding the new car is still locked down tight. That makes a big difference to a team like Michael Waltrip Racing, which currently has both its cars inside the top 12.

Power Rankings

Four drivers are new to the list this week including Bobby Labonte. Mark Aumann rates the drivers 1 through 15.

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"We caught up significantly in the advancements that the Hendricks and Roushes and those guys can make to their race cars," said Ty Norris, president and general manager of the Waltrip team. "Now the car may have somewhat of a ceiling on it, where maybe the old car didn't have as much of a ceiling. So some of us who are maturing and getting our engineering processes and our car builds better, and as we continue to upgrade our personnel around our team, I feel like we're catching up in that regard. I think they were well ahead of us with this new car because of their background and experience and engineering, and it took us a couple of years to get there. The gap didn't remain, in my estimation, because I think this particular type car had a ceiling on its advancements."

The testing ban, implemented primarily to help teams save money in the midst of a recession, has also helped -- and not just financially. "It saved our human resources as much as it did our financial resources," Norris said. "We didn't stress our people to the max for seven or eight weeks just before the season even started. Our January testing schedule before was really out of control. I think it's really helped the human resources and allowed us to really focus on being ready for the race season, as opposed to just being ready for the test season. I think the testing policy, I hope it remains, because the racing has been just as competitive. There are some new faces that get to compete. So I think it's a great leveling tool."

But as they say on the race track, getting to the leader is one thing, and passing him is something else entirely. The first three weeks have given plenty of drivers reason to hope. There's Reutimann, showing he's the real thing. There's Waltrip, hanging around the top 12 in points, showing he's not finished. There's Vickers and the Red Bull gang, showing what they're capable of. There are guys like Stremme and Gilliland and Regan Smith, stealing top-20 finishes. The next step is a big one -- one of them winning a race, and smashing through that Hendrick-Roush-Gibbs-Childress glass ceiling that's been in place for the past two seasons. That would be a sure sign that the level of competition on display last week in Las Vegas was a real indication of progress, and not just a desert mirage.

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That day is coming, Norris believes. "I think Major League Baseball was excited to see a young Tampa Bay Rays team go to the World Series, and show it's not always just the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Dodgers," he said. "I think it's good for the sport to see new faces be competitive on a consistent basis, because you don't want to go there knowing what the outcome of the race is going to be. You want to see a little bit of drama. I think a statement has already been made by our company, and to some extent Red Bull with Vickers running as well as he has. We've shown that we're here and we're going to be one of the next teams that breaks through."

Labonte, whose car is technically owned by Hall of Fame Racing but prepared and fielded by Yates Racing, agreed. "It's good to see a lot of diversity at the front right now," the 2000 series champion said. "Our sport needs this, and it's great. There are a lot of Michael Waltrip fans who are happy, Tony Stewart has to have a lot of relief and confidence now, and look at a young driver like David Reutimann. It's all about building confidence."

To NASCAR, it's not necessarily about how many teams win races, but how many teams have the opportunity to do so. "It's really not how many win," Pemberton said. "You want everybody to have a chance. It's about having a level playing field where everybody can compete. ... It's not about having 15 winners or 36 winners or anything like that. It's just about having good, competitive races. I think as always, you'll see a team break out and get half a dozen wins or so, and they may dominate in the win column, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll gain the most in points."

And again, he warns, it's too soon to jump to any conclusions. But if the season wears on, and Reutimann hangs in there and Labonte has a few more good runs in him and Stremme or Vickers manages to crash Victory Lane -- well, then it might just start to feel like 2001 all over again.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.