No. 12 is a 3-man race
RICHMOND, Va. -- Three years later, Elliott Sadler can't forget the gut-wrenching anxiety of trying to make NASCAR's title chase at Richmond. He recalls who he raced. And who beat him for that final spot that night.
"I remember that 2005 season like it happened yesterday," Sadler says. "That ought to tell you how much a driver thinks about it.''
A few drivers will experience similar pain today. Among those who could miss the Chase are former champions Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth. All must finish 24th or better (without any bonus points for leading a lap) to clinch a spot. So, unless something major happens, they will make it.
Denny Hamlin, who enters tonight 11th in the season standings, also could miss out. Considering that Hamlin was on the way to a dominant victory at this track in May until a flat tire, only major problems would keep him from making the Chase.
This is realistically a three-man battle for one spot. Clint Bowyer holds the final spot, but he's only 17 points ahead of David Ragan and 48 points ahead of Kasey Kahne.
"I probably don't realize how big this race is,'' says Ragan, in his second full season in Cup. "We're tense, and we're thinking about it, and I think that you'll hear this from Clint and also Kasey, but we've just got to go out and run our race.''
If all three do, then Bowyer would make the Chase. He won at Richmond in May after Kyle Busch bumped Dale Earnhardt Jr. out of the lead and Bowyer got by both.
Bowyer has never finished worse than 12th in five races here. Ragan finished third in this race a year ago but fared no better than 17 in two other races here. Kahne won here in 2005 and has four top-10 finishes in the six races since.
Bowyer admits his biggest hurdle might have been last week, when he finished 10th.
"I was worried about California,'' he says. "That's a track where we haven't been running the best at. I had already had my mindset made up that it was going to be OK to go into Richmond behind (in points) and have to make it up. Now, we've just got to conserve what we've got.''
