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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Chase Bubble Perking With Six To Go
Drivers from 10th place to 19th in the Sprint Cup standings are separated by only 255 points...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted July 27, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 14th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Six races, 10 faces.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is seven weeks – there’s an open date Aug. 29 – from deciding the dozen drivers who will participate in what apparently will be the last go-round for the current version of the Chase for the Sprint Cup. And it’s far too early to start making calls about who’s in and who’s out.

Drivers from 10th place (Carl Edwards) to 19th (Joey Logano) are separated by only 255 points entering Sunday’s 21st race of the season – the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. The Chase cutoff is Sept. 11 at Richmond International Raceway.

After Pocono, the series will race at Watkins Glen, Michigan, Bristol and Atlanta before arriving in Richmond for the final race of the “regular” season.

It’s a wild assortment of tracks upon which to decide the drivers who go after the big money, and it’s also quite a collection of contenders – including some of the sport’s biggest names – who are in the bunch circling around the final Chase spots.

Remarkably, one driver in the fringe group – Jamie McMurray – has won the season’s two biggest races, the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400. But, thanks to three DNFs and some wacky inconsistencies, McMurray is only 16th in points (he gained two positions with Sunday’s dramatic win).

“Consistency is the key to making the Chase,” said Kevin Manion, McMurray’s crew chief. “We had a string there – second, 34th, second, 30th. The seconds are cool, but the 30ths don’t cut it.

“It’s going to take some good, strong runs.”
Inconsistency has all but doomed Jamie McMurray's Chase chances. (Photo: Getty Images)

Immediately in front of McMurray – and all currently barely out of the Chase – are three of the sport’s big-name drivers. Mark Martin is 13th, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 14th and Ryan Newman 15th.

After a spectacular 2009, Martin is having a difficult season. He and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Earnhardt Jr. both are winless, and Martin has spent the past several months trying to regain front-running status.

Newman’s boss and teammate, Tony Stewart, appears to be safely in the Chase, and a late-summer surge by Newman, who owns one win this year, could put both in the Chase for the second straight season.

Immediately behind Edwards and, at this point, in Chase spots are 11th-place Greg Biffle and 12th-place Clint Bowyer, both of whom kept their spots in the standings with top-four runs at Indy Sunday.

As matters now stand, seven of the 12 drivers in Chase positions are winless this year, including second-place Jeff Gordon. Drivers in spots seven through 12 (and, for that matter, 13 and 14) are winless.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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