Fryer's Five: Childress back in title hunt

Welcome back to the party Richard Childress. You've officially turned around your organization and pushed three legitimate contenders into the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

Everybody's known for most of the year that RCR had rebounded in a major way from the disastrous 2009 season. The team didn't win a single race last year, Childress failed to put a car in the 12-driver Chase field, and simply running up front again was a fabulous rebound.

But here RCR is with all three drivers in the Chase and a win in Sunday's opening race of the Chase at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It didn't come from likely suspect Kevin Harvick, who paced the company this year with three wins while keeping a stranglehold on the Sprint Cup standings. Instead, it was Clint Bowyer, the driver who bounced around the standings all season and slid into the Chase as the final seed, who broke through for the win. And as Bowyer celebrated snapping an 88-race losing streak, the entire organization bubbled with joy from an outstanding day in New Hampshire.

Harvick overcame a series of horrendous pit stops to storm back from 18th at the midpoint of the race to finish fifth. And Jeff Burton was headed to a top-five finish until his car ran out of gas in the closing laps.

Although Burton finished 15th, his car ran up front with the leaders most of the day.

It's been 16 years since Childress last celebrated a Cup championship, and now there's no reason to believe one of his drivers won't help him hoist the hardware this seaso Bowyer credits Childress for tearing down the organization during last season's struggles and stopping at nothing to rebuild RCR into a contender again.

"It starts with the boss. He pulled everybody in there, said that, 'I'm not satisfied with running second,' " Bowyer said. "Nobody was. Everybody was down. It was a dismal year. We started from scratch. He moved people around. Those are all changes that led to a great thing this year, and you know, thanks for him spending the money and making it happen."

There are still nine races to go, an eternity in NASCAR, and it's well documented that four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson won't go quietly. But it's days like Sunday in New Hampshire, when Harvick could have coasted to the finish, when Bowyer gambled and won with fuel strategy, and Burton held his own until his own wager backfired, that has RCR back on top.

"Everybody has worked really hard and put themselves in a position, got the cars in the Chase, and I think we are as prepared as we ever have been," Childress said, adding how miserable he was during last year's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte watching his cars struggle.

"I stood on the trailer and seen how we were chasing our tails and how behind we were, and we were in a panic mode. I came back Monday or Tuesday, had a meeting with everyone, and started making changes and told them, 'It's just like building a house. Your foundation is a start of a good home and the foundation for a good race car is a good chassis.'

"We just started from there and all of us worked together and changed some people. It was all a team effort. I'm just a spoke in that big wheel that turns."

Here's what else happened at New Hampshire:

1. Bowyer came out swinging:

As the last seed in the Chase and in a 60-point hole at the start, Bowyer went into New Hampshire as if he had nothing to lose.

It was a great strategy and one he'd executed to perfection in 2007, when he won the Chase opener and used that momentum for a career-best third-place finish in the final standings. Bowyer went into this weekend looking for a repeat of that performance, and he pulled it off.

He had the most dominant car all day and built leads of more than seven seconds until a rash of cautions bunched up the field. Bowyer lost the lead on a restart to Tony Stewart, and once Stewart was out in clean air, Bowyer had almost no chance of catching him.

That's where strategy came into play.

Both Stewart and Bowyer were trying to stretch their fuel tanks over the final 92 laps, and conserving gas gave Bowyer no chance at chasing down Stewart. At best, he could race for second and be in position to pounce if Stewart ran out of fuel.

He said he never second-guessed crew chief Shane Wilson's strategy.

"You dominated the race. You owe it to yourself to go out there and try and win the race," he said. "We are the 12th seed going in, those are the kind of chances you're going to have to take to beat these guys in this championship Chase."

Stewart's tank finally ran dry just before the white flag came out signaling the final lap. With that, Bowyer cruised by for his first win of the season and third of his career. It pushed him from 12th to second in the standings, just 35 points behind Denny Hamlin, who came in second.

