NASCAR CHASE NEWS AND NOTES

Biffle: Fast Start Doesn’t Always Mean Championship

With two victories, a pair of seconds and four top-five finishes, top Chase seeds Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson have confirmed their status of NASCAR’s postseason elite.

But is this year’s Chase already a three-driver shootout?

Roush Fenway Racing veterans Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle – both with runner-up championship finishes on their resumes – say absolutely not.

Edwards stands fourth, 36 points behind Kenseth. Biffle, who finished a solid third last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, is two points further back in fifth. The top-five teams represent all three NASCAR Sprint Cup Gen-6 manufacturers: two Toyota Camrys, a pair of Ford Fusions and a Chevrolet SS.

Kenseth’s advantage over the Roush Fenway pair is nearly a race worth of points. But the ebb and flow of past Chases suggest the lead is hardly a safe one. Example: In 2006, Johnson trailed by 136 points after the Chase’s second race – roughly a 32-point deficit under the current system – and rallied to win his first of five consecutive championships.

Biffle can speak to that. He’s been there and – unfortunately – done that.

"I've won the first two Chase races before and then didn't win the championship," he said, referencing the 2008 season in which he ultimately finished third. "Anything can happen."

Biffle, a NASCAR Nationwide Series and Camping World Truck champion, continues his pursuit of an unprecedented sweep of NASCAR’s three national series.

Edwards, who failed to qualify for last year’s Chase, finished second in 2008 and lost the 2011 title to Tony Stewart on the first championship tie-breaker in NASCAR premier series history. He won the regular season finale at Richmond and finished ninth in New Hampshire, 11th in the Chase opener.

RFR co-owner Jack Roush is optimistic the team’s Fords can challenge the current leaders – especially if they dodge some of the uncontrollable issues the team has faced in 2013. “I think there’s a very good chance that the kind of things that have happened to us in the recent past with bad luck that we couldn’t control, if those things visit the 18 (Busch) and the 20 (Kenseth) in one race, then we could be right back in it,” Roush said.

 

Chase Time Is Go Time For Johnson, Knaus

Have Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus flipped the switch to “go?”

Back-to-back top-five performances to begin the Chase certainly point in that direction. Johnson’s finishes of fifth at Chicagoland and fourth in New Hampshire mark only the third time this season the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has fashioned consecutive top fives.

The five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion had ended the regular season with four consecutive finishes of 28th or worse.

Johnson, the Chase’s No. 2 seed, trails two-race leader Matt Kenseth by 18 points and current runner up Kyle Busch by four markers. As the modern-day master of Dover International Speedway’s 24-degree concrete canyon, Johnson can erase much of the deficit on Sunday.

A victory – his eighth at the “Monster Mile” – will make the 38-year-old Johnson Dover’s all-time winner, breaking the track record he shares with NASCAR Hall of Fame members Bobby Allison and Richard Petty.

It also will swing the Chase conversation back in a familiar direction.

Johnson capped his five-season championship reign with Dover Chase victories in 2009-10. He’s led each of his past dozen starts at the track and headed 2,066 laps – 30.4% - of the track’s most recent 17 races. Johnson’s average finish, 7.1, is two positions better than his closest rival Kenseth. Johnson’s Driver Rating of 119.6 is 12 and 14 points higher, respectively than that of Kenseth and Busch.

“We’re in a good spot and we’re going to one of my best tracks,” said Johnson, who finished 17th in June’s Dover race after being assessed a restart penalty with 19 laps remaining. “I certainly hope to have (us) in Victory Lane over there.”

 

Harvick, Gordon and Busch Looking for ‘Monster’ Comeback

Three drivers with legitimate championship hopes leaving Chicagoland Speedway stumbled in Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race No. 2 at New Hampshire. But hope is not lost.

Kevin Harvick’s title aspirations took a major blow, thanks to a 20th-place finish that knocked him from fourth to sixth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings.

At Chicagoland, Kurt Busch chipped in his third consecutive top five finish, only to stumble at NHMS with a 13th to fall from sixth to seventh.

And Jeff Gordon finished 15th at New Hampshire to drop from seventh to eighth.

 All three drivers finished in the top six in Chicago to open the Chase, but saw their championship hopes deflate on the flat one miler in Loudon.

But, none of the three need to fret … yet. Harvick is 39 points behind standings leader Matt Kenseth; Busch is 40 points back; Gordon is 42 points out.

Daunting? Yes. Impossible to overcome? Not yet. The mulligans, however, are over. Wins are paramount.

And Gordon and Busch know exactly how. Gordon has four wins – the last of which came in 2001. Busch has one Dover victory, while racing for Penske Racing in 2011. Harvick is still looking for his first Dover win, but has scored three top 10s in the last four races at the one-mile concrete oval.