Quite naturally for a sport that opens with its biggest event and closes with a championship coronation, most of the focus on NASCAR is on the beginning and the end. The Daytona 500 brings with it a welcome respite from a cold, dark offseason, all of it played out in Florida sunshine and upon the circuit's grandest stage. The Chase turns the final 10 events into a pulse-pounding crucible of nerves and intensity, where even the smallest mistakes can have massive ramifications. Together they are the bookends of the Sprint Cup season, magnets for attention that help support everything that comes in between.

It goes without question that they are the most important parts of a long campaign, even though every race on the schedule pays the same in terms of points. But to find the most interesting, the most enjoyable, the most fun segment of the whole season, just take a look at the races going on around you right now. There's the biggest track, the smallest tracks, the quirkiest tracks, the oldest tracks, the longest race. The period between Bristol and the Coca-Cola 600 provides an abundance of the unusual, a cornucopia of differing challenges, and a welcome break from the 1.5-mile, tri-oval routine. In NASCAR terms, this is the most wonderful time of the year.

Think about it. You start with Bristol, a half-mile cereal bowl that's arguably the most beloved track in NASCAR, which had sold out 55 straight races before the lingering effects of the recession finally took its toll. You move on to Martinsville, which produces some of the best racing on the circuit, and Monday saw Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth fuming at one another, and Denny Hamlin banging his way to the front. You head to Phoenix, that ancient D-shaped oval in the desert, a track that can be as unforgiving as the stark landscape around it. Then there's Texas, which is a 1.5-mile tri-oval, but an exceedingly fast one run by a promoter who's never shy about stirring things up. Next is big, fast, mean Talladega, where anything can happen, and usually does.

It's on to Richmond, a .75-mile layout that's often full of fun and calamity and leaves drivers wanting to take swings at one another. Next is Darlington, a grand old lady that's still as difficult to master as it was half a century ago, and where the walls still bite. Then it's Dover, a 1-mile concrete pit that perhaps offers the best combination of big-track speed and short-track action, and where even a mild fender-bender can collect half the field. And finally we move to Charlotte, first for that Saturday night of no-consequences chaos known as the All-Star event, and then finally for the 600. When the sun at last sets on the longest and most punishing event in all of major motorsports, it also sets on the absolute best NASCAR has to offer. (Continued)