Ragan relishing Chase chance

The 22-year-old has been excelling in his sophomore season at NASCAR's top level and consistent finishes have him knocking on the door of the top twelve with only one race to go before the Chase starts.

Following a debut season that was full of incidents, despite coming runner-up to Juan Pablo Montoya for Rookie of the Year honours, Ragan has shown notable improvement this year, claiming nine top-ten finishes and five top-fives thus far, ranking 13th in the points.

"We definitely are excited to have an opportunity to get into the Chase," says Ragan. "The bottom line is we've got to go out and beat these guys. There's no other way around it. We can't count on the other teams have problems or issues throughout the race.

"We've got to make sure that we're on our toes, that we don't have any mechanical failures, we don't have any screw-ups in the pits and also on the race track, and also Richmond's been a good race track for us in the past, we've had some success there."

Despite his current form and the opportunity he has of making the Chase, Ragan remains realistic about his team's potential. He believes that even if they deserve a place in the top-twelve, they are not ready yet to fight for the title.

"Well, I think we definitely have to continue to step our programme up a little bit," Ragan added. "One good thing about the Chase, the final 10 races, there's not one track on there where we haven't run well in the past, so I feel like the 10 races in the Chase are all good chances to race and to run well.

"But, in the past, in order to be the champion, you have to win a lot of races and be very consistent. Certainly, we'll think about that once we make it in, but I feel like we'll have to lean on some of our teammates who have experience in the Chase in the past few years, and we'll have to continue to step our programme up.

"I think we're a Chase team, but we're not quite a championship team, yet."

If Ragan is able to lock himself into the Chase he would be the fourth Roush Fenway driver fighting for the title, meaning the squad would have a third of the series' 'play-off' spaces.