TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Cup Chase Could Turn Today

ADVERTISEMENT

By TONY FABRIZIO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2007

Updated: 11/04/2007 12:55 am

FORT WORTH, Texas - The Nextel Cup champion will be crowned two weeks from today at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and the ultra-tight points race between Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson could turn decidedly in one driver's favor today at Texas Motor Speedway.

Gordon and Johnson are separated by nine points, but Texas is a fast, 1 1/2 -mile track that's tough on engines and car parts and tricky for drivers. At this point in the season, a mechanical failure or crash could be a potential championship-killer if the other driver or third-place Clint Bowyer capitalizes.

Neither Gordon nor Johnson has won at the track, and in this year's spring race won by Jeff Burton, both had costly miscues. Johnson had an engine problem with 100 laps remaining, then got caught up in a crash involving Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya and wound up 38th. Gordon, after leading 179 of the 324 laps, tagged the wall and wound up fourth.

Not winning the spring race when he clearly had the best car has eaten at Gordon for months.

"I am always my harshest critic, and I am going to admit when I am wrong and make mistakes and try not to do the same thing twice," he said Friday. "This is a very easy track for that mistake to be made. You carry a lot of speed off the corners; the walls come up on you in a hurry. The track narrows up there, and what I beat myself up the most about from the spring race is, I didn't need to be pushing quite so hard."

Even if Hendrick Motorsports has tuned the engines in both Gordon's and Johnson's cars for durability - as the team has almost certainly done - there are other pratfalls at Texas, where Johnson has finished well but led only three laps in eight races and Gordon had one of the hardest crashes of his career in 1999.

Johnson, who is riding a two-race winning streak, says Texas isn't as much of a worry as two Chase obstacles that have already been hurdled - Talladega and Martinsville.

"I feel confident we're going to have a top-10, top-15 race, and it's just where those guys Gordon and Bowyer finish in comparison," Johnson said. "But to back up a step, we finished second here last fall, and in the spring we were running really well and had an engine problem that led into a crash.

"Even though my stats don't show it, I think we're going to perform much better this time than many people would expect."

Gordon gets the head start today, qualifying second to Johnson's eighth and Bowyer's 29th. But in Saturday's final "happy hour" practice, Johnson was first and Gordon, who complained irritably about the handling of his car, was 31st.

For today, Gordon believes crew chief Steve Letarte will have his car dialed into the track conditions.

"Track position is more important here than at Atlanta last week's track," Gordon said. "Last time we were here, we started on the pole, and I felt like that contributed to our performance of being strong and putting ourselves in position to win.

"A front-row start is great. I think it also gives you more of an opportunity to lead a lap and get those five bonus points."

Bowyer is the only other driver among the 12 Chase qualifiers still in realistic contention for the championship. He's 111 points back, and given that he already has two second-place finishes on 1 1/2 -mile tracks in the Chase, he still poses a threat.

The 12th seed at the start of the Chase, Bowyer has finished in the top 12 in all seven races in Richard Childress Racing's No. 07 Chevy and has a win at New Hampshire to go with his two second-place finishes.

Bowyer sounds almost conciliatory about the championship, though.

"Jimmie and Jeff, they deserve it," he said. "They are the ones that are putting a show on right now. We just have to race as hard as we can and try to be there for the taking if one or both of them slip up."

Defending race champion Tony Stewart, who has fallen to fifth in the standings and is out of contention for a third championship, starts 15th. Stewart hasn't led a lap in the last three races and has an average finish of 17th in them.

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994 or afabrizio@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT