CUP: Are Chasers Feeling The Heat?

Sprint Cup

CUP: Are Chasers Feeling The Heat?

Denny Hamlin qualified a disappointing 34th for the Pepsi Max 400...

Tom Jensen | Posted October 09, 2010 Charlotte, NC

Denny Hamlin won six races in the Sprint Cup regular season, but so far in the Chase, he’s failed to lead a single lap. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The statistics don’t lie: The field for this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup is the closest ever, with the top eight drivers separated by a mere 85 points heading into Sunday’s Pepsi Max 400 at Auto Club Speedway.

And yet the statistics don’t tell the entire story, either.

Jimmie Johnson’s victory at Dover International Speedway two weeks ago, followed by his runner-up finish at Kansas Speedway on Sunday has moved him atop the points standings. Denny Hamlin, who entered the Chase as the top seed, is 8 points in back of Johnson and Kevin Harvick, the regular-season points leader, is just 30 points out of the lead.

Those margins are razor-thin in Johnson’s favor: A single poor pit stop on Sunday could knock him out of the points lead, and a catastrophic incident like Johnson had at Texas last year could drop him deep in the field.

Still, based on what happened Friday at ACS, it’s clear the pressure is on Johnson’s challengers, not the four-time defending champion.

During Friday’s time trials, Johnson qualified the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet eighth, his worst starting spot at ACS since Feb. 2007. But only two Chase contenders out-qualified Johnson: Third-place Matt Kenseth and his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle, last week’s winner at Kansas, in seventh.

Johnson’s closest competitors in the points were well off the pace. Hamlin qualified 34th, Harvick 21st. Carl Edwards, who is fourth in the points, will start the race 20th, three spots behind Jeff Gordon, the fifth-place driver. Kurt Busch, sixth in the Cup standings, qualified 39th, while his little brother Kyle was 16th.

The bottom line? Of the top eight drivers in points, the only one to out-qualify Johnson was Biffle, who is eighth in the standings, 85 points back of Johnson.

Given the Johnson has won three of the last four ACS races, and that Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Fenway Racing have combined to win 16 of 20 previous races at ACS, it appears some of the Chasers are feeling the pressure already.

Hamlin won a series-high six races in the Sprint Cup regular season, but so far in the Chase, he’s the only one of the 12 drivers who has failed to lead a single lap. On top of that, his 18.222 average finish at ACS is worst among the Chasers. Despite qualifying 34th and practicing 18th, Hamlin professed to be confident about this weekend’s race.

“We feel like we can come to California and win,” Hamlin said Friday at ACS. We’ve been in contention to win a couple of these races here. I come here to finish No. 1, nowhere else.”

Asked if California was a difficult race track for him, Hamlin invoked Johnson and the No. 48 team.

“I think we’re going to go out there and attempt to beat them straight up and gain points this weekend,” Hamlin said. “I don’t think this is a race track where I feel like I don’t want to lose a certain amount of points. I want to go out there and close back in on the lead.”

As for Harvick, his confidence remained high.

He nearly won here in February, closing on Johnson in the late stages of the race before grazing the wall and finishing second.

“I feel really comfortable where I’m at,” said Harvick, who despite his runner-up finish here in February has the second-worst ACS finishing average among Chase drivers. “I feel like we’ve been through a lot of these situations before. I feel like we’ve run better this year — just consistently. I know that we’ve started the Chase better than we’ve ever started the Chase before. It seems like looking back at the past history of what we do, the last four or five races are our strength based upon the last few times that we’ve been in the Chase. You never know how it’s all going to shake out, but I feel really good about the situation that we’re in as a team and we just go race every week as hard as we can.”

Johnson, meanwhile, is playing his cards close to the vest as he tends to.

“I know how important every single point is, but I just choose not to over think things maybe,” he said when asked if he pays as much attention to points as Hamlin does. “Just stay focused on what we need to do. We all have different things that we use to motivate ourselves with and set as a goal for the team. It’s not a bad way to go about it; I’ve got nothing against it. I just don’t really pay attention to it and just stay within my own head and what I need to do each week.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

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