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Mistakes Magnified As Chase Gets Near

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The Associated Press

Published: August 23, 2008

Updated: 08/23/2008 12:33 am

BRISTOL, Tenn. - With three races before the field is set for NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the Championship, nine drivers are separated by 162 points in the competition for the last seven spots.

Maybe one of the sport's diciest venues, Bristol Motor Speedway, can help sort things out.

The high-banked 0.533-mile oval is one of the most physically demanding tracks the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series visits, and one where a driver's championship aspirations can quickly come to an end.

"When you think about the six, seven cars that are still battling that out, eight cars maybe, those eight cars are in a position where finishing 12th is way better than finishing 38th," said Jeff Burton, who is 371 points ahead of Clint Bowyer and David Ragan, the two drivers who will start tonight narrowly outside the top 12 teams that make the Chase.

Bowyer and Ragan qualified 22nd and 27th, respectively, for tonight's race, but Ragan will have to start at the back of the field after trying too hard and crashing during his lap.

Burton, who qualified 18th, and everyone else knows there's much they can't control at Bristol.

"You don't want to go out there and risk running out of fuel or anything, but there's not a lot you can do here," said Denny Hamlin, who is 12th in the points race, but just 26 ahead of Bowyer and Ragan. "A lot of the wrecks that you end up finding yourselves in here are ... because of something that happened two or three cars ahead of you."

That's possible anywhere, but more likely at Bristol.

"We're definitely in a vulnerable spot, that's for sure," Hamlin said.

Hamlin was among several drivers who took a big fall in the top 12 last weekend at Michigan. He was ninth in the points race until he blew an engine with five laps to go and finished 39th. He will start 21st tonight. Others who dropped included Kasey Kahne, who finished 40th and fell from eighth to 11th place, just 47 ahead of Bowyer and Ragan, and four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, who was 42nd and dropped from sixth to ninth, just 82 points ahead of the two tied at 13th.

It's the kind of performance that could happen again, and explains why those closest to being bounced out of the playoffs are not the only ones worried about Saturday night's race.

Carl Edwards, who took his first pole of the season in Friday's quaifying and trails only the dominating Busch in the point standings, said he's concerned about "just getting caught up in something. ... So long as I don't make any mistakes, have lapses in judgment and we don't get caught up in something, I think we should be pretty good."

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