Presenting Greg Biffle, your regular season points champion. (Getty)

Greg Biffle's proclamation of championship contention at Michigan made sense. After all, his second win of the season had vaulted him back into the points lead, a lead that he ended up keeping through Richmond.

And yet for many, it was still somewhat surprising. Greg Biffle? He's going to win the championship?

No, it's not crazy. Immediately boosted by a second place finish to teammate Matt Kenseth in the Daytona 500, Biffle hasn't been lower than fourth in the points all season, and even that was only for a week after Kentucky. The rest of the time, he's been firmly planted in the top three.

Maybe a 16th place finish the preceding year really does divert attention from you the following season, no matter how well you do. But we'll say this, no one will be talking about Greg Biffle being overlooked if he is in fact at the head table at the Sprint Cup banquet.

Best Chase Track: That's Kansas, where Biffle has two wins and 7 top fives in 12 starts. And while the repave may mean any past

Kevin Harvick was third in 2011. (Getty)Quick, can you remember who finished third last year?

Yeah, OK, the headline of this post gives it away, but it was Kevin Harvick, who finished 58 points behind Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards.

Last year, Harvick entered the Chase tied for first with Kyle Busch thanks to four wins, including one at Richmond. This year, he enters tied for last after going winless in the first 26 races of the season. Quite the contrast.

Before he led 101 laps at Atlanta over Labor Day Weekend and finished fifth, the last time Harvick led a lap was at the Coca-Cola 600. And the last time he had led multiple laps was at Richmond in the spring.

After having Shane Wilson as his crew chief for the first 23 races of the season, Gil Martin, Harvick's crew chief last year, has been atop the box the last three races. In those three races, Harvick has finished 15th, fifth and 10th.

Best Chase Track: That's Homestead, where he's finished in the top 10 nine times in 11 starts. It's a nice comfort to have... assuming

Marcos Ambrose (F) and Aric Almirola are swapping crew chiefs. (Getty)Richard Petty Motorsports announced Monday that it would be swapping the crews for it's No. 43 team of Aric Almirola and No. 9 team of Marcos Ambrose for the remainder of the season.

The swaps include crew chiefs, as Mike Ford moves to the No. 9 and Todd Parrott moves atop Almirola's box.

"We're continuing to make improvements at Richard Petty Motorsports and we've added talented people to our organization this season," RPM director of competition Sammy Johns said in a release. "This move is to make sure that we are using that talent to the fullest to get the best results for our teams each weekend. We feel this adjustment will strengthen the organization, allow us to continue to compete for wins and ultimately challenge for championships."

Ford was Denny Hamlin's crew chief in 2011, and replaced Greg Erwin as Almirola's crew chief after the first nine races of the season. Almirola's highest finish in the 17 races they were together was a 6th place finish at Dover.

Ambrose and Parrott

Martin Truex Jr. will need to win to win the title. (Getty)

At times, it's looked like Martin Truex Jr. has been poised to grab his first win for Michael Waltrip Racing. But, alas, it hasn't been meant to be, whether it was at Kansas when the handling on his car disappeared when the sun came out or at Atlanta, when Jamie McMurray blew a tire with just four laps to go, erasing Truex's large lead.

And while he's 0-fer this season, those strong performances are the main reason he's in this year's Chase for the first time since he signed on with MWR. In 26 races, he has 14 top 10s.

The last two weekends, Truex has lamented his team's bad luck that's prevented them from reaching victory lane. But let's be honest; that luck will have to change rather quickly if Truex is to be a strong contender in the Chase. Will it?

Best Chase track: If you take away a crash at Talladega, Truex's lowest finish at a Chase track in 2012 is 12th. We'll go with Dover, the site of his only Sprint Cup Series win and where he finished seventh in June.

Worst

Sam Hornish Jr.'s Nationwide Series championship hopes took a hit Friday night at Richmond, and so did the protective foam on the right side of Timmy Hill's car.

Hornish was racing for position with Justin Allgaier and Ty Dillon and was frustrated with Allgaier moving low to protect his position on the backstretch. That allowed Dillon to try to go around both drivers on the high side in turns three and four, but Dillon scraped the wall doing so.

When Dillon hit the wall, Hornish had nowhere to go, and the contact between the two cut down Hornish's right front tire. Hornish lost control of his car in turn one, and slid into the outside wall.

As he was sliding down the track, Hill couldn't get close enough to the inside line to avoid him and sideswiped the rear end of Hornish's car. The impact sheared the right side of Hill's car like a can opener, ripping the foam on the inside of the sheet metal to shreds and throwing pieces all over the track. The red flag had to be displayed for the

Ryan Newman: officially a Stewart-Haas Racing driver for 2013. (Getty)

Ryan Newman is returning to Stewart-Haas Racing.

The driver of the No. 39 was scheduled to be a free agent at the end of 2012, but will be back on a one-year deal for 2013. Over the summer, both Newman and team owner/driver Tony Stewart said a priority was Newman's contract renewal.

SHR will field three full-time cars in 2013; for Stewart, Newman and Danica Patrick. However, Patrick is the only one of the three that has full-season sponsorship announced. Newman has operated with a variety of different sponsors while at SHR, and the team's biggest sponsor, the U.S. Army, announced earlier in the year that it wouldn't be returning to the team in 2013. On Sunday at Atlanta, Office Depot, Stewart's largest sponsor, announced that it wouldn't be returning to the hood of Stewart's car next year either.

With a win Saturday night at Richmond, Newman, currently 17^th in the Sprint Cup points standings, would qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. During his four-season tenure at Stewart-Haas

Will Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon each be celebrating Saturday night?

We know that two of NASCAR's biggest names won't be part of the 12 man Chase for the Sprint Cup Series field, and we'll find out which two Saturday night at Richmond.

Eight drivers are mathematically alive for the two Wild Card spots, but the most realistic opportunities belong to Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne. How realistic? Well, here are the clinching scenarios for each driver. (Note: Tony Stewart in 10th is guaranteed a place in the Chase, either via the top 10 or a Wild Card berth. His performance on Saturday could impact the Wild Card race significantly.

Kasey Kahne (11th, -18 points behind 10th, 2 wins): As the only driver outside the top 10 with two wins, Kahne's got the easiest path to the Chase. No matter what, if another of the seven drivers eligible for the Wild Card doesn't win, he's in the Chase. If he gains 19 points on Stewart, he's in the top 10 and in the Chase. If Busch gets into the top 10 (knocking Stewart into a Wild Card spot) and Gordon wins -- the

Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish Jr. were collected in a crash while racing for position with 56 laps to go in Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Atlanta.

Contact between Johnson's right rear and Hornish's left front fender triggered the crash and Newman, who was between Hornish and the wall, had nowhere to go.

Hornish, who had run in the top 10 for most of the evening, bounced back to finish 11th, while the crash was a blow to Newman's Chase hopes. One of the drivers contending for the Wild Card to get into the Chase, Newman now faces a win to get in scenario at Richmond.

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