Wild-card races, X-factor races, whatever you want to call those events that have the potential to quickly alter the look of the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, they have been fairly easy to identify.</p><p>They have been the races at Talladega, Ala., and Martinsville, Va.</p><p>This year, however, a third X-factor race may have sneaked into the lineup. A race that normally would be viewed as pretty straightforward &#8212; and one in which surprises would be few and drama very standard.</p><p>That race is the Camping World RV 400 scheduled for Sunday at Kansas Speedway. The fact is, this year&#8217;s Kansas race is causing some teams and drivers a bit of concern.</p><p>&#8220;I think Kansas will be really interesting to watch,&#8221; Chase driver Jeff Burton said a couple of weeks ago. &#8220;I think you could see some people really struggle at Kansas that have run well at other places.&#8221;</p><p>It&#8217;s obvious why Talladega is considered an X-factor race. It&#8217;s a restrictor-plate race that produces tight, side-by-side racing lap after lap at 200 mph. The big wrecks there happen quickly and relatively often. When the tire smoke clears, broken cars and hopes can litter the place.</p><p>Martinsville&#8217;s status as an X-factor race is built on wrecks as well. The .525-mile track shaped like a paper clip does not have the dramatic crashes that occur at Talladega, but it has lots of smaller ones that can be just as dangerous to those gathering Chase points.</p><p>But Kansas? It&#8217;s a 1.5-mile &#8220;cookie-cutter.&#8221; Setting up cars is straightforward, and crashes are of lesser concern to teams and drivers.</p><p>But this year, things are a smidge different. This year, teams will be using the Cars of Tomorrow for the first time at Kansas.</p><p>Not only that, they will be using the cars with the rear wings and front splitters without having tested them at the track. Sprint Cup teams will show up for practice on Friday with zero data that specifically relates to the track and the new cars.</p><p>Hence Burton&#8217;s view that Kansas will be &#8220;interesting.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Data is really important,&#8221; Burton said. &#8220;Track information is really important, and I&#8217;m not sure really anybody will have it for Kansas, so that&#8217;s a huge point to pay attention to. Kansas is a tough racetrack.&#8221;</p><p>Teams have tested and used the new cars at several of the other 1.5-mile cookie-cutters. So they will have data from those places when they arrive at Kansas this weekend.</p><p>That should help, some drivers say.</p><p>&#8220;I think Chicago is fairly close to Kansas,&#8221; Jeff Gordon said. &#8220;We&#8217;ve run some 1.5-miles this year, and if I could compare Kentucky to any track that&#8217;s on our schedule, the closest one is Kansas. The grip level is less, but the banking is probably the closest.&#8221;</p><p>Greg Biffle, who comes to Kansas having won the first two races of the Chase, added: &#8220;We&#8217;ll be able to take something we used at some other racetrack, Chicago or wherever, and really be real close to it. And it probably won&#8217;t take us long to get up to speed.&#8221;</p><p>Chicago, however, was run in the humid, high temperatures of mid-July. The track was hotter and greasier than Kansas on Sunday.</p><p>Burton said that could have an effect on transferring data from there to here.</p><p>&#8220;I think one thing that we&#8217;ve seen especially in the summer as the tracks get slicker, I think it becomes even harder to make these cars do what you want them to do,&#8221; Burton said. &#8220;I think that the variance will narrow a little bit as the track temps come down. Why they&#8217;re so finicky and why they&#8217;re so picky I don&#8217;t know, but they are.&#8221;</p><p>Some drivers and crew chiefs will tell you that Kentucky Speedway is also very similar to Kansas and that many teams have tested at that facility in recent weeks specifically to prep for Kansas.</p><p>And, all drivers will tell you that while cookie-cutters may look similar, they are all different from each other.</p><p>It will be very important for teams to extract good data and good finishes at Kansas this weekend. The race here is the first of five in the 10-race Chase that will be run on 1.5-mile triovals.</p><p>Teams that have struggled at 1.5-mile tracks in the new cars this season &#8212; such as Gordon&#8217;s &#8212; had better figure things out at Kansas if they expect to remain in contention for a championship.</p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">Camping World RV 400 </span></strong><br /> <strong>&#8226;WHEN/WHERE: </strong>1 p.m. Sunday at Kansas Speedway</p><p><strong>&#8226;TV: </strong>Chs. 2, 9</p><p></div>