Two bad weeks may push Busch to extremes

COMPILED BY MIKE MULHERN
Media General News Service
Published: September 25, 2008

—So what have we learned the first few days of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup championship playoffs?

That NASCAR’s Chase points rules have apparently cost the tour’s biggest winner, Kyle Busch, any decent shot at the title, despite his eight Cup wins this year with Joe Gibbs.

That Greg Biffle, who just got hot, after a season-long struggle, may well be the title favorite now.

That the title Chase at the moment looks like a three-man fight: Biffle versus Ford teammate Carl Edwards versus Chevy’s Jimmie Johnson.

A look at the NASCAR standings, two races into the 10-race championship race, shows Edwards, Johnson and Biffle virtually tied.

Busch and teammate Denny Hamlin were Sunday’s biggest losers. Busch is 210 points behind leader Edwards, Hamlin is 193 behind.

Jeff Gordon, still winless and 118 points down, said that this Chase may come down to the team making the fewest mistakes, and he warns that “it’s extremely easy’ for any of the Chase drivers to have a couple of bad weeks like Busch: “It can happen so easy. Every restart I see 10 wrecks happening, and you just hope you’re not in it.

“So it can be that. … It can be engines. There are just so many things that can go wrong. And unfortunately for those guys that’s what’s happened two weeks in a row.

“When things don’t go your way, you can’t second-guess yourself and everything you’re doing. You’ve just got to re-group and not let it get you down.“

—So much for conservative driving.

And now an even wilder Kyle Busch may have to be factored into the playoff Chase, because after two straight weeks of bad luck, he’s 200 points out of it and can drive like he has nothing to lose.

Heck, that’s scary.

Teammate Tony Stewart: “If I were Kyle, I’d go out there and just worry about winning races.

“It’s been a remarkable, record-setting year for that kid, and the best way to finish it off is to go out there and win three or four races during the Chase.

“It’s hard to tell him to keep his head up. I mean, there’s nobody going to make him feel better. The kid has worked hard all year, the team has worked hard all year. They’ve just had two bad races in a row.“

—Greg Biffle’s run-and-gun approach to Sunday’s Dover 400 certainly impressed teammate Carl Edwards, no shy driver himself

“That’s most you can run into one another, and go back and forth, without wrecking each other,“ Edwards said of the final 40 laps between Biffle and Matt Kenseth.

“That’s two real good guys.

“That’s fun to do right there.

“Obviously I wanted to win and felt we had a car that could win. But we gambled on two tires (instead of four), and that’s how it went.

“That was a blast.

“That’s the best third-place finish you could have right there: You’ve got teammates in front, you’re still leading the points … and I got to race like I haven’t raced in a long, long time.

“That’s fun.“

—Matt Kenseth, remember, is now a wild card in the title Chase, after that 40th at Loudon. He’s 167 points down, and unlikely to make up that much ground any time soon on the three tour leaders.

For most of the season Kenseth—the 2003 tour champ, as Mr. Consistency, in a romp that triggered NASCAR’s new championship playoff rules—has played in the shadows of Biffle and Edwards.

And Kenseth is still winless this year.

“To be honest with you, I haven’t really thought about the points,“ Kenseth said.

“We didn’t run well at Richmond. Carl and Greg were head-and-shoulders faster at New Hampshire, and then we got caught up in that wreck.

“The championship really isn’t even on my mind at this moment.

“With Carl leading the points, there were two winners … and I feel like only loser in the crowd.

“Greg and I: I was pretty close to wrecking us both on the backstretch one time. We just couldn’t race any harder.

“If we can get some runs like this, and lead some laps, and hopefully get a win or two, you’ll get a lot of points and you can start looking at it.“