Chasing the Cup

In 10 weeks' time the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion will be crowned at Homestead-Miami Speedway, following 10 races at 10 tracks. Twelve drivers from four different teams, representing three out of four manufacturers contesting the series, have made the Chase, and they're the only ones in position to fight for the championship under the 'play-off' format.

Kyle Busch has dominated the year, but now his 208-point gap shrinks down to just 30 over Carl Edwards and 40 over reigning champion Jimmie Johnson. A bad weekend for the Toyota racer could eventually throw the title battle wide open. That's what makes the Chase interesting, even if it could be hard to swallow for those who have done more than enough to deserve a championship in the first 26 races.

Five mile-and-a-half ovals, four short tracks and one superspeedway are the arenas in which they will battle among 43-car fields, with 31 other drivers who have nothing to lose.

These are the 12 contenders for the 2009 Sprint Cup title. Take your pick.

The Chasers

1. Kyle Busch - 5080 points

Eight victories in the first 26 races are enough to make Kyle Busch the clear favourite to claim this year's title. Not since before the Chase format was introduced in 2004 has a driver been so dominant heading into the final 10 races, something Busch has certainly backed up with the kind of consistency that can win championships.

His raw talent has matured since stepping out of Hendrick Motorsports, and all the near-misses from the past are now translating into wins, giving him 18 victories thus far during the year across the three NASCAR national series - he has already made 61 starts in 2008, more than any of his Cup colleagues.

The 23-year-old has led the standings for 21 race weekends and it looks unlikely that he will suddenly lose all his momentum. He has run well and won, or nearly won, at every type of track this season. That includes three wins at tracks that he will visit once again during the Chase. His weak point may come at Martinsville, where he admits he has never run well.

With Carl Edwards winning nearly as many races as Busch, and Jimmie Johnson coming on strong lately, Busch anticipates the title will come down to who wins the most, rather than who runs consistently.

"It's going to come down to wins and top fives, of course," Busch says. "And on the bad days - everybody says you have one or two mulligans, and whoever comes back the best from those will be key too."

Busch has been in the Chase for the past two years, but neither last year nor in 2006 was he able to win one of the last 10 races. He came fifth in the championship on his last season with Hendrick Motorsports, having started ninth in the series' 'play-off'.

"I've been in the Chase these past two seasons and had to come from behind a little bit," he says. "Fortunately this year we start in a better position and hopefully we'll come out of the box strong on the first few tracks. Then we'll regroup and we'll look and see what we have to improve on in the final seven or eight races."

'Rowdy' can still be edgy at times, but now, even when he looks a bit out of control, he still gets the job done. He's a showman, a born racer and arguably NASCAR's man of the year. All the booing on the stands from Earnhardt fans will only pump him up even more.

2. Carl Edwards - 5050 points.

NASCAR's consummate athlete is back in the title battle after finishing third in the championship in his first full season at Sprint Cup level in 2005.

This year we've seen the Roush Fenway driver perform his trademark backflip six times already. Based on the kinds of tracks where he has visited Victory Lane, one can only expect that he will continue to run as strong in the final 10 races, where the intermediate layouts prevail.

Early in the season, Edwards looked unbeatable at the mile-and-a-half tracks thanks to some hard work during the winter, which raised the bar for all teams with the new car. This gave Edwards the upper hand at those venues where the new Cup car had not been raced last year.

There will be five intermediate tracks in the Chase, but Edwards believes other teams have figured out how to set up their cars in order to match his level of performance at those high-speed venues.

"We've come a long way in the last year. Right out of the gate winning those races at the mile-and-a-half tracks was huge at the beginning of the year," Edwards says. "And then to be able to win at Bristol and run really well at Martinsville says a lot about the team and how everybody has been working.

"But this thing kind of goes in waves and people figure things out. Now you're seeing Jimmie run really well after they were struggling a little bit at the beginning of the year, but you just have to peak right there in the Chase."

Edwards will have a busy schedule in the last ten weeks of the season, where he will try to defend his Nationwide series title - he currently ranks second in points - while trying to keep his Cup title hopes rolling into the Chase. Neither Busch nor Jimmie Johnson have to worry about that.

