Tempers Flare as "Manufactured" Drama Boils Over

While the powers that be might have been protecting their winner, the rest of the field was busy trying to take each other out. This new "In-Season Challenge" -NASCAR's attempt to inject some NBA-style bracket drama into the season for a million bucks - is already paying dividends in the form of bent sheet metal and hot tempers.

Joey Logano was absolutely spitting fire at Ross Chastain after the race. "Typical Ross," Logano fumed, claiming Chastain wrecked him on purpose. We've seen this movie before, but with a million-dollar prize on the line in these mini-matchups, do you think these guys are going to be playing nice?

And don't even get me started on Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace. They were in a head-to-head tournament battle, and it showed. The two were banging off each other like pinballs, a continuation of their scrap here last year. Bowman's comments afterward were dripping with sarcasm. "I wasn't expecting that to happen or to get raced like that," he said. What did he expect? NASCAR is throwing money at these guys to create rivalries, and that's exactly what's happening.

So, as we leave the Windy City, we're left with more questions than answers. We have a dominant winner who just happened to benefit from a perfectly-timed caution. We have drivers at each other's throats, fueled by a new system designed to create exactly that.

It was an entertaining weekend, for sure. But was it real, honest-to-goodness racing, or was it a carefully produced television show? You tell me.