ON THE BUBBLE: Robby Gordon Motorsports outside top 35, among teams in danger of losing guaranteed starting spot
Robby Gordon's team is in danger of falling out of the top 35 in owner points.
// LaDon George, NASCAR Illustrated
Robby Gordon Motorsports is one of three Sprint Cup teams currently guaranteed a starting spot each week based on 2009 owner points, but is in danger of losing that protection heading into next week’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Bristol, the fifth race of the 2010 season, is the last event in which owner points from 2009 will be used to set the field. After Bristol, NASCAR will revert to current 2010 owner points to determine the 35 locked-in positions.
Front Row Motorsports’ No. 37 team, which features driver Kevin Conway but had Travis Kvapil in the car for the season-opening Daytona 500, is tied for 35th with Tommy Baldwin Racing, which features driver Mike Bliss. But Conway’s team is listed 36th in owner points because his car’s best finish is 31st, while Bliss – whose team currently has to qualify on speed – has a 22nd-place finish.
Latitude 43 Motorsports, with driver Boris Said, is 37th, 24 points behind Front Row and Tommy Baldwin Racing. Robby Gordon’s team is 38th, 27 points behind TBR.
Gordon, whose team is planning to run the full season with different drivers, has not finished on the lead lap all season and had a tire casing come off his tire just three laps into the race Sunday at Atlanta.
“No luck at all,” Gordon told his team after the accident.
There are five teams that are currently locked in but that are within 50 points of falling outside the top 35 – Bliss’ TBR team, Front Row’s No. 34 team with Kvapil (10-point cushion), Penske Racing’s No. 12 with Brad Keselowski (19 points), Front Row’s No. 38 with David Gilliland (42 points) and Penske’s No. 77 Sam Hornish (49 points). Up by 52 points is TRG Motorsports with Bobby Labonte, which, like TBR, does not have a guaranteed spot, although Labonte does have the option for a past champions provisional.
After Bristol, only the top 35 cars that show up for a race will be guaranteed starting positions. For those with a bad start to 2010, they must hope to get through Bristol without trouble.
Keselowski was running sixth at Atlanta when he crashed after Carl Edwards wrecked him intentionally in retaliation for an earlier incident.
“We’ve got this program headed in the right direction,” said Keselowski crew chief Jay Guy. “We’ve had a lot of positives this year. We just haven’t had the finishes to show them off.”
Remaining in the top 35 is key, especially for young teams that can’t afford to miss races, such as Front Row Motorsports, which three full-time teams trying to stay in the top 35.
“You have to build a notebook through the season, and when you are a new team you don’t have that,” Gilliland said.
One driver not guaranteed a spot at Bristol already has clinched a spot in the top 35 when this year’s points will be used for Martinsville. Red Bull Racing’s Scott Speed, whose team started the season outside the top 35, doesn’t even need to race at Bristol to stay in the top 35 as he sits 12th overall in the standings.
“This is awesome,” said Speed, who failed to qualify for three races last year because he did not have a guaranteed spot. “It’s fantastic. I’m so happy with all of the progress we’ve all made, and I know how much still I have to learn, so I’m really optimistic for the future.”
