Busch feels pressure; Vickers laid back
It's make-or-break time at Richmond International Raceway, or so says Kyle Busch.
Brian Vickers? If he's feeling the same heat, he's not letting on.
The two drivers head into Saturday night's race jockeying for a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Eleven drivers head into the final qualifying race mathematically eligible to claim the eight available spots, and only 113 points separate sixth-place Kasey Kahne from 14th-place Busch.
But the focus headed into the most meaningful Richmond race since the Chase format began in 2004 isn't on Kurt Busch or Carl Edwards, Ryan Newman or even Matt Kenseth. Instead, it's on Busch and Vickers, who are both trying to displace someone, anyone, in the 12-driver field.
"The pressure is on for sure," said Busch, who sits 37 points back of Kenseth in 12th. "It's definitely not going to be easy."
For Busch, not making the Chase would render his season a major failure.
Vickers, driving for the upstart Red Bull Racing team, is taking a far more laid-back approach.
"I think at this point we need to set high goals and expectations, but we also have to remain realistic," said Vickers, who is 20 points back of Kenseth. "We are a very young and new team. Just to be in the Chase is a huge accomplishment. What we do from there I think is all gravy."
Not to be forgotten is Kenseth, one of only two drivers to make the Chase in each of its first five seasons. But he's been on a slide since opening the season with consecutive wins, and has no grand illusions of making a run at the title.
"We are concentrated on getting in that Chase, but more important than that, we are searching for ways to get this team back up front and leading laps and contending for wins," Kenseth said. "When you do that, all the other stuff tends to fall in line."
So where do they stand?
Busch: If there's one track where Busch had to put his entire season on the line, Richmond would probably be the place he would pick. He won the May race, has seven top fives in nine starts and a 6.1 average finish. He's also led laps in six Cup races, and won three Nationwide races.
"We feel like we can go back there and do well there," he said. "I've run good there about every time I've been there."
And he likely will again Saturday night.
Still, it might not be enough, and Busch knows that.
He could lead every lap and win the race, but it still all depends on where Kenseth or Vickers finish.
It's evident Busch recognizes this. Earlier this week, Busch sounded resigned to the fact that despite his four wins he will be shut out of the Chase, regardless of what he does at Richmond; that his fate is instead a reflection on the 25 races leading into Saturday.
Sure he's tied with Mark Martin for the most wins in Cup. But outside of those victories, he's struggled to just four other top-10 finishes.
He'd love to have back either Daytona race – he could have won the season-opening 500, but was collected in a wreck he had no part of, and might have won the July race but a last-lap accident dropped him to 14th. He'd take back Sonoma, where he was 22nd, and Chicago, where he unraveled because his car was so bad.
There was a mechanical problem at Indianapolis, and rain in Charlotte and New Hampshire.
Add it all up, and Busch is in this precarious position.
"We've struggled this year some places. Sometimes it's been me, sometimes it's been the car, sometimes it's been both," he said. "Unfortunately, that's the way the sport goes sometimes. You've got to be consistent in order to make it in."
Should he pull off what only three others have been able to do – drive their way into the Chase at Richmond – Busch still might not be consistent enough to make a legitimate run at the title.
But he sure would make the Chase more interesting.
Vickers: He said that everything beyond making the Chase is "gravy," but in some regards, even being in contention Saturday night is enough.
He and Red Bull showed improvement last season and many suspected he'd be a threat to claim one of the 12 spots this season. By earning the most points of any driver over the last 10 weeks, he's right on the bubble.
Of course, Red Bull wants him to grab that final spot and put the third-year team into NASCAR's showcase event. But lately, Vickers has come across as if this ride on the bubble is fine, and if he falls short of making the Chase, oh well.
Maybe he's just being misinterpreted when he lectures about how young Red Bull is, how far they've come since their disastrous 2007 season, and how expectations should be kept in perspective. But last month's clash with Busch at Michigan, when the two disagreed with how they raced each other on the final lap of the Nationwide Series race, left some wondering just how committed Vickers is to winning.
He insists he wants to win as much as the next guy, but in the same breath criticized Busch for how angry he gets when he falls short of victory.
Saturday night is Vickers' chance to step up onto the big stage and show just how bad he wants it. Richmond is an OK track for him – he has two poles, including one in the spring race, but just one top-10 finish in 10 previous starts. His average finish is 27.8, and he was 15th in May.
"It hasn't been one of our best tracks," he said. "We need to go there and repeat the same thing there on Friday, which is get pole, then get the race package to work. We were good on the short runs, but we were bad on the long runs. We think we know why that is. We think we know how to fix it.
"We've gotten a lot better since then. Hopefully, if we can fix the long run part of our race package, then we should be really good because we had one of the fastest cars, if not the fastest cars, earlier this year."
Just like Busch, Vickers could have the night of his life and it might not be enough. But it's going to be up to him to put himself in position to capitalize should any of the drivers in front of him falter.
Kenseth: He could have had a disastrous race last week at Atlanta, where he hit the wall early to fall two laps down only to rally and finish an impressive 12th.
But it wasn't satisfying for Kenseth, who knows his team has been off since its wins in the Daytona 500 and at California – both in February. In all, he has just nine top 10s all season.
Still, Kenseth is as steely as they get and if he gets rattled, he doesn't show it.
Smooth and steady will get him a spot in the Chase for the sixth consecutive year, and Richmond is a decent track for him. He has one win, nine top 10s and an average finish of 16.7.
That could be enough because he's sitting in the driver's seat, ahead of Busch and Vickers. If he simply has a clean race and runs in the top 10, then nothing the other two do may matter.
Regardless, Kenseth isn't dreaming of a second career championship. He knows his performance won't challenge Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon for the title, and he knows Saturday night won't be his season-defining race.
"We'll go out and do all we can to run up front and win the race," he said. "But we've just been a little off lately and we have to find out what we need to get over that hump. We just want to run good and run back up front where I know we belong."
Everyone Else: There's not a lot of talk about drivers fifth through 11th in the standings, mostly because only a total catastrophe will keep them out of the Chase.
That's not to say it won't happen: Crashes in two of the past three weeks have dropped Kurt Busch to seventh in the standings, and recent sub-par runs have Newman and Greg Biffle clinging to their Chase berths.
Meanwhile, Edwards now finds himself in a precarious position after suffering a broken foot playing Frisbee and a mechanical failure at Atlanta.
But Edwards has three career top-10 finishes at Richmond, and Kahne, Kurt Busch, Newman and Martin all have won there before. Biffle has five top-10s.
So who is the big question mark?
At eighth in the standings, he's just 88 points ahead of Vickers. But he's also just 17 points out of fifth place.
He only has to finish 18th or better to grab a Chase spot, but in five previous starts, his average finish is 27.8. He was, however, a career-best 10th there in May.
Montoya has been playing it safe since June, when his Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team went public with its conservative Chase-racing strategy. Now, with a spot in his first Chase on the line, he'll have to stick close to the plan and avoid all trouble.
So will everyone else.
