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Who framed Roger Rabbit?

It was the Judge. He had the Dip.

That was easy, huh? Okay. Who wins the Sprint Cup next year?

Whoever stays clear of the Weasels, that's who.

It's all a matter of timing, this Chase format. The difficulty is that no one understands the timing in advance. Once it starts, it's not just a matter of winning. Get eliminated in the first round, and a victory doesn't mean anything other than a wad of cash and a burnout.

A wad of cash would come in handy for me and you, brother, but, for the man who has everything? Aw, dude, this money gets old. I want a championship, and I want it now.

By the way, here's what must happen in 2016. Someone must start filling voids. Jeff Gordon is going to be in the broadcast booth, where there are lots of things with which to quibble but no voids. Gordon is going to be missed on the track and, after one more year, so will Tony Stewart. The most popular driver for the past 13 years, Dale Earnhardt Jr., is now 41 and still Cupless. Roughly half the fans favor him.

From NASCAR's perspective, nothing would be better than a championship for Junior Nation. This has been true for many years now.

Kevin Harvick turned 40 on Tuesday. Jimmie Johnson is already there. Matt Kenseth is 43. They're all still vital, competitive and winning races, but clocks are ticking.

I must have encountered a hundred fans who've told me, Well, when Gordon steps down, that's it for me, and it's not at the track. It's at the office supply. It's in the waiting room or the grocery store.

People ask me about NASCAR all the time. They think I know something about it.

I tell them I used to. I still watch it from a distance. I still read my emails. I talk to old friends still trapped out on that infernal merry-go-round. It's not the same, though. I read what drivers say in media conferences with moderators and canned questions. I don't talk with fabricators between the haulers. I never hear, Hey, psst. You didn't hear it from me, but …

My guess is that, for every hundred fans who say they're done with NASCAR, about 90 keep watching. If they don't keep watching, I can assure you they still pay attention to what I have to write. It amazes me that I can write a column about racing, and someone will comment, Personally, I gave it up when David Pearson hung up his helmet.

He still reads me. Wow.

"He," whoever he might be, and that includes "she," is going to have to embrace the future because, self-evidently, it's coming. He's got to find somebody new, which in some cases, is a recurring theme. Somebody out there has bounced through time from Fireball Roberts to Richard Petty to Darrell Waltrip to Jeff Gordon, and now he (or she) is going to have to make either a short-term transition to a Johnson or a Harvick, or he's going to make an investment for the future with a Kyle Busch or a Joey Logano, or he's going to have to make up his mind which young'un -- Chase Elliott, or Ryan Blaney, or Erik Jones, or Darrell Wallace Jr., or someone presently on American Idol — is for real.

The future is uncertain, but there's no getting around the fact that there is one.