The most recent Toyota/SaveMart 350 at Infineon Raceway was the perfect example of why there needs to be a road race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

That conclusion took some thought. And blame me if you want to for not paying attention or otherwise losing track of the whole dad-blamed thing.

It wasn't hard to do, if you think about it.

Infineon incidents

• Troublesome Turn 11
• Troublesome Turn 7
• Spin 'round and round
• More trouble at 11
• Hits and near misses
• Running into a wall

A.J. Allmendinger cut a tire, stumbled around for half a lap before he made it to pit road, and promptly lost a lap. Clint Bowyer got tangled up with someone whose identity escapes me and spun out, losing precious track position. Elliott Sadler lost it at the one place on this race track where you just don't want to screw up and backed 'er into the fence.

Game, set and match times three, right? Wrong-o. They all scored top-10 finishes.

It doesn't get any better than that, and that's the beauty of road-course racing -- and at the same time, the beguiling agony of it all.

It's damned hard to keep track of and you, by God, have to pay attention. Sounds like any other race on this series, really.

But would any other race, or any other place, deliver the racing, the fender banging and the outright drama that Sunday's show did, in so many different places? I doubt it. Your typical NASCAR track doesn't have that many places.

And you want to know what the strangest thing was? Two-thirds of the way through the deal, I would have hardly endorsed the two road races currently on the circuit, never mind advocating one in the Chase.

And that's borderline criminal for a guy that literally grew up at what was, to me and my brothers, the closest thing this side of heaven for road racing, starting at George Weaver's Thompson Raceway in northeastern Connecticut.

I was a semi-professional corner worker for 17 years, putting out fires, dodging cars and flying parts, and learning that road racing was no doubt, just about all that.

And two-thirds of the way through Sunday's event, when I sat down in front of the TV to finally pay attention I barely knew what was what. I never did find out what happened to Mark Martin. I know he was in a three-car shuffle at the hairpin with a lap to go, but his sun had set long before that.

And if he was racing at Charlotte, Atlanta or Homestead, you wouldn't have known any more. And chances are the episode that delivered the final torpedo to his day wouldn't have happened at any of those venues; so take that little bit of drama for what it's worth.

We're still finding out exactly what kind of twists double-file restarts are going to bring and I guarantee you, we haven't seen the best of that, yet.

But the edgy anticipation each successive restart created on Sunday -- never mind that Turn 2 was misinterpreted as the ghoul-in-waiting; when in fact it should have been Turn 7, up at the far end of the course, where loads more of the decisive action always happens -- was priceless.

If you're going to be the champion, you've got to be able to walk the walk, and that's in any type of footwear the series presents. The Chase already has too many intermediates. It also has a short track and a superspeedway.

It needs a road course to fully define the champion. Everything that happened Sunday at Infineon was much more in the athletes' hands than the typical Talladega disaster, if it actually happens.

Let's put it this way. If a guy on a lengthy losing streak could hold off a bona fide title contender and former Infineon winner and win the race, well, that's what the Chase deserves -- and demands. (Continued)