Chase contenders feel impact of Indy; field remains tight with six to go
By Rea White - Associate Editor
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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Rusty Jarrett / Getty Images for NASCAR
Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton (left), Clint Bowyer (center), and Kevin Harvick are three of the 15 drivers in position to battle for a spot in the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup.
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While Sunday's Allstate 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway will be remembered for a lot of things, the event has notably shuffled the field of drivers vying for a spot in the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup.
With six races to go before the championship-contending field is set, the points positions continue to shuffle, and the battle for the final spots tightens. If this continues, it could be the tightest race for the last position in recent years.
While the top three drivers endured separate fates at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Sunday, they each held on to their position. Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch finished 15th after a problematic pit stop, suffering only a slight dip in his points lead. He still holds a 253-point advantage over Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 12th. Richard Childress Racing's Jeff Burton led for 10 laps before finishing ninth. He's 271 behind Busch and 18 out of second.
Beyond that, only three of the top 15 drivers exited Indianapolis in the same position they held entering the race. Hendrick's Jeff Gordon remained sixth, Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle held on to seventh and Joe Gibbs Racing's Tony Stewart stayed in 10th. Stewart did suffer a dip in his points advantage over 13th position, though, with 10 points being shaved from that edge. He's now 39 points ahead of the driver in that spot, which this week is RCR's Kevin Harvick.
A minor shift occurred near the top as race-winner Jimmie Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports team slipped past Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards, who finished second. Johnson is now fourth in the standings, Edwards fifth.
After that, it's been a continual swinging door of drivers in positions eighth through 13th. No one in that group appears to be safely into the field at this point.
To say things are tight is an understatement. The seventh through 13th positions are separated by 100 points, a wider margin than the previous week, but the 12th through 14th spots sport a gap of only 56 points.
Drivers are feeling the heat as the time left to make the Chase shrinks.
Still, most are working to overcome the pressure this engenders. Harvick seemed to bristle at the suggestion he was on the bubble in the days before the race, pointing to his ninth position as if it offered some safety. Even then, though, he took an outwardly calm approach to the coming showdown for those final spots.
"You just go out and race as hard as you can. Wherever it falls is where it falls, and that is how it was meant to be," he said at the time.
Days later, after an accident in the race and a fall of four positions, he maintained that calm demeanor. A veteran of the Chase, Harvick knows what this crunch period means - and how to handle it.
"I think we will be fine for the Chase," he said.
His teammate, Clint Bowyer, jumped over Harvick and took the 12th spot after spending a week outside the group.
Bowyer admits that he'd like to see his team step up the pace a little entering this stretch. He says that they started the season on a high note, but that the 1.5-mile tracks that dominate the schedule have been "the dagger" for the team, and they're testing and trying to get things figured out.
"We don’t have the answer right now," he said prior to racing at Indy. "It doesn’t fall in your lap. It’s due to hard work, what got us here, and the hard work is going to get us out of this slump. It’s definitely crunch time. We’ve got to get going. Top-10’s are what will put you there, but we need to start running in the top five and contending for wins. At the beginning of the season, I was happy with the way that my team was running. We’ve answered the call and been doing the things that we need to do to get things turned around.”
Others are looking for a little more as well. Some seem more comfortable than others with what appears, from the outside, to be somewhat precarious positioning. Gillett Evernham Motosports' Kasey Kahne, who climbed two spots to ninth last weekend, has maintained that he's confident his team will be in the Chase based on their performance this season. That includes two wins and a victory in the non-points all-star race.
JGR's Denny Hamlin climbed four spots Sunday to move to eighth, a more comfortable position entering this final stretch. Roush Fenway's Matt Kenseth fell three spots after his tire failure and the ensuing damage to his car.
Outside of that group sit a group of drivers trying to move past this top 13. Roush Fenway's David Ragan was briefly in the top 12 earlier this season and has steadily improved over the course of the year in an effort to break into the Chase. He gained one crucial spot Sunday, to 14th, and is 56 points outside of the locked-in group.
"Certainly, making the Chase is our number-one priority right now – top-five, top-10 finishes, that’s what’s going to get us there," he says.
The top 14 appear to the be only drivers with a solid chance at making the Chase, but Red Bull Racing's Brian Vickers clings to an outside shot at the field. He lost a spot to Ragan and dropped to 132 outside of the group with an engine failure Sunday at Indy. But points can be regained as quickly as they are lost, so he cannot be counted out.
He understands, though, that his task just became incrementally more difficult.
"We definitely couldn't afford to take a points hit," he said after the race. "It's a tough day out there."
So with six races to go, 15 men are aiming for 12 spots in the standings. Unless something changes, positions are likely to continue to shift week to week, and it will be late Sept. 6 at Richmond before the final pieces of the Chase field become clear.
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Brian Vickers
Comments
2 responses to "Chase contenders feel impact of Indy; field remains tight with six to go"
Mark Ernst said:
Jul 29, 2008 at 2:25 PMIts going to be interesting to see where the top 12 stands after Watkins Glen.
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» Confirm Abuse ReportPaul Williams said:
Jul 29, 2008 at 2:31 PMSo was the tire thing Sunday really a lack of planning, or is it the next step up in manipulating standings like the late caution flags the driver's aren't allowed to talk about any more? By the way, Tony Stewart didn't have to tell us that, NASCAR, we're not nearly as dumb as you think. "Six races left, let's bunch up the top 15 spots so we can make the 'race to the chase' more exciting."
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