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I was thinking about the New Hampshire Motor Speedway race, the Sylvania 300, this morning, and it occurred to me how much the Chase for the Sprint Cup changes everything.

If this had been the race at NHMS earlier in the season, it would have been, Well, you've got to give Kevin Harvick credit because he took a chance in the name of victory. He didn't pull it off, but it was a hell of an effort.

Now, however, it's the Chase. Did he lose his mind?

Here's the way I see it. Harvick and his crew chief, Rodney Childers, went into the race thinking, We've got to win or there's no tomorrow. Things went badly in Joliet, and if we're going to stay alive, we've got to win at New Hampshire.

Harvick didn't just run out of fuel. He ran out with three laps to go. Those pesky Toyota drivers, first Denny Hamlin and then Matt Kenseth (who won), pressed him enough that he couldn't save enough.

It's tough. I've run out of gas myself. I've siphoned it and had to spit some out. Yecchh.

By the time it occurred to someone important that a couple of top fives might get Harvick into the -- what is it? -- Contender Round without a victory, the tactics were locked in. Harvick had no choice. Had he pitted late in the race for enough ethanol to make it, he would have had the same finish, give or take a few positions. He had no choice but to roll the dice, so to speak, because the die had been cast, so to speak, and the cliches scattered.

Now Harvick has one option left. He must win at Dover, where he has never won before, or else he is likely to be champion no more. When Harvick last pitted on the 212th of 300 laps on Sunday, he was penned in like cattle in a feed lot. Therein grew the likelihood of Chase extinction. The Chase can be an abattoir.

If Harvick does pull out a Dover victory, it will be next week's feeding frenzy. Trumpets will proclaim the wonder of it all. Hosannas will rise from an angelic choir. Steve Letarte will go 10 seconds without speaking.

Or, next week's frenzy could consist of going into the Contender Round with some major stars -- some combination of Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and maybe even Jeff Gordon -- out of the Chase, making such unexpected remarks as "wait till next year." All except Gordon, who has announced there will be no next year. Maybe he'll say something like, Thanks, everyone, and don't take this the wrong way, but good riddance. I am so out of here.

Oh, by the way, Earnhardt ran out of gas in Loudon, too. He finished 25th. Now he's 12th in the standings, and 12 drivers advance, and while he's got a 23-point edge on Harvick, he's got just one on Kyle Busch and, swear to God, Paul Menard. Jamie McMurray's up on Junior by one. Gordon's got a 12-point cushion. He'll be fine unless someone behind him in the standings -- oh, Busch or Harvick -- wins.

Meanwhile, Ryan Newman, last year's winless runner-up, is winless again but occupying a safe-seeming sixth -- say that three times real fast -- in the standings.

This is inevitable. This is the plan. It's the Chase. Everything about it is magnified, and everything about the individual races is diminished.

Now, all of a sudden, not even a Danica Patrick wreck gets much attention. If it does, it will be, Oh, Danica's wreck means Jimmie Johnson's going to get the "lucky dog"!

It's a caste system. Something happens to one of 16 drivers, and the fans and broadcasters scream, what will this do to the Chase! The writers don't scream. Their headlines do.

One of the other 27 drivers wins the pole, crashes, takes the lead, and it's a chess match. The announcers whisper as if Litvinov just took Aleksei's rook with his knight.

Kasey Kahne is in the top five, but don't worry because that doesn't mean anything.

Race? What race? This is the Chase, and the Chase is now NASCAR's base, and its ace, and its face, and its happy place, and its state of grace, and its trophy case, and its interplanetary space.

The Chase rocks, rolls and rules. It stirs the drink and erases the stink in everything but the kitchen sink.

When November 22 arrives in the Homestead tropic, NASCAR officials know there will still be something there. No matter what, four drivers are going to be dead-even for the Ford 400.

As the weekly email from Homestead-Miami Speedway reminds me, "there are now 2,877.58 Miles2Miami."