3. Jimmie Johnson - 5040 points

Just like last year, reigning champion Jimmie Johnson will start the Chase having won the last two races before the final 10. He won at California and Richmond in 2007, as he did in the past two weeks.

The Californian got off to a slow start to his season, but progressively he has returned to form as crew chief Chad Knaus has been able to provide his driver with the kind of equipment he needs to defend his title.

After all, with the Chase format, it really doesn't matter how much you win, but when you win.

"This is the first year we got off to a slow start," Johnson says. "We typically have a slow middle and then finish up strong. I wish I knew why that trend works like it does. We've worked as hard as we could since the banquet last year and we were just off.

"We were working in the wrong areas and it seems like now we're running out of things to mess with and on to the right track and finding a lot of speed."

Johnson is one of only two drivers who have always been in the Chase, and has always finished in the top five in the championship. He knows better than anyone how the format works and how to win a title, and that experience can only play to his benefit.

Last year he won four of the last five races en route to becoming a two-time champion, and current form suggests he is in position to do that again. In fact, 15 of his 37 career wins have come in Chase races.

"In '06, we were convinced that you had to finish in the top 10 every week in order to win the championship and I left Talladega 180-something points out of the lead and thought I was done, and still came back and won," he says. "It was weird and a lot of guys had bad luck.

"Last year, you look at the average it took to win it and it was like a 4.6 or 4.8 (finish) to win the championship. So you just don't know until you get into it."

Even with three other Hendrick drivers in the Chase, Johnson is clearly the leading card for his team in their run for the championship. A third consecutive title would put him as the second driver in NASCAR history to achieve the feat, matching Cale Yarborough in the 1970s.

4. Dale Earnhardt Jr - 5010 points

The most popular driver in NASCAR enjoyed a great honeymoon period with his new team at the start of the season, where they stood up as the best of the Hendrick cars consistently.

It looked like it was just going to be a matter of time before they were going to get to Victory Lane. Eventually they did halfway through the season at Michigan by gambling on fuel. Back then it looked like that was the only way to beat Kyle Busch.

But since that win, Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury have not enjoyed the kind of success they expected to build from that elusive first success at Hendrick Motorsports.

Their finishes have been inconsistent and, even if they've led a bunch of times, they seem to lose the handling of their car when it counts. In fact, their fourth-place finish last weekend at Richmond has been their best result since winning at Michigan in June.

"Carl and Kyle are probably the favourites," says Earnhardt. "But we feel pretty confident that we can win.

"I feel like I've learned a lot. I was pretty smart when I got here, but this car is a frustrating car and everybody is trying to learn as much as they can and really nail it and get on, find that sweet spot and take off with the Chase and win the championship."

Earnhardt is in the Chase for only the third time in his career as he looks to improve on the fifth place in the championship he got under that format in 2004 and 2006.

5. Clint Bowyer - 5010 points.

Last year Bowyer raised a few eyebrows when he not only made the Chase in his second full season at the top level, but also claimed his maiden Cup victory in the first of the final 10 races.

He kept consistent all the way through to Homestead and finished third in the championship as best of the rest in a year outlined by the domination of the Hendrick tandem of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

Just like last year, the Richard Childress Racing man got the last spot in the Chase, but that shouldn't be taken as if he went through the back door. Yes, his consistency this season has not been on a par with what he showed in the final 10 weeks of racing in 2007, but he is one of those drivers who rises to the challenge.

This year he already has a victory, which came at Richmond in May, and that elevates him up to fifth when the Chase starts at Loudon, the site of his first win a year ago. You certainly don't expect him to come out and nail one victory after the other, but he's one who can stay consistent and profit on the favourites' misfortunes.

"It's been a tough summer for all of our team," says Bowyer. "Just making the Chase is a big deal - we've been struggling and there have been a lot of things going on in our organisation and our team in particular, and everybody stuck together.

"The last three weeks have been a step in the right direction, and, you know, with some momentum I think we can do just fine in the Chase. We are going to a race that we won last year and, you know, got the thing started on the right foot."

