Roush Dominate Chase Places

With the last two Nextel Cup champions Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch, 2002 Busch series champion Greg Biffle, four time Nextel Cup runner-up Mark Martin and Carl Edwards who has won two races in his first full Nextel Cup season, Roush Racing looks well placed at the start of the chase, the team scoring a 1-2-3 finish at Richmond to have the perfect lead-in to the final ten races.

Penske have two drivers in the chase, including 1989 Nextel Cup Champion Rusty Wallace who is competing in his final season of Nextel Cup racing.

The top ten is led by 2002 Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart, with Jimmie Johnson and Jeremy Mayfield the other drivers to make the chase in fourth and seventh respectively.

With six drivers already secure in the Chase before the race began, the battle was for the final four places, between ten drivers. Of those outside the top ten, there were three with a realistic chance of squeezing in: Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon and Elliott Sadler.

Ryan Newman ran strongly all day, finishing twelfth, and when Jamie McMurray crashed with 38 laps remaining, Newman, who was going to finish ahead of McMurray on points, was virtually assured of his place.

This was because Jeff Gordon, who had struggled earlier in the race, had hit the wall just after half distance, making his bad handling car even worse, finishing 30th two laps down, while Elliott Sadler spun early in the race and struggled all night, finishing seventeenth.

This is the first time that Gordon has missed the top ten in points, apart from his rookie season in 1993 when he finished fourteenth overall.

The Chase for the Cup

Pos  Driver            Change   Points
 1.  Tony Stewart               5050
 2.  Greg Biffle                5045
 3.  Rusty Wallace     +1       5040
 4.  Jimmie Johnson    -1       5035
 5.  Kurt Busch        +1       5030
 6.  Mark Martin       -1       5025
 7.  Jeremy Mayfield            5020
 8.  Carl Edwards               5015
 9.  Matt Kenseth               5010
10.  Ryan Newman       +1       5005