Qualifying
Kevin Harvick put his Chevy on the pole for the race as Roush Racing's Greg Biffle started second. Rookie Travis Kvapil started third with Roush Racing teammates Mark Martin and Kurt Busch rounding out the top five.
Drop The Green Flag
Travis Kvapil went three wide at the end of lap one to take the lead. The following lap they went three wide again and Biffle took the lead. This exciting start foreshadowed the racing to come.
Kevin Harvick who won the Busch race on Friday night and the pole for the NEXTEL Cup race took over the top spot on lap five and would dominate the first half of the race before his car faded.
Storylines
Because of how they qualified, as soon as they dropped the green flag Jamie McMurray dropped out of the top ten in points and Ryan Newman took over tenth. The focus of the rest of the race was on Matt Kenseth and Newman who were in The Chase and McMurray and Jeff Gordon who were battling to get in.
Making The Chase is so important that there just was just no other story tonight.
Just past the halfway mark Jeff Gordon got pinched into the outside wall. He hadn't been having a very good night and had fallen to 13th in points. The outside wall damaged the car enough so that he was never in danger of cracking the top ten after that. Can you imagine a Chase for the NEXTEL Cup without Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr. in it? This is the 2005 Chase.
Heartbreak again for Jamie McMurray as he closes out the cutoff race eleventh in points for the second year in a row. In 2004 McMurray came up just 15 points short of making The Chase. This year, Tony Raines determined McMurray's fate as he took exception to McMurray's aggressiveness and punted Jamie out of the race.
NASCAR levied a five lap penalty for rough driving but I expect that Tony Raines will spend some time with NASCAR officials this week discussing the incident. We may not have heard the end of this.
Chasing The Checkers
Really the race was secondary this week as it was all about the points. The Roush brigade had a very strong week as Kurt Busch ran away with the second half of the race. His teammates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle chased him most of the way but there really was little doubt about who was going to win it.
Last Week's winner Kyle Busch had another strong run to finish fourth.
Top Ten
- Kurt Busch
- Matt Kenseth
- Greg Biffle
- Kyle Busch
- Rusty Wallace
- Jeremy Mayfield
- Tony Stewart
- Kasey Kahne
- Terry Labonte
- Kevin Harvick
The Points
Ryan Newman bumped Jamie McMurray out of the top ten to take the final qualifying spot for the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL Cup. Starting next week all points are reset so that Newman is now just 45 points behind leader Tony Stewart.
The Chase points are now:
- Tony Stewart -0
- Greg Biffle -5
- Rusty Wallace -10
- Jimmie Johnson -15
- Kurt Busch -20
- Mark Martin -25
- Jeremy Mayfield -30
- Matt Kenseth -35
- Carl Edwards -35
- Ryan Newman -45
Next Week
New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, NH hosts the first race of the 2005 Chase for the NEXTEL Cup. Loudon is a relatively flat one mile oval. Tony Stewart won at Loudon when they raced there in July. The playoffs start next week as ten drivers will run ten races for the 2005 Championship.
