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Garage PASS: Other Titles On The Line

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By TONY FABRIZIO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 17, 2008

There's no Chase format in NASCAR's other two national series - the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck divisions - and the championships in those series are down to a few drivers.

The Nationwide championship race is basically reduced to Clint Bowyer and defending champion Carl Edwards, with Bowyer holding a 207-point advantage.

Up-and-comer Brad Keselowski still has an outside shot at 279 points back.

In the truck series, former Roush Racing Cup-level driver Johnny Benson leads three-time truck champion Ron Hornaday Jr. by 74 points. Matt Crafton still has some oxygen 242 points back.

The Nationwide and Truck championships wind up Nov. 14-16 at Homestead, on the same weekend as the Sprint Cup finale.

WHO'S HOT

•Jimmie Johnson didn't get the victory Sunday at New Hampshire, but the two-time defending Sprint Cup champion remained on a tear. In the last nine races, he has logged three victories, two seconds and a third.

•With three consecutive top-15 finishes, Zephyrhills' David Reutimann has climbed to 24th in the Sprint Cup points - his highest ranking since the second race this season. At this point last year, Reutimann was 40th.

WHO'S NOT

•Penske Racing lame-duck Ryan Newman hasn't registered a top-five finish since April at Texas. He has finished 16th, 33rd and 36th in the last three races.

•Casey Mears hasn't shown anything to suggest that Hendrick Motorsports' decision not to retain him for next year was a mistake. Mears has only one top-five and four top-10 finishes all year.

HE SAID IT

There was interesting insight from Dale Earnhardt Jr. last week on Dan Patrick's radio show about what Dale Earnhardt Sr. thought of Tony Stewart when he was coming up.

"My dad liked Tony," Earnhardt said. "He had a lot of respect for him. Me and Tony got into it in the Busch Series one time. Sometimes when I was racing in 1998-1999 in the Busch Series, if I got into it with somebody, dad would have a bad opinion of that person, just because of the dealings I had with that person.

"But when me and Tony got into it, he always maintained his respect for Tony and always liked Tony because he knew Tony was a great race-car driver and he was going to have to contend with him one day."

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