Please keep your eyes on Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin. Then try to catch them if you can. Beep-beep.
Since the start of the 2014 season and NASCAR's current postseason format, Penske Racing (Logano, Keselowski) and Joe Gibbs Racing (the other four guys) have won 51 of 94 races. JGR has 28, and Team Penske has 23.
Those same six guys are all in the Top 10 in the points standings, combining for 15 victories in 22 races in 2016.
"To me what Penske does impressive is they're doing it with a lot less bullets in the gun than most organizations," said Larry McReynolds, a former crew chief and now a Fox Sports NASCAR analyst. "They only have two. I've always related race teams to kids. One is like one. Two is like two. Three is like 10 and four is like two dozen.
"The bigger you get, the more egos you have to deal with. To me that's what's so impressive about what Joe Gibbs Racing has done."
So kudos all around, but what gives?
It's unquestionably talent, with six of the best wheelmen in the sport today. But obviously it takes much more than that. It's the crew chiefs, the pit crews, engineers, cobbling together information and resources.
"Our Toyotas are really fast. I can't point to one thing," Edwards told reporters a few weeks ago in New Hampshire, where Kenseth won. "I think overall it's TRD (Toyota Racing Development) ... all the folks that do this and us teammates working together that give us those results."
Bottom line: Nobody does it better than those two teams.
While not surprising to anybody else in the NASCAR garages, it is disconcerting news, especially for the other four-star four-team groups.
Hendrick Motorsports, with Jimmie Johnson off his game and Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffering concussion-related symptoms, has faded as a once-dominant super power.
Stewart-Haas Racing does have more of a fighting chance, with Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch also in Top 5 standings territory, and boss man Tony Stewart making a late charge.
"The group you better not turn your back on _ and you better keep one eye open on _ is Stewart-Haas Racing," McReynolds said. "We have nicknamed Kevin Harvick 'Mr. Where Did He Come From?'
"We know what he can do when we get to the Chase. I know Kurt Busch has only won one race but those guys are as solid as a rock right now. There's no famine, only feast. Busch has completed every single lap of all races in 2016. It's a record."
But everything flips back to the other six guys, starting with Kurt's little brother Kyle, who has a championship to defend. And this time he won't need a mulligan to qualify for the Chase after missing the first 11 races of the 2015 season recuperating from injuries suffered during an Xfinity race in Daytona.
"It's definitely crazy the way it all that it all happened and the way it went down," Busch said at the start of the season. "It's obviously still a story we're talking about."
People might be talking about Kyle again in 2016. Just keep your eyes on those other five guys who are likely to lead the field on any given race weekend. Beep-beep.
