Auto racing: The time is now
Time and opportunities are running out for at least half the drivers in NASCAR’s Chase for the Nextel Cup championship.
Going into today’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, the eighth of 10 races in this year’s stock car playoffs, five of the 10 eligible drivers are 121 or more points behind leader Matt Kenseth.
“You just have to be real lucky at this point, and nobody wants to have to be real lucky,” said Mark Martin, eighth in the standings, 201 points behind and all but eliminated from contention.
“It all has to line up just right,” said Martin, a four-time series runner-up racing in what will likely be his last full season.
Besides Martin, the drivers who desperately need a good performance and some major help to have any shot at the championship include Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch, ranging from 121 to 249 points out of first.
The most likely scenario is that the top five of Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, rookie Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Burton, bunched within 84 points, will fight it out for the title.
Earnhardt said Friday that he believes a driver needs to be within 20 points of the lead going into the final race to have a real shot at winning it all.
Kenseth, who won the 2003 championship with solid consistency, is back in the same groove this year, while Johnson, with a win and two runner-up finishes in the last three races, is showing signs of pulling off another hot finish as in 2004 when he won four of the final six races.
Those two are the heavy favorites heading into today’s race.
Johnson got off to a bad start in this year’s Chase. But he has clawed his way back into contention and is 26 points behind Kenseth and full of confidence going into today’s race.
Busch Series
It would be hard to blame Kevin Harvick if he wanted the NASCAR Busch Series season to go on forever.
Harvick dominated the field again Saturday in the O’Reilly Challenge 300 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, winning for the second straight week and third time in his last four starts.
It was the ninth Busch victory of what is already a championship season for the Nextel Cup star.
To cap another great day for Harvick, after being told by his team he was going to be close on gas, he did run out – at the finish.
Harvick chuckled as he took the checkered flag and said on the radio: “Out of gas, boys. Awesome!”
With the title determined last month in Charlotte, most of the prerace attention was on newcomer Juan Pablo Montoya, starting only his second NASCAR race in preparation for a full-time Cup ride next season.
The former Champ Car and Formula One star had a difficult but educational day on the 1.5-mile Texas oval.
Driving a damaged car that couldn’t keep up with the leaders, Montoya stayed on track to the end, finishing 28th – three laps behind Harvick.
Harvick beat fellow Cup star Tony Stewart to the finish by 0.862-seconds – about five car-lengths. Jeff Burton was third, followed by pole-winner Mark Martin and Ron Hornaday Jr., the highest-finishing Busch regular.
Cup drivers have won 31 of 33 Busch races this season.
Harvick enters the Dickies 500 sixth in the Cup points and with an outside chance to become the first driver to win NASCAR’s top two titles in the same season.