Motorsports

Chase for champions

With five former titleholders contending, Nextel Cup truly has set up a chase for champions.

By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff Writer
Published September 16, 2007

In historic terms, Petty, Pearson, Allison and Yarborough they were not. But the assemblage of drivers squinting under banks of oppressive yellow stage lights Sept.8 at Richmond International Raceway - among them Johnson, Gordon, Stewart, Kenseth and Busch - were as close as the modern era could offer. It was, as Jimmie Johnson declared, a "stout field," even in those historic terms.

This was the fourth yearbook photograph NASCAR had orchestrated at the finish line of the 26-race regular season since it unveiled the Chase for the Championship format. There, amid the Nextel Cup trophy, the stiff smiles and the assorted logo hats to be donned for portraits bound for sponsors' boardrooms, was every champion of NASCAR's highest level dating to 2001: Johnson, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon.

There was the sport's active wins leader 79, sixth all time, Gordon; the most successful driver over the past five years (26 wins, last season's champion), Johnson. And not far behind are Stewart (17 wins) and Busch (13).

Four of the top five drivers in the standings have won titles.

Joining them was the best of the next generation: Carl Edwards, who tied for second in 2005; Kyle Busch, who made the Chase last year at age 21; and 2006 rookie of the year Denny Hamlin. Also in the mix: Jeff Burton, whose resurgence stretched into a second season with Richard Childress Racing, and his teammate, two-time Busch Series champ Kevin Harvick.

"It's an incredible group of guys this year," Kurt Busch said. "And the way that everybody is running with race wins, even a guy that doesn't have a win that's in the Chase, Clint Bowyer, he's fast. This is the best group of drivers that I've seen in all of the Chases."

That promises to make Johnson's bid to become NASCAR's first repeat champion since 1998 tougher than usual. He claimed the points lead from Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon by leading the series with six wins when the top 12 was reset by bonus points (10 for each win), but that top-to-bottom margin is just 60 points, roughly the difference between finishing first and 12th. Two straight wins seemingly have Johnson on his customary late-summer march, but he sees a field gathering behind him.

Past Chases have lacked Gordon or Stewart or Busch, but this one is the best, statistically, that the sport can muster. Only three races were won this season by non-Chase qualifiers.

"You see a lot of teams hit their stride; (Edwards), (Stewart), (Hamlin) have been consistent all year," Johnson said.

Busch scripted the simplest, if not most acid-inducing, championship template in the Chase format in 2004. He won the first playoff race at New Hampshire, and was the benefactor of seemingly divine providence: Spinning cars missed him and runaway wheels - like the one that came off his car in the finale - could not bedevil him. Neither a 42nd-place finish at Atlanta, nor Johnson's four wins in the last six races, could undo Busch. He averaged a fifth-place finish in the other nine races and took the title by a series-record low eight points.

"You have to continue to pour it on each week," Busch said. "What we did in the Chase is we won the first one, and then we ran consistent after that, but we were shooting for race wins.

"We held (Johnson) off just with our consistency. So you just hope to avoid those bad races, and you have to run up front, and that's what I see that's going to have to happen in this year's Chase with as tough as it looks like already, you're going to have to have bonus points, and you're going to have to have race wins."

Harvick, fourth last season in his first Chase, hopes to find a way to the stage in the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway without wins. He is accustomed to racing for points, not having won since the season-opening Daytona 500. His 11 top-10 finishes allowed him to claim a Chase berth.

"We're not winning races like those guys are but we're consistent and that goes a long way, and you just can't go all out like everyone has been doing for the last eight weeks, the guys have been locked in," said Harvick, who won the New Hampshire fall race from the pole in 2006. "So really it's going to be all about consistency."

That bodes well for Gordon, though he lost a 317-point, 22-week lead when the standings were reset. Four wins and a series-best 15 top fives, and 21 top 10s in 26 races, show him to be consistently superb.

That's a key trait of this field.

"Game on now," Burton said. "It's time to get going, and we certainly need to try to find a way to step it up a little bit if we're going to beat some of these guys."

Brant James can be reached at brant@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8804.

Today's race

Sylvania 300, 2 p.m., New Hampshire International Raceway, Loudon. Race 1 of 10 in Chase for the Championship.

TV/radio: Ch. 28; 1010-AM

[Last modified September 16, 2007, 00:32:41]