But Bowyer, as with Edwards, will have to split his focus between the Sprint Cup and the Nationwide Series. He is not only committed to a full schedule in the second-tier series, but more importantly he is leading the standings with seven races to go.

6. Denny Hamlin - 5010 points

The 2006 Rookie of the Year was expected to take a big jump last season, but his Chase ended disappointingly as he could only manage 12th place in the championship.

This season he hasn't been a match for new teammate Kyle Busch, but he won at Martinsville and has been consistent of late, getting three consecutive third places in the past few events.

But four weeks ago at Michigan he showed the kind of attitude that tells you he's not yet ready to lead his team into a championship challenge. His disappointment after a 39th place finish saw him throw out his toys while facing the media, when you would expect him to get behind his people instead of blaming them for the poor score.

You expect Hamlin to be right there at Martinsville, but he still has to raise his game if he is to contend for the title. He hasn't shown to be particularly quick at the mile-and-a-halfs, but he may well be about to change that as his most recent trend indicates.

"I like going into the Chase with the finishes that we have, because I feel like it's good momentum and we obviously have a good short-track package," he says. "Going into Loudon, there's no reason why we can't move up in points right from the get go."

7. Jeff Burton - 5010 points

The seasoned Virginia native makes the Chase for the third year in a row, and starts it exactly from the same place where he finished in the past two seasons. At 41, Burton knows very well how far consistency can take you in the Sprint Cup, even if you're not winning every weekend.

His approach to the Chase remains the same: pushing for strong finishes and, when the chance comes to win, grabbing it with both hands. It doesn't come very often lately, with three drivers basically splitting the big money between them, but Burton says running close to the limit consistently can lead the top contenders to fail occasionally.

He knows that doing so in the last 10 races can hit you hard in your points account, and then it could be anybody's title to get.

"Those people are not invincible," Burton says. "Kyle Busch, he isn't never going to make a mistake. Carl Edwards is not never going to make a mistake. These teams are not ever not going to make a mistake. You have to execute on those mistakes, but the first thing you have to do is just put pressure on them.

"You got to show them that you can beat them. Once you show them that you can deal with them, then that changes their mindset and now it's game on. I wouldn't consider it a fluke if someone else won."

8. Tony Stewart - 5000 points

The two-time Cup champion knows how to profit from the play-off format, and he arrives in the Chase probably hungrier than ever. It has been 40 races since he last visited Victory Lane in the Sprint Cup series, and this is just about the right time to start collecting the silverware.

As for consistency, 'Smoke' has had it this year. Only Busch and Edwards have more top-fives than he does, but three DNFs have been too much against the top contenders for the championship. He needs to keep that number as it is in order to have a shot at moving up from his eighth place in the Chase.

For him, though, the play-off has no method. He keeps things simple and doesn't bother with doing any maths. He leaves that to long-time crew chief Greg Zipadelli, with whom he will be parting ways at the end of the season.

"How you get into the Chase is the same way you win the Chase," Stewart says. "You've got to be good in 26 races to get in the Chase, and then you've got to be good for 10 races after that to win the Chase."

Stewart denies his No. 20 team is not strong enough to contend, but understands why he is not high on everyone's list as the title favourite with Busch, Edwards and Johnson.

"You are not a weak team if you've made the Chase," he says. "But you know, those three teams and drivers that you've mentioned, obviously their track record speaks for itself this year, so that's why people are putting those guys ahead of everybody else right now."

Another reason to put Stewart on a B-list has to do with his new status as a team owner in the Sprint Cup series. His attention these days may tend to be a bit too much on getting his newly-formed team up and running in time for the 2009 season, and that may well be too much of a distraction for him to get the kind of results to win him a third title.

9. Greg Biffle - 5000 points

'The Biff' is back in the Chase after two years out of it. Since coming second to Tony Stewart in the championship in 2005, he hasn't been as strong, winning a couple of races each season - far from the six victories he claimed three years ago.

