One thing is clear after the AAA 400 this weekend at Dover International Speedway:  The title is going to go to either Jimmie Johnson for a fourth consecutive time or Mark Martin.  They have no competition.  Despite the commentators' attempts to make the race interesting on Sunday, it wasn't.  Johnson took the lead from the pole, let some others lead for awhile and finally came out and smoked the field to the tune of 271 laps led out of the 400 laps run.  That means that he led almost 70 percent of the laps.  Is there any wonder why a lot of folks just stayed with the NFL game they were watching an hour before the race started?

So far, Martin and Johnson have dominated the Chase.  Martin has finished first and second and Johnson has finished first and fourth.  The only driver who can come close to that record is Juan Pablo Montoya, who finished third at Loudon and fourth at Dover -- and he's 65 points behind the leader.  To add to the misery, we can already count out Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards, Brian Vickers and Greg Biffle.  If Martin and Johnson continue to dominate races or even finish in the top 10, those four guys would have to win or be in the top three every race to catch them, and their record this season hints that isn't going to be possible.  That leaves us with a bunch of Chevrolets and a Toyota still in it.  And the Toyota is almost 22 points positions behind the leader with eight races to go.  It appears it will come down to Johnson and Martin unless one or both of them has trouble, which is a possibility. But given Johnson's track record, it's not likely.

Almost all the drivers have taken this reality check in stride, but not Greg Biffle.  Biffle has talked early and often about what he says was an unfair advantage given Johnson and Montoya earlier this year.  Biffle claims that NASCAR has promised drivers that no Chase participant would be allowed to test tires to be used at future races,  which would give them an unfair advantage when the real races (notice my sarcasm) started.   Apparently, Johnson and Montoya were allowed to test the Dover tire.  Then both drivers came out and ran well with Johnson winning and Montoya finishing fourth while Biffle and other struggled. 

I have no idea whether Johnson and Montoya got an unfair advantage by testing tires, but NASCAR had to be really (I'm looking for a better word here, but none comes to me) stupid to allow this to happen.  My guess is that wasn't playing favorites, but it certainly looks that way.  You have to ask why they allowed this to happen.  And if Biffle is correct in his asertation, it's downright totally stupid.  What surprised me is the cocky attitude the usually modest Johnson took when he won the race on Sunday.  All of a sudden, he became Eddie Haskell (with apologies to Carl Edwards).  He wanted to scare the opposition and if they wanted to blame a harmless tire test, so be it.  Maybe it was Mark Martin's proclamation that he was Superman that got to his head.

Since Friday, the hosts on Sirius Radio's NASCAR channel have pooh-poohed this tire test question. The company line has been that the testers didn't know which tire they were going to use and there was no way that anyone could get any advantage out of it.  In case you didn't know, these guys are so enamored with the decisions made by the boys in Daytona Beach, that it would be impossible for them to believe that a mistake had been made in anything  they do (I exaggerate here, but it is funny to hear them defend every decision made), but Danny "Chocolate" Myers, a guy who I respect, was so adamant that he asked Marcos Ambrose in a live interview if he thought the tire test gave divers an advantage.  Ambrose answered by saying that yes, it was an advantage.  Like I said, I don't know if it was an advantage or not given the pure briliance of that No. 48 team.  They remind me of another crew chief-driver combination that used to dominate.  Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon were just as brilliant in their time, and guess who the owner was then?  You guessed it.

You have to hope that the other teams make a run at the Hendrick Motorsports cars in the final eight races, and that's possible given the wildcard of Talladega the day after Halloween, but I fear it won't be enough to make it mildly interesting.  Unless, that is, you happen to be a fan of either Johnson or Martin.  That makes it all the sadder for the fans of  Ford, Dodge and Toyota teams.  With NASCAR's policy of bringing out the Car of Tomorrow and letting competition sort it out, it appears one organization has them covered.  I fully expect televison ratings to go down if things continue as they have.  And that's not good for the sport.