Busch, Earnhardt or Gordon as chase hits halfway?

By Andrew Charman

NASCAR's inaugural Chase for the Nextel Cup is halfway through its 10-race schedule, and of the 10 contenders that were separated into a private championship battle six weeks ago at Richmond, some have already seen their hopes fade. Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman and Jeremy Mayfield are all more than 200 points behind leader Kurt Busch, and while with up to 185 points available from a win at the remaining races they are not officially out of contention, pulling back such a deficit is unlikely.

In fact most observers believe that the 2004 Nextel Cup champion will be one of the drivers occupying the first three spots in the points. Busch is a surprise leader - he's been competitive throughout the year but his #97 Irwin/Sharpie Ford has hit top form just in time for the chase, and he currently sits a mere 24 points ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Dale Jr will reflect that but for a profanity uttered during a live TV interview following his Talladega victory three weeks ago, he'd now be leading the series by a point. NASCAR this week threw out an appeal by Earnhardt's team seeking to get a 25-point penalty for the slip of the tongue reinstated. Now the driver of the #8 Budweiser Chevrolet believes he has only three opportunities to overhaul Busch's advantage and go on to what would be a very popular inaugural title. Darlington and Homestead, venues for the final two races of the season, make Earnhardt a little nervous, and for good reason, as he never cracked the secret to speed on the new high-banked surface at Miami's Homestead track last year. "We need to go to Martinsville, Atlanta and Phoenix and run really good because the unknowns are Darlington and Homestead for us," he said this week. "We don't have a history of strong runs at either of those two tracks, so I need to go into these next three and be stellar."

The omens are good - Earnhardt loves short tracks, and Martinsville, as well as being the oldest venue on the tour (it's the only one remaining from the original 1949 schedule) is also the shortest, at 0.526 of a mile. Okay the Budweiser Chevy has never visited the paperclip-shaped track's victory lane, but Earnhardt has an enviable record of five top fives in nine starts at Martinsville.

The most money, however, will be placed on the man currently in third spot. Jeff Gordon may be 74 points down on Busch, but he's also the only previous champion in the top five. He's got four of those titles, so knows how to win, a fact he proved last week at Charlotte. Gordon's #24 Dupont Chevy was involved in two panel-crunching accidents during the UAW/GM Quality 500, but a combination of his hard driving and the switched on pit road efforts of the Hendrick Motorsport Rainbow Warriors meant that when the chequered flag fell the #24 car was in second place. That kind of effort wins titles...

To add to the fears of rivals, Gordon loves Martinsville. He's won there five times, including both of last year's races. And he's very much up for the fight; "We would love to win this championship," he said this week. "I know the past experience plays a role, but when you look at the way the championship is this year, I just think it's putting the best car and team out there week in and week out."

It's a view concurred with by leader Busch, who while being another who's strong on short tracks (he's dominated the past couple of years at Bristol, the Nextel Cup's other half-miler) certainly knows he doesn't have anywhere near enough of a points advantage to relax. "Martinsville is one of those short tracks that the Chase contenders are all gonna run strong on," he argued this week. "Junior has been strong. He's finished third there so many times. He's on the verge of winning. Jeff Gordon has had an advantage there the past few times. We won there back in 2002. You just go down the list."

Of the rest, fourth-placed Elliot Sadler could be the title dark horse, his #38 M&Ms Ford 157 points back on Busch, while veteran Mark Martin refuses to give up on his quest to turn many a title second place into a championship, especially as he has announced that 2005 will be his last full season in the #6 Viagra Ford. But current title holder Matt Kenseth and his predecessor Tony Stewart will need some hefty helpings of luck - good for them, bad for the five ahead of them, if they are to play a part in the championship story over the coming five weeks.

Of course there are not just 10 drivers in Sunday's Subway 500. There will be 43, and the battle for 11th place in the championship is no less intense, especially with more than a million dollars on offer to this year's 'best of the rest.' Many expected this title to go to Kasey Kahne, but while looking on for his first Nextel Cup race win so many times, this year's star rookie has had plenty of bad luck. The latest came last week, when a puncture put his Dodge into the wall while he was dominating at Charlotte.

No, the man most likely to looks increasingly like Jamie McMurray. His #42 Havoline Dodge has hit top-ten form in the past few weeks, and he goes to Martinsville with a useful 74 point advantage over Dale Jarrett.

As for the Martinsville track, it's looking in pretty good shape for this oh-so important race. Protective SAFER barriers have been installed to soften the impacts with the walls, and much new tarmac has been put down - everyone expects a much faster race this weekend. But Sunday's Subway 500 will still be a race for the cool-headed, as Tony Stewart explains. "At Martinsville you learn how to protect the car," he said. "You learn how to not beat it up. You learn it's a lot more fun racing when you use a lot more patience. Patience seems to be the biggest variable that can hold you up at a place like Martinsville. Needless to say, after going there a couple of times, I've learned how to be patient - out of necessity, basically."

The Subway 500 gets underway at around 1pm Eastern Time on Sunday, around 6pm in the UK. Stay tuned to Crash.net for the full story as the Chase for the Nextel Cup goes down to the wire...