Does season of surprises have one more to offer?

Even if you didn't work in the racing business -- say, even, you were a peripheral fan -- people would still ask the question, particularly this week:

"Who's gonna win the Sprint Cup championship?"

Clinch scenarios

Plenty to be decided during Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami.

• To win the Cup
• Purchase tickets

After some of what we've seen so far in this 2010 Chase -- your answer should be as quick and easy as mine would be:

"It would be a surprise to me."

I mean, just look at the crazy sh-- ... I mean, stuff that's happened so far, please.

Who would have ever thought that Jimmie Johnson would get wrecked twice and finish 25th in the Chase opener at New Hampshire -- or that Tony Stewart would be looking at the white flag while leading, only to run out of gas and finish 24th?

You don't even want to go near Clint Bowyer winning the Chase opener and then, three days later, having his car's chassis be declared out of spec, resulting in a 150-point penalty that took Bowyer and his team out of Chase contention.

The only surprise there is, even with those 150 points added back in and, in a regular-season points mode, Bowyer still would be only in ninth in the championship -- though he would be fifth in the Chase.

You couldn't have predicted that current third-place championship contender Kevin Harvick would have attacked Denny Hamlin's car with his own ride -- both getting onto the race track for opening practice at Dover and again once they got there -- any more than you could have predicted current championship leader Hamlin inciting Harvick by launching into a verbal assault on Richard Childress Racing's credibility and honesty, earlier that day.

But you had to be just as shocked at Stewart's inability to get out of his own way at Dover, which put him in a 165-point hole.

As the Chase went on, frustration certainly was no surprise as first Jeff Gordon -- whose failed to really step up in this Chase after a consistent season that's seen him score a better average finish than Hamlin, despite being outrun in the victories column, 8-0 -- and Kurt Busch went at it, at Martinsville.

By the time the epitome of frustration occurred at Texas, this time between Gordon and Jeff Burton, who wrecked under caution; the "surprise me this" meter had been pegged.

Never mind the absolute pandemonium that reigned at Talladega when a caution flew as leaders Bowyer and Harvick streamed under the white flag. It was no surprise that Bowyer -- who eventually was declared the winner -- unleashed seven races of pent-up emotion in a swirling burnout while Harvick sat quietly in his car near the start/finish line.

And it all culminated at Phoenix, where Hamlin -- especially according to many in the on-site media corps -- was all but gift-wrapping his championship acceptance speech when all of a sudden he ran out of tape, errrr, paper, errrr, fuel.

That outcome had to be the surprise of the year, and the perfect setting for a true "who knows" championship finale at Homestead. (Continued)