From late collapses to NASCAR penalties, five who were so close are now out of contention.
By BRANT JAMES
Published September 13, 2004
RICHMOND, Va. - Jamie McMurray knows the reasons he missed out on a spot in NASCAR's Chase for the Championship.
It could have been a bad shift here, bad luck there or any combination that left his No. 42 Dodge team 15 points outside the top 10. The result is, he will not race for a championship in the final 10 races beginning Sunday in Loudon, N.H.
But a glaring reason for the hurt is fresh in his team's memory, and that's why he likely will have to fight through disappointment and do some soothing back at the shop Tuesday.
Two weeks ago at Bristol, NASCAR docked McMurray 25 points when his car failed to conform with template specifications on its body. Anyone can add those points back on and see where they would have put McMurray. The guys in the shop certainly did.
"The guys in the fab shop came up to me this week and said, "You've got to get in any way you can,' " said McMurray, who finished ninth Saturday night with a faltering engine. "I think they're on suicide watch back there."
Certainly that's overstating the importance of a stock car race, but the $6-million bonus for winning a championship and the prestige of hoisting the first Nextel Cup mean a lot to those who advanced. Perhaps even more to those who did not.
Many of the 10 who will contest the Chase were seen as foregone conclusions. Points leader Jeff Gordon is seeking his fifth championship. Teammate Jimmie Johnson, who led much of the season and is now second, seeks his first title. So does veteran Mark Martin from eighth place. No. 4 Tony Stewart won the 2002 title. Defending champion Matt Kenseth is fifth.
But many, like rookie Kasey Kahne, threatened to break into the exclusive fraternity, and they, too, will search for reasons for not making it. Perhaps Kahne need look no further than Stewart's bumper to figure out how a driver who finished second five times failed to be good enough in a system designed to reward consistency. Stewart spun Kahne's No. 9 Dodge out of the lead in two races this season.
Kahne had nine top-5 finishes, more than six drivers in the Chase, but unlike the playoff drivers, he did not have a win. His closest chance came in the second race of the season at Rockingham, when he lost a furious last-lap duel to Kenseth by .010 seconds, the fourth-closest margin in NASCAR history. But even a win there would have left Kahne 20 points short of 10th-place Ryan Newman.
"It's a huge letdown," Kahne said of standing 12th in points after finishing 24th Saturday night. "It's like, "What do you race for now?' "
The young, successful phenom of the Evernham Motorsports stable was outdone in the final race by 35-year-old teammate Jeremy Mayfield, who won Saturday's Chevy Rock and Roll 400 at Richmond to move from 14th to ninth in points. Mayfield has four fewer top 5s than Kahne, but when it really mattered he did something he had not done in four years: win. It was the racing equivalent of the sixth man hitting a 50-foot 3-pointer to win a tournament game.
The surprise exclusion was Kevin Harvick, though the controversial Richard Childress Racing driver has gained more notoriety for his temper and comments than his performance; he hasn't won since the 2003 Brickyard 400. Harvick started Saturday's race in 15th place and needing to win, much as Mayfield did. But Harvick never threatened and finished 12th.
"We had some things not go our way this year and some miscues," said Harvick, who is 14th in points. "You can't expect to make those mistakes and be there."
The final-race shootout among nine drivers for four spots produced what NASCAR wanted in heightened excitement. It also produced hard racing, but in some cases the fervor over reaching the top 10 seemed to poison otherwise gentlemanly drivers.
Weeks after saying a playoff spot was not worth overaggressive racing, veteran Dale Jarrett was a cannonball, what Johnson referred to as one of the "desperate guys" after being wrecked on Lap 179.
"We looked like we weren't prepared for this," Jarrett said of his ill-handling car.
Now everyone who missed has to be prepared to sort out his own reasons.
