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It's hard to believe it -- doesn't it feel like Ryan Newman won the season-opening Daytona 500 like a week ago? -- but the 2008 edition of the Chase for the Sprint Cup is now officially at full throttle following Sunday's first round of the ten race swing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Unless you were living under a rock Sunday or perhaps digging out from Hurricane Ike, -- which, obviously, is a perfectly good excuse to miss the first race of the Chase -- Greg Biffle made a quiet, yet steady, statement that he's in no mood to be counted out of a championship run.

Naturally, Biffle's win Sunday at New Hampshire -- his first since Kansas in '07 -- will put him towards the top of the "Chase Winners" category because, well, you can't do a whole lot better than win a race (but I do give him props for the direct shot with the champagne spray in the picture. That takes talent!). The real importance of this post, though, is to summarize how the rest of the Chasers handled their first foray into the 2008 championship battle.

Did Kyle Busch -- who led the point standings nearly all year -- prove his worth? Was Clint Bowyer ready to take off his disguise of barely making the Chase (he finished third in the championship battle a year ago) and put on his "I'm here to play for keeps" hat? And what about Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Was he ready for his first Chase with Hendrick Motorsports?

It's all here, folks, so jump on in and find out who were your Chase Winners and Chase Losers following Sunday's first round at New Hampshire:

Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, and Jimmie Johnson started Sunday's first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup at New Hampshire Motor Speedway as the odds-on favorites to battle for the championship.

And then Greg Biffle showed up, took the spotlight, and won Sunday's Sylvania 300 by passing none other than Jimmie Johnson in the closing laps.

Kyle Busch wasn't real happy with his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota over the course of the two practice sessions in preparations for this weekend's race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but thanks to the weather he started on the pole for Sunday's Sylvania 300.

The good luck didn't last long.

Are you a little confused about this NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup thing that SportsCenter keeps talking about? Don't wanna seem clueless when your buddy says Jimmie Johnson is going to win his third Chase in a row?

No worries! FanHouse has got yo' back for all things NASCAR -- even if you're not the biggest fan.

Here's some quick hits about the background of the Chase, the format, and what it takes to win it:

Purpose of Chase: Determines Sprint Cup Champion

Year Created: 2004

Reason Created: Some blame Matt Kenseth, some blame NASCAR's new title sponsor in '04, but regardless of reason, the Chase was created to enhance excitement in the final ten races by creating a close championship run.

After watching the interviews and reading them online following Sunday's Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, I'm confused about what Kyle Busch was saying.

And because I'm confused, I'm not going to make false assumptions. Speculation, though, is definitely going to happen.

Kyle was undoubtedly in horrible spirits after finishing 25th in the rain-shortened event. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has won five times in 2008 and leads the point standings, so he's just not used to running poorly.

Add to that getting knocked around under caution by Juan Pablo Montoya, and you can bet Busch wasn't going to be too happy in his post-race interview. Luckily, though, he obliged to the media's request and talked about his race. That's, though, where his comments got a little quirky:

"We missed something all weekend. I knew it was going to be a dismal day and I was trying to make the most of it," Busch said.

"If we had stayed out, we could have won the race, but I just didn't feel that was the right way to win a race. I didn't feel like we had a shot to hold off the guys that were going to be behind us."

So is it safe to assume that Kyle simply didn't want to win the race? Was he the one who made the decision to come to pit road when his brother didn't?

Juan Pablo Montoya's brutal honesty is so, so refreshing.

Following Sunday's Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, JPM fully admitted that he intentionally spun Sprint Cup point leader Kyle Busch late in the event under caution after the two had bumped on track. Before we go any further, watch below at 0:46:



As you can see, the discontent among the two began when Busch drove JPM up the hill in turn one. The two continued to make contact down the backstretch and when the caution came out for the crash between Clint Bowyer and Sam Hornish Jr., Busch banged into Montoya's drivers side.