"We launched ourselves into the pressure cooker early," Bowyer said. "You've got to be able to continue to have as much fun as we did this weekend. If we can do that, we can continue to have the success and run at this pace."

2. Johnson didn't get off to the start he was looking for:

A nation of NASCAR fans likely rejoiced when Johnson headed to pit road late in Sunday's race with a loose right wheel. That sank his shot at a strong run, and his 25th-place finish was the lowest of the 12 Chase drivers.

It also dropped him five spots in the standings, 92 points behind Hamlin.

"We lost some control today, to say the least," Johnson said. "We need to be spotless just to catch up and we might need some help. Again, there's still nine races left."

Johnson was a season-worst 39th in the 2006 Chase opener, but he rebounded to win the first of his four titles. He did it with dominance, reeling off five top-two finishes over the final six races.

It might not take another run like that to win title No. 5, but Johnson knows he's got his work cut out for him.

"I know everybody wants some crazy answer and for me to have some foreshadowing for the future, but, hell, I don't know what's going to happen," Johnson said. "Still nine races left. We did everything we could and we'll show up next weekend and do all we can then and hopefully rebound and gain some points."

3. Matt Kenseth said New Hampshire was his biggest fear:

Boy, he wasn't kidding.

Kenseth struggled all weekend at New Hampshire, from the first practice, through qualifying and almost the entire race. When contact with Brad Keselowski finally sent him into the wall late in the race, he very well may have been wishing it caused race-ending damage.

Instead, Kenseth slogged around until the end and finished 23rd. He's last in the Chase standings, 136 points behind, and not running well enough to have any realistic hopes of winning the championship.

"The guys made adjustments all race long, but we just didn't run very well," he said. "We got caught up in that wreck, had a lot of damage to the car, and it was just a really long day for us."

It wasn't much better for Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle, who finished 17th and never contended Sunday. He dropped two spots to ninth in the standings, 108 points out.

The lone bright spot for RFR was Carl Edwards. He finished 11th but ran better than that during the race. Still, he's eighth in the standings, 95 points behind Hamlin.

4. Hamlin gave himself some breathing room:

Hamlin was running fourth when Edwards ran into him on a restart, causing him to spin and fall all the way back to 22nd with under 100 laps to go. But he steadily rallied over the course of the race, picked off Jamie McMurray for third, and had himself in position to win should both Stewart and Bowyer have run out of gas.

Stewart did, and Hamlin slid into second-place. With one more lap, he either would have run down Bowyer or inherited the victory had Bowyer's fuel tank run dry.

"I needed one more lap," Hamlin said.

At that stage, though, it didn't matter.

Hamlin did enough to save his day and move on to Dover with a 35-point cushion over Bowyer. That's critical for Hamlin, who counts Dover among his worst race tracks. In the past, the concrete mile has defeated Hamlin even before he climbed in the car. Now, he's got the confidence to at least make a run at mastering the Monster Mile.

"We all know how Dover is for me," he said. "We've just got to minimize a bad day again at Dover next week. That's our goal. You've got to set a number, a number that you're satisfied with, and try to reach that goal at Dover next week."

His number just improved at least five spots.

5. Is Kurt Busch a contender?

Hard to tell after another ho-hum run for the 2004 champion.

The weekend started off rough for Busch when NASCAR caught his Penske Racing team with an extra set of tires on Friday, an in fraction that cost him 15 minutes of practice time on Saturday. Although he said the missed practice wouldn't be an issue, he didn't seem all that pleased with his Dodge on Sunday.

Contact with Joey Logano contributed to his 13th-place finish.

"We survived, but we needed to have a good day today and not just survive," he said.

But Busch also blamed his performance on overdriving and pushing for more than what his car could give him. With such a tight Chase field, he's very aware that mediocre finishes aren't going to cut it.

"It's just trying to carry a car on your back that's only good for eighth-place," he said. "I should have settled for eighth. I wanted more. I wanted a good finish, and when you do that, when you stretch yourself thin, you get in trouble."