Knocking On The Door
Currently in eleventh place only forty points out of a playoff spot is Jeremy Mayfield. Jeremy has three top fives so far this season but no wins. If he can find a way to get his Evernham Motorsports Dodge into victory lane over the next six races, or very close to it, then he will very likely find his way into a playoff spot.
In twelfth place is Jeremy's teammate and likely 2004 Rookie Of The Year Kasey Kahne. Like his teammate, Kasey hasn't found his way to victory lane yet in 2004 but has been extremely close a few times.
Kasey has more top five finishes this season than any driver outside of the top ten in points, but he also has a few terrible finishes sprinkled in there too. If Kasey can consistently run strong for the remaining races he'll have a good shot at scoring a playoff spot.
A Solid Shot
Thirteenth place Mark Martin would be well up into the top five this year if it weren't for some mechanical troubles. Mark had mechanical failures rob him of solid top five finishes in Daytona, Charlotte, Pocono, Michigan and Chicago.
Take away any one of those and he's in the top ten already. Take away two of those and he's in the top five. This team is good enough to be a real threat to make up the 89 point deficit if they can avoid the mechanical gremlins that have haunted them all year.
Need The Stars To Align
Dale Jarrett and Jamie McMurray finish out the list of drivers with an honest chance to make the final chase. Both drivers would need to run better than they have all year long and have the drivers in front of them have trouble in order to score a playoff spot.
Jarrett's 103 point hole doesn't seem too deep on the surface. But when you add in that his team just hasn't been spectacular this year, managing only two top five finishes this season, and the four guys in front of him who would have to have problems and he's a long shot.
Jamie McMurray has had ten top ten finishes so far in 2004. This ties him for fifth in the series. However he also has finished thirtieth or worse six times. He would need to go on a phenomenal tear to make it into the top ten but being only 133 points out of tenth it's still not an impossible dream.
Everybody Else
For the rest of the pack, 2004 simply won't be a year to remember. Casey Mears in sixteenth is over 220 points out of a playoff spot and it quickly gets much worse from there on back. This means that some perennial favorites will have to suffer through the final ten races with little or no press coverage at all.
Drivers like Michael Waltrip, Sterling Marlin, Terry Labonte, Rusty Wallace, the Burton brothers and Ricky Rudd have all had such awful seasons that all they can do is hope to rebuild for 2005.
