NASCAR's Chase Race Heats Up
NASCAR's Chase for the Championship has tightened up with four races to go.
It appears that there could possibly be five or six drivers with a legitimate shot at the Nextel Cup championship heading into championship weekend at Homestead next month.
At Martinsville, Jeff Burton encountered a major obstruction in his championship quest as a blown motor relegated him to a 42nd place finish. His misfortune dropped him to fifth in the NASCAR Nextel Cup standings and 48 points behind new championship leader Matt Kenseth.
"Everybody's had an issue in this Chase," said Burton. "While we had ours [Sunday], this thing is not over for us by any means."
Still, Burton remains sanguine regarding his championship hopes. "We still feel like that going to Atlanta [next week] we have as good of a chance as anybody. I guarantee this team will not lie down."
Jimmie Johnson has raced his way back into championship contention by winning his fifth race of the season. Johnson held off a furious challenge from rookie Denny Hamlin to win his second race at the half-mile paper clip oval.
"Once I got pushed to the outside, I really felt like I was in trouble," Johnson said of the battle with fellow championship contender, "But I was able to rally back on the outside and get going, and once I got back going, I knew I had a better car and could get away from him."
Johnson was 165 points behind Burton after the Banquet 400 at Kansas just three weeks ago.
Just an observation here, but over the past five seasons, that 48 team has been among the top three teams as far as all around performance is concerned. Most teams go through cycles of running up front, and then suddenly other teams as well as bad luck catch up, forcing the team to streamline. This may be Johnson’s last opportunity to capture that elusive Nextel Cup championship before his window closes for a year or two.
Matt Kenseth didn’t have a memorable race, but he emerged from the craziness at Martinsville as the Nextel Cup championship leader after finishing 11th. Kenseth had to rally back into the top 15 after rookie Clint Bowyer spun him out. Still, Kenseth believes that the 17 team can do better.
"We haven't run good in this chase. We ran good at Dover, good enough to win, good at Talladega, and other than that we haven't looked like a championship team."
Other chase for the championship contenders- Jeff Gordon finished 5th, Kasey Kahne finished 6th, Kevin Harvick finished 9th, Kyle Busch finished 18th, Dale Earnhardt Jr finished 22nd.
Quote of the week
Tony Stewart on Roush Racing newbie David Ragan
"The best thing would have been to black-flag [Ragan] and park him for the rest of the day and save half of the cautions. We had a rookie out there that was kind of a dart with no feathers out there."
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