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The Chase is under way. One race down. Nine to go. All last week, I'd be driving around town, listening to the NASCAR Channel (90) on Sirius XM satellite radio, and I kept shaking my head at the notion that there would be any predictable pattern to the Chase. Callers and so-called experts picked their "first four out," their "last four in" and their champion, and it seemed to me that no one had an accurate way of making their picks.

Partly, this is because there is no accurate way, but almost everyone assumed that, of the 16 drivers in the Chase, the first four out would be the weakest, the last four would be the strongest and the champion would be the best.

Ah-ha-ha-ha.

Here's how the format works. The Chase, as it has existed for two glorious seasons now, is divided into four rounds. The 16 drivers are reduced to 12 after the first three races, eight after the next three, and four for the final race, the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The race winners advance in each round. The Chase begins with the drivers seeded based on their wins during the 26-race regular season. From then on, in subsequent rounds, everyone starts even. Regardless of what happens, four drivers will go into Homestead even. The best finisher among them wins the championship. The 2014 champion, Kevin Harvick, won the race.

What frustrated me, listening to all the experts -- and the racing TV shows followed the same pattern -- was that they all seemed to make their picks based on some predictable premise, and there is none in this format.

It reminds me of a game show, Let's Make a Deal, for instance. Okay, Denny Hamlin, you've won at Chicagoland. You're in the next round. Now, would you like to keep that win? Or, would you like to bet it all on what is behind the curtain? Do you want Door No. 1? Door No. 2? Or Door No. 3?

Hamlin can't really keep that win in the current Chase format. He could win again in New Hampshire on Sunday and the following week at Dover, and still he would be dead even with 11 other drivers when the Chase moves into the next round.

Races aren't predictable. Fans, commentators, writers, and even racers, who ought to know better, act as if they are.

Harvick, the reigning champion, finished 42nd in the opener. What that means is that, now, he is going to have to win one of the next two races to advance, and they are at tracks where he has won once in a combined 58 tries during his career. He may win one. He finished second and third at those two tracks earlier this year, but it isn't likely. Likely is against every principle in the Chase format. It's not designed to be fair. It's not designed to produce a champion who has had the best season. It's designed to be exciting.

If Harvick wins one of these two races, it will be exciting. Winning the lottery is exciting. Shoving Jimmie Johnson in the motorcoach area is exciting when caught on TV.

Lemme at him! Lemme at him! Put your dukes up, Johnson! You rat fink! Johnson's business manager stayed between the two drivers after the initial forearm shirk. He looked more like the pro wrestling manager.

Somewhere Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers laughed. A year ago, Harvick was a deserving champion. The runner-up, Ryan Newman, didn't win a race all year. He almost won the championship. At Chicagoland, Newman finished fourth. He hasn't won a race all year again.

People keep asking me who's my pick. In my mind, I imagine that little machine that picks the numbers in the Powerball lottery.

And the first number is ... 11. No. 11! Denny Hamlin will move on to the next round!

So I close my eyes.

"My pick? Umm." A little ball pops out in my mind. Hmm. It's 20. "Matt Kenseth is my pick. Might as well. He might win."

On the next radio show, or to the lady who asks me at the tailgate party outside the Furman University football game, just to be sociable because she's heard I cover NASCAR, I might say 48. Or 18. Or 19. I might pick Carl Edwards because his number once belonged to Johnny Unitas. Or Jeff Gordon because he's got Willie Mays. The last thing I would do is pick the champion based on something tangible.

It's a turkey shoot. It's bobbing for apples. I might pick the right winner. After all, once, when I was in high school, I took part in a donkey softball game.