Filed under: Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Sprint Cup, NASCAR
Four
NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers are hovering at or near 13th place in the points standings, hoping to claw their way up into the 12-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff beginning Sept. 19 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Don't shift to the edge of your seat just yet, however. With two races to go before the Chase cutoff, all four drivers --
Jamie McMurray (at left in photo),
Mark Martin,
Ryan Newman and
Kasey Kahne -- are just too far back to have a reasonable chance at catching up.
It's not impossible, mind you. But if any of them do it, they will set a record for emerging from the deepest points hole ever to make the Chase.
Clint Bowyer (at right in photo) is on the bubble in 12th, and he won't be breathing easy for the next couple of weeks, even though he can take some comfort in the relatively large size of his 100-point lead over McMurray. Martin is 101 points back, while Newman trails by 118 points. Kasey Kahne, in 16th place, is 136 points behind Bowyer and realistically has no chance at all.
'Well, it's a little bit of a cushion," Bowyer said after finishing fourth at Bristol in the most recent Sprint Cup race. "But we've just got to keep doing what we're doing. If we do that, I don't think they can catch us. We've got two races to go. Two good race tracks -- I love Atlanta, run well there, and I love Richmond, run well there. With any luck at all, we'll be in this thing."
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