There’s a bit of symmetry in it all: four races remaining in the regular season, four spots remaining in the playoff. We’ve reached the point where it will be impossible to have more than 16 different winners, as much as some of us had hoped to see it, if just for the anxious spectacle it would create. While there’s still a chance to get to 16 winners and knock out anyone relying solely on points, we’re beyond the point of wild cards — no road courses or restrictor-plate venues remain to level the field for the long shots still holding out hope. The four tracks remaining all place a premium on the things the sport’s established powers do best.

For instance — Michigan International Speedway, site of Sunday’s Sprint Cup event, and where hours on the dynamometer and in the wind tunnel are prerequisites on a blisteringly fast 2-mile track. The last driver you might be able to term an upset winner in Brooklyn might have been Brian Vickers for Red Bull in 2009, but that’s probably unfair given the cash Dietrich Mateschitz was sinking into that program at the time. Before that, the last surprise there was perhaps Charlie Glotzbach in 1970, although owner Ray Nichels turned out some stout cars back in the day. Even at a track notorious for its fuel-mileage finales, the shockers are usually resigned to qualifying on Friday afternoon.

Then it’s on to Bristol, where Carl Edwards won in the spring, and which demands the kind of short-track rhythm which elite drivers do best, not to mention a car fast enough to prevent getting lapped on an early green-flag run. For all the focus on calamity and bump-and-run, the list of winners at Bristol is as star-studded as that of any other track. That kind of speed on a half-mile venue weeds out the field fairly quickly. There’s never really been a shocker at Bristol, which tends to be dominated for long stretches by truly great drivers — first by Cale Yarborough, then Darrell Waltrip, then Rusty Wallace, then the Busch brothers — until the next one finds the knack. For years, the place gave Jimmie Johnson fits, it’s so difficult. Drama? Plenty. Upsets? Unheard of.

Atlanta may be something of a different story. Jerry Nadeau scored his lone career victory there in 2000, and call-up Kevin Harvick pulled an emotional stunner the next season, but both those drivers were working for top owners — the former Rick Hendrick, the latter Richard Childress — and wheeling equipment unparalleled for their time. Morgan Shepherd won three times there between 1986 and ’93, his latter two victories coming for Bud Moore and the Wood Brothers in an era where those teams were still competitive. But this isn’t the ’90s anymore. Atlanta is another of those fast horsepower tracks, and the drivers who have historically owned the place are those with the most under the hood.

So then — Richmond. Sweat-it-out, bite-the-fingernails, don’t-get-wrecked, last-chance Richmond. We’ve seen the near-impossible happen there before, in the form of Jeremy Mayfield winning the race in 2004 to wedge his way into that inaugural Chase field the only way he could. The possibility certainly exists that we could witness something like that again — even if first-time winners run the table the next three weeks, there would still be room for one more on that Saturday night in the Virginia capital. As far as true upset potential, history points to Mayfield (whose Ray Evernham-owned team was better than the numbers might indicate) and Joe Nemechek winning in 2003. Nemechek that season, though, was a Hendrick driver. So does that really count?

Michigan will help clear the picture, albeit if only a little. A victory by any repeat winner this weekend will officially lock in all those drivers with one victory — guys we figured were in anyway — and bolster the hopes of those hoping to get in on points. Another first-time winner (Michigan mainstay Greg Biffle, maybe?) and the pressure really begins to build on those guys who have yet to visit Victory Lane. A playoff of 16 winners may seem a remote possibility, but if we get to Bristol or Atlanta and there’s still a chance of it — well, a few firesuit collars may begin to feel mighty tight indeed.

All that said, a tip of the cap to Allmendinger, who in almost certainly the final opportunity to do so gave us one more real underdog to go along with Aric Almirola, who pulled his shocker in the rain-shortened Daytona race in July. And while we’re at it, give some credit to David Ragan, who told us all along this kind of thing was coming, even though he won his Talladega race a year too early. At Watkins Glen, Allmendinger and Ambrose provided a dramatic, grand final hurrah for the little guys. Thanks for the show, gentlemen. But given the tracks remaining in the regular season and the demands required in the Chase, the big boys will take it from here.

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