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Less than ten points separates first and second place in the NASCAR championship playoffs. It seems the grandstands should be packed and folks should be glued to their televisions, but just the opposite seems to be happening.

Television ratings continue to be down from the past. Ticket sales seem to be declining too. Anybody at Atlanta Motor Speedway could tell there were more empty seats than we are accustomed to seeing.

Some of the attraction seems to fade for me as more of the 12 playoff drivers continue to be eliminated from having a chance at the top prize.

The question seems to be will Hendrick or Hendrick be the champion. I’m guessing Hendrick.

The contest for the big trophy is down to Jeff Gordon and his teammate/employee, Jimmy Johnson. Yes, you read it correctly. Jeff Gordon is listed as owner of the No. 48 on the NASCAR roster, so it looks like he is gonna win the championship either way.

Tony Stewart’s chances to win another stock car title faded as the sunset cast shadows on Atlanta Motor Speedway. His 30th place finish puts him 322 points behind leader Jeff Gordon and making up that much ground in the three races remaining would have to be declared a divine miracle.

The No. 20 might be at a slight technological disadvantage as the 2007 season wraps up. Stewart’s team probably isn’t getting any extra help from the other Chevrolet teams or home office since they discovered Joe Gibbs Racing is switching from American to Japanese cars next year.

Clint Bowyer is holding on loosely, as the old song goes. Bowyer seems to be the only contestant left in the battle that could possibly spoil the Hendrick parade to the head table in New York. Bowyer trails Gordon by 111 points and that is a margin that is still within striking distance if the two frontrunners slip during two of the next three events.

The championship playoffs are in Texas this weekend and Phoenix next weekend. The final race for the season will be held near Miami.

The other eight drivers in the playoff group know they will be taking a seat in the back as the media spotlight keeps focused on the Hendrick boys. They know about the only way to draw attention to their sponsors and teams will be to steal the thunder away from the three championship combatants.

Some of those teams, along with the others below 12th in the points, may use the Phoenix test as one last chance to learn some more about the Car of Tomorrow. Phoenix is the only COT race left on the 2007 schedule. The new racecar will be used at all events in 2008.

Texas Tea: It is back to the old style race cars for this week’s race at Texas Motor Speedway. The Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck drivers are at Texas Motor Speedway.

The 1.5-mile speedway near Fort Worth is celebrating ten years of NASCAR Winston/Nextel Cup racing this year. The speedway opened in 1997 with one race date each year until 2005.

A legal battle between stockholders of the track and NASCAR resulted in the second annual Nextel Cup race being placed on the schedule.

Jeff Burton is the only repeat winner at Texas Motor Speedway. Burton won the first race run at the speedway in 1997 and he claimed his second trophy at the track in April.

The active drivers with a single win at Texas are Mark Martin (1998), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2000), Dale Jarrett (2001), Matt Kenseth (2002), Ryan Newman (2003), Elliott Sadler (2004), Greg Biffle (2005), Carl Edwards (2005), Kasey Kahne (2006) and Tony Stewart (2006).

As indicated by the winner’s names, Jack Roush is the most successful team owner at the Texas facility. Roush has carried home first-place trophies for five of the 13 races held at the speedway since it opened.

The top-five finishers of the April race at Texas were Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Jamie McMurray. Burton only led the last lap of the race.

Jeff Gordon collected the bonus points for leading the most laps. The No. 24 led 173 of the 334-lap race. Nine drivers traded the lead 14 times during the event.

The other drivers leading more than five laps included Dale Earnhardt Jr. (96), Kurt Busch (42) and Matt Kenseth (16).

There were seven caution flag incidents and the race took just under three-and-a-half hours to complete.

Georgia Boys: Reed Sorenson scored his best-ever finish in Nextel Cup at his home track last weekend. The Peachtree City driver collected third-place pay in the Pep Boys 500, which by the way totaled more than 203,000. It was his third top-five finish this year and he advanced into 22nd place in the point standings.

Dawsonville’s Bill Elliott finished 18th in the Atlanta Motor Speedway run. Elliott has run 17 races in the No. 21 Ford this year.

David Ragan fell nine laps behind after a crash in his AMS contest. He finished 33rd and is ranked 23rd in the Nextel Cup point standings.

The Unadilla driver had much better results racing his Busch Series car at Memphis. Ragan finished third in that race and holds down fifth place on the Busch point chart.

Rockdale County’s Ron Young registered a good finish in the Memphis race, but received bad news later from NASCAR headquarters. Young finished 17th in the race, but a post-race inspection found an unapproved shock absorber part and his crew chief was fined $15,000. The pay for 17th place was listed as $18,700.

Cherokee County driver Chase Miller was back in a Busch car at Memphis. Miller finished 24th in a Ray Evernham Dodge in the Busch event.

Joey Clanton claimed his fifth top-ten finish of the season in the Craftsman Truck Series at Atlanta. Clanton finished sixth and is still in the running for the Rookie of the Year Award even though he has only run 14 of the 22 truck races this year.

The Fayette County driver will have a fulltime ride in the trucks next year.

Shane Sieg, of Tucker, was back in the driver’s seat for the Atlanta truck race. Sieg finished 17th driving the Woodstock-based Billy Ballew Motorsports entry.

The WSB 120 racing program will return Nov.10 on Newstalk 750 WSB Radio and www.wsbradio.com. For more race information visit our Fastcar Newsdesk at www.captainherb.net.