This year his consistency got him a ticket for the title battle, but he will probably be left out as a spectator, given Carl Edwards' supremacy among the Roush drivers this year. He argues he has been just as fast, but ultimately it's been his teammate who has been getting the job done.

"We ran decent at the beginning of the season - some of the problems we had were finishing the races," Biffle says. "We were really fast, but Carl was really getting those finishes. I think that's probably the main difference."

Biffle hopes he starts winning now to make the most of his second opportunity to win the title. If he's in with a chance in the final race, you would hardly bet against him, as he has won at Homestead three times in the past four years.

"I'm excited to be back in the Chase after missing it for two years," he says. "We've certainly worked really hard. Not getting any wins has been a struggle for us. We've had really good solid runs and that's what we're going to need to get up there in points."

10. Jeff Gordon - 5000 points

The four-time Sprint Cup champion is once again in the Chase, but his form relative to a year ago shows marked differences.

Back at Richmond in 2007, Gordon had four wins and was leading the points by a mile. Fast-forward to this year, and the Hendrick driver has not won a race all year long, has four DNFs and is massively frustrated with the handling of his car in races.

Gordon's been qualifying well, but then vanishing as the laps go by in the races. Fingers point to crew chief Steve Letarte, the same guy everyone used to praise last season for being instrumental in Gordon's impressive run.

The Californian puts it all down to the suspension design of the new car, which he claims his team has failed to master at the intermediate tracks.

"It has been inconsistent for us this year," Gordon says. "But the inconsistency isn't just with our performance, it's with these bump stops that we have to run on. I can't stand them, and trying to get them figured out is just near impossible."

"Some have done a better job with it. Maybe it suits come guys' driving styles better, but it's one of the things that's challenging us."

There are five intermediate tracks in the Chase, where Letarte will have to figure out a way to give his driver what Chad Knaus is giving Johnson right next door. Setup sheets are open books between them, but this season that 24-48 tandem doesn't seem to be working like it used to.

Gordon has yet to win a championship under the Chase format. Looking at his numbers thus far, this could be the year where the points system may favour him more than hamper him, but that's if his team get their act together when it counts.

11. Kevin Harvick - 5000 points

Harvick has given his team a third shot at this year's title for a second year in a row, as all three drivers at Richard Childress Racing are among this season's elite. Only Joe Gibbs Racing matches that.

Just like his two teammates, Harvick has been able to get in the Chase thanks to some good consistency. He remains winless since his Daytona 500 victory last year, which now seems a decade ago. However, some of his best results of the season have come in the past six weeks.

His best stat, though, is the number of races he has without a DNF - 70 races and counting since September 2006 at Dover.

If his rivals end up getting in trouble a few times, then he might make something out of his good habit of crossing the finish line. He knows that if you're not in a position to win every weekend, then you need to bring the car home to put yourself in position of fighting for the big money.

"If you can run like the 48 [Johnson] did the last couple times he's won the championship, and reeled off all those top fives and wins, you can make a couple mistakes," says Harvick. "But if you don't do that, then you're going to have to not make any mistakes."

12. Matt Kenseth - 5000 points

The 2003 Cup champion has kept his usual low profile, and before anyone noticed he was in the Chase once again. Like Johnson, Matt Kenseth has made the Chase every year since it was introduced, following his championship year when he claimed the title with only one victory, but 25 top 10s.

This year, only his teammate Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch have more top 10 finishes.

But in a season where there have been many drivers winning multiple races, 'Mr Consistency' needs to be better than that and add some of what he showed in 2006, when he claimed four victories to finish runner-up in the championship.

"We've got to be running better to have a legitimate shot at winning the championship," Kenseth admits. "It's not just about being in [the Chase], it's trying to win the championship, so we're working hard to try and get our stuff more competitive."

With the new car being much more sensitive to running in clean or dirty air, qualifying has become more important this year than it used to be. That has never been one of his strengths, and three poles in 10 seasons show that.

"Carl and some of those guys, when they qualify better they can stay up there all day," he said. "I've watched some of these races and I see the top five cars - like at Bristol - basically run in the top five or six for 500 laps.

"It's harder to come from the back than it used to be and get up front and challenge them."

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