There are two races to go before NASCAR resets its Cup Series points and Kevin Harvick sees his massive 279–point lead over Jeff Gordon disappear — probably to move into third place behind Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin.

Oh, the lengths that NASCAR will go to in order to get some compelling late season drama.

But as I have said before, NASCAR is not the end-all-be-all of stock car racing and there is a racing series that has quite a points battle playing out — no contrived machinations required.

With five races remaining before a champion is crowned in the ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards, there are currently eight drivers who are closer to the points leader than Gordon is to Harvick.

Currently, Craig Goess leads nine-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel by five points. Third-place Patrick Sheltra, coming off back-to-back wins, is only 10 points back, and fourth-place Tom Hessert is only 25 points out of the lead.

Dakoda Armstrong, Justin Marks and Mikey Kile, fifth, sixth and seventh, are all within striking distance, less than 150 points back.

It looks like it is going to be a repeat of last year’s intense points battle that came down to the last lap of the season-ending American 200 at the Rockingham Speedway. The 2009 championship came down to a matter of positions on the last lap with current Camping World Series driver Justin Lofton edging current Nationwide Series driver Parker Kligerman. Kligerman won the race and Lofton finished third. Lofton won the championship by five points.

Whatever ARCA is doing to get the close points battles is working, and NASCAR may need to follow suit.

Since the inception of the Chase in 2004, we have really only seen one compelling season finale and that was the first year when Kurt Busch came back from losing a wheel to finish high enough to clip Jimmie Johnson by eight points.

In 2005, Tony Stewart clinched the championship by 35 points even though Greg Biffle won the season finale at Miami-Homestead. Jimmie Johnson’s smallest margin of victory in his four championship seasons has been 56 points.

ARCA awards points in decreasing five-point increments with the winner getting 200 points. There are also points awarded for qualifying in the top-three with the pole sitter getting 15 points, the outside pole getting 10 points and the third place qualifier getting five points.

Like in NASCAR, five points are awarded to any lap leader and five more awarded to the driver who leads the most laps. So, theoretically, a driver could win the pole, lead the most laps and win the race and be awarded 225 points for the race weekend. That would easily give him a 20-point advantage for the race, even if the closest competitor finishes second.

Those types of swings are common in NASCAR, but it requires your closest competitor or competitors to have a bad day. In ARCA, there is definitely a ­premium on qualifying well, running well and, most importantly, winning races.

And that may be what makes it really compelling.

Contact Andy Cagle at andycagle@earthlink.net.