LONG POND, Penn. -- With double points paid for the season finale at Sonoma Raceway, the Verizon IndyCar Series championship is guaranteed to be decided in the final round.
But that doesn't make this weekend's penultimate race -- the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono Raceway -- any less important.
Ten drivers head to Pocono still mathematically eligible for the IndyCar title, but only five are realistically still in contention. It's an intriguing group of prior champions, along with one popular veteran seeking his first season-long crown and a surprise upstart.
The versatile and well-traveled Juan Pablo Montoya has led the point standings all season long, powered by victories in the season opener at St. Petersburg and the Indianapolis 500. However, Montoya's lead has shrunk to just nine points, the smallest margin the Colombian has enjoyed all year long.
Having dominated this year's Indy 500 on the heels of his Indy car "comeback" win at Pocono last summer, Montoya should be in a good position this weekend to solidify his points lead prior to the Aug. 30 season finale at Sonoma.
"We won at Pocono last year, and we should run pretty good going to the next races as well, so I don't know," Montoya told reporters during a conference call this week. "We tested in Sonoma last week, did some laps there and learned some stuff.
"I think we're in good shape but you can't really know what's going to happen," he added. "I mean, we've done a really good job all year, and like everybody else, had ups and downs. We'll see what it brings."
In some respects, this has been a championship that nobody seems to want to win. No driver has won more than two races this year; five drivers -- Montoya, Graham Rahal, Scott Dixon, Josef Newgarden and Sebastien Bourdais -- have accomplished that feat.
Rahal added a popular hometown victory at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in a race that looked to be headed Montoya's way. The second-generation star has put together his most successful season to date. If momentum is the key for these last two races, that is definitely something the 26-year-old Rahal is riding right now.
However, he has not finished higher than 18th in two Pocono starts, and his best result at Sonoma is fifth place at a track where title contenders Dixon and defending series champion Will Power are known masters.
"We're in a good place and we've got momentum on our side for sure with four top-fives in a row," Rahal said. "It's been a record-breaking season for me, so at this point I'm just going to go out there and try to have fun and do the best we can and hopefully everything will take care of itself.
"If we put ourselves in a good position and we're smart throughout the race and weekend, then hopefully we'll be in a place where, come the end of it, we can go for it and go for a win."
For Dixon, 34 points behind Montoya, and his Team Penske teammates Helio Castroneves and Will Power (58 and 59 points back respectively), winning at Sonoma is almost imperative if they want to have a decent shot at the title at Sonoma. Dixon said his goal at Pocono is to halve his deficit to Montoya.
The 34-point gap between first and third in the standings with two races remaining makes this IndyCar's closest three-way championship battle since 2009.
"We've really just got to go out and try and win," Dixon stated. "The championship contenders are all going to be very competitive, very competitive teams, and you're going to have to just chip away at it.
"I think for us, you're going to hope for a little bit of bad luck or a mechanical issue with Juan, but those are generally not seen too many times in the current racing formula," he added. "We've just got to go with it. We've just got to try to do our job, focus on doing our job right, and if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."
Castroneves is the only championship contender who has not won a race in 2015. The Brazilian is seeking his first Indy Car title in his 18th season of competition, though his legacy is cast in brick thanks to his three wins in the Indianapolis 500.
At 40 years of age, the enthusiastic Brazilian may find that title runs come fewer and farther between.
"We've had some really good runs at Pocono over the last two years," Castroneves said. "Unfortunately, we haven't been able to seal the deal with a win yet, but I believe it is just around the corner.
"Even without winning, we are still in the thick of the championship race once again," Helio continued. "Now is the time for us to break through with a victory and go to Sonoma -- where anything can happen -- with some momentum."
If any of the five contending drivers is the most likely to sweep both races whether it results in a championship or not, it's Power. The Australian looked like he was on the way to winning at Pocono in 2014 before he incurred a penalty for blocking, and no one has a better track record at Sonoma.
If Power can put himself within 25 or 30 points of the championship lead after Pocono, the double-points factor at Sonoma could become a huge advantage. Even though he's fifth in the standings with a 59-point deficit to overcome, the defending IndyCar Series champion still believes he can repeat.
"Absolutely, as long as it's mathematically possible," he acknowledged. "You've got to keep your head in the game. Two pretty strong tracks for me coming up here; I really like Pocono and obviously Sonoma has been really good for me in the past.
"All I'm thinking about is winning two races, that's it," Power declared. "I'm not thinking about anyone else or anything else. At that point we'll see what the end result is. If we can do that, I think that we'd actually have a pretty good chance at winning."