That was enough to break Montoya's last straw.

As of noon local time Sunday, the New Hampshire Motor Speedway was dry.

By the time drivers should be reaching lap 100 around 3pm/ET in Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 -- 301? Really? -- the track might be a little damp thanks to weather in the area.

The forecast for the Loudon, New Hampshire area is for a 50% chance of heavy rain Sunday afternoon and a higher chance Sunday night. Glancing at the radar from the National Weather Service, rain is moving towards the area, but it doesn't look to be an all-day soaker.

The rain could do a favor for Patrick Carpentier after he shocked the NASCAR world Friday afternoon by putting his No. 10 Dodge on the pole for the Sprint Cup event. If the race gets postponed -- my money is that it won't -- then Carpentier will stay in the headlines for another day.

It is interesting, though, to see how this season especially NASCAR has gotten away from pushing up the start of a race due to an impending weather situation. The sanctioning body in the past has pushed through pre-race activities as fast as possible to get another 15-30 minutes ahead in the racing schedule, mainly to ensure that the race goes to halfway.

To me, at a track like New Hampshire without lights and thats a 15-hour drive from the team shops in North Carolina, it'd make sense to remove the threat of having to stay at the race track until Monday afternoon.

Hopefully, though, Sunday's race will get in as planned.

Be sure to come back to the FanHouse Sunday night for plenty of race coverage and some announcements of interactive opportunities coming up this week.

Casey Mears is officially leaving Hendrick Motorsports, effective at the end of 2008.

Mears, currently 24th in the Sprint Cup standings, leaves Hendrick after never doing anything that impressive while in the driver seat at the premier organization -- with the exception of one lone win at Lowe's Motor Speedway in 2007.

It's been a constant struggle for Mears this season to produce results like the rest of his Hendrick teammates Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. despite driving equipment built out of the same shop as Earnhardt. Dale Jr.'s No. 88 is currently 3rd in the standings.

Oddly enough, Mears' best finish of 2008 was just one week ago at Infineon Raceway when he brought the No. 5 Chevrolet home in fourth. Five finishes lower than 35th in 16 races this season, though, aren't wiped away with a single Top-5.

I like Casey Mears a lot -- he's a nice guy and doesn't cause problems on track -- but the statistics are much too telling about his performance at HMS. Granted he hasn't had the best of conditions to work under are switching racing teams and crew chiefs multiple times, but at some point, the results just have to come.

Mark Martin is rumored to be getting in the No. 5 for a last-ditch effort at a Sprint Cup title in 2009. From his performance in a few races in 2008 -- most notably at Phoenix -- the part-time Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver could really make some waves with the appropriate equipment.

Martin in the No. 5 for 2009? Sounds good to me.

You've really got wonder if now-former New Hampshire International Motor Speedway owner Bob Bahre really believes the words that are coming out of his mouth:

"He didn't make any promises, I want to make that clear," Bahre said. "But I don't think he's going to move any dates out of here.

Bahre's speedway was sold last week to Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. SMI owns the tracks of Atlanta, Bristol, Infineon, Las Vegas, Lowe's, and Texas.

There was rampant speculation last week -- including here at the Fanhouse -- that Smith would immediately move one or both of New Hampshire's Nextel Cup race dates to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Smith denied that such a plan was in place during the announcement, but he didn't necessarily say anything that denied the move could happen, either.

Now we've heard Smith deny that, but he also gave another plausible idea:

Ship a date away from Atlanta Motor Speedway.

If you think about the idea, it makes sense on the level of selling tickets. Atlanta had noticeably open seats two weeks ago while NHMS has sold out for years. Obviously, Atlanta is a bigger market, but California has proved how much that doesn't matter when it comes to selling tickets.

So one date at Atlanta for two at NHMS and Las Vegas? I don't know what I think about that. The history in Atlanta -- albeit an old configuration -- might be a little too much.

What say you?