Motorsports

Several in chase to be perfect 10th

By GREG AUMAN
Published July 6, 2004

DAYTONA BEACH - Nine races remain before the cutoff for Nextel Cup's "Chase for the Championship," and only a handful of drivers not among the top 10 in the point standings are capable of making a late push to qualify for the season-ending 10-race showdown.

That makes the battle for No.10 as compelling - more, perhaps - than the battle for No.1. The pressure is high for 10th-ranked Kevin Harvick, who finished 14th in Saturday's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Harvick opted for two tires on his last pit stop and lost ground to others who took a full set.

"That was probably the loosest car I have ever driven," Harvick said of his No.29 Chevrolet. "I thought I had a tire going down on me at one point. ... Five laps into the last run the car just got terribly loose again, and I did all I could just to hold on to it."

He'll do the same in the standings the next two months. Of the next five drivers chasing Harvick, only Mark Martin gained ground at Daytona. He was sixth, considerably better than at the Daytona 500.

"I know we finished sixth and that's nothing to brag about, but we just missed it by one lick," Martin said. "I only made eight laps in February. This is the kind of car I had in February, too, (and) that's why I was so upset, not only about the points but I thought I might have had a chance to be a contender in the 500. We certainly had a chance today."

Rookie Kasey Kahne remains the top outsider in 11th, and his 11th-place finish wasn't bad considering he wrecked his primary car in practice Friday and had to start at the rear of the field with a backup car.

Of the other three behind Harvick, only Dale Jarrett, 15th in the standings, cracked the top 20 with a 16th-place finish. Jeremy Mayfield moved into 12th by placing 22nd, and Jamie McMurray slipped to 13th after finishing 37th.

AREA UPDATE: Tampa resident Sebastien Bourdais, CART's reigning rookie of the year, picked up what he called "probably the easiest race of my short Champ Car career" Saturday at the Cleveland Grand Prix. Bourdais, 25, has three wins in five races this season and trails only Bruno Junqueira in the standings. ... After having no accidents in his first eight races in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck series, Zephyrhills native David Reutimann has seen his past two end in wrecks. His Toyota finished 101 of 167 laps at a rainy O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 in Kansas City, Kan., and dropped two spots to 14th in the standings. The series is 10 races into its 25-race schedule.

THIS CLOSE: How close was the finish of Sunday's Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway? Buddy Rice's margin of victory over Rahal-Letterman Racing teammate Vitor Meira was 0.0051 seconds, second-closest in Indy Racing League history.

Rice, the Indianapolis 500 winner, had an average speed of 177.183 mph, and his winning margin was about 16 inches.

ADDING SPEED: Greg Sacks, a 51-year-old who has raced off and on in NASCAR's top three series since 1983, has announced a start-up two-car Nextel Cup team that will race as Daytona Speed and be based in Port Orange.

Sacks, the 1985 Pepsi Firecracker 400 winner, has not raced in the Cup series since being involved in a major accident in 1998 at Texas. He has rehabilitated his injured legs, he said, and plans to run the No.13 Dodge on Sunday at Chicago with plans to launch a full-time team in 2005. The No. 73 will attempt two races this season. Sacks will get technical support and buy old chassis from Evernham Motorsports.

SPARK PLUGS: Brewco Motorsports, which fields a full-time Busch team for driver David Green, purchased a Dale Earnhardt Inc. car for the Sept.11 Nextel Cup race in Richmond, Va. The team is considering a start in the season-ending Homestead race. ... Tampa resident Arik Almirola and grandfather Sam Rodriguez were cruising the garages at Daytona last weekend courtesy of Joe Gibbs Racing team. Almirola is one of two drivers in the team's diversity program. He competes in a late models circuit in the Charlotte area.

- Staff writer Brant James contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 6, 2004, 01:00:19]