August 16, 2007
By Rebecca Gladden

Rebecca Gladden

Ask any NASCAR driver where he wants to finish a race, and the answer will always be the same: First place.

But with just four races left before the launch of the 2007 Chase for the Championship, the real race is for 12th place - in the point standings, that is.

Now in its fourth full year, the Chase divides the 36-race NASCAR season into two distinct parts - the 26-race regular season, in which 43 or more drivers compete for wins and points, and the 10-race play-off season (the Chase), in which all the drivers compete for wins and points, but only the top tier of drivers compete for the Nextel Cup championship.

For the past three seasons, the Chase consisted of the top 10 drivers in points at the end of the regular season, and although there was a provision to include another one or two drivers who may have been within 400 points of the leader, that situation never materialized.

So, for three years, the Chase came down to a 10-race shoot-out between 10 drivers, and while everyone was vying for those 10 spots, there was also heightened interest in the driver who finished 11th in points.

Why? Because the 11th-place driver garnered a tidy million-dollar paycheck and was invited to participate in the big NASCAR Awards Banquet in New York with the rest of the top 10.

Prior to the start of the 2007 season, NASCAR made several significant changes to the way the championship is decided.

First, the Chase field was expanded from 10 to 12 drivers, and the 400-point provision was eliminated.

Additionally, in a ruling designed to encourage drivers to put winning races ahead of accumulating points, NASCAR established a 10-point bonus per regular season victory, awarded to drivers once they make the Chase.

Previously, the 10 drivers in the Chase started the playoff season separated by a rather arbitrary five- point spread between each driver. Starting this season, all 12 Chase drivers will begin the Chase with 5000 points, and then the bonus points they've accumulated for race wins during the regular season will be added: Four wins = 40 additional points (5040 total), three wins = 30 additional points (5030), and so on.

With previous championships decided by as narrow a margin as eight points (Kurt Busch over Jimmie Johnson in 2004), the importance of the bonus points cannot be overstated.

However, with the Chase field expanded this season from 10 to 12 drivers, there is no longer any special recognition for the 13th-place driver - the top finisher among non-Chasers - as there was previously for the 11th-place driver.

With no "best of the rest" suspense to divert our attention this season, the focus has shifted to 12th place - the final spot in the Chase. It's unlikely that any of the drivers near the top of the point standings will fall out of the top 10 with just four races to go, creating heightened interest in what a NASCAR press release today termed the "12th-place bubble drama."

Currently, just 198 points separate 11th-place driver Martin Truex Jr. from 14th-place driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. Between them are Kurt Busch in 12th and Ryan Newman in 13th. If the Chase started today, Truex and Busch would be in; Newman and Earnhardt would be out.

But with 185 points on the line for winning a race, plus bonus points for leading laps, positions could easily shift between those four drivers over the next four weeks.

"Kurt Busch (No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge) is in 12th place in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings, coming into Sunday's 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway. It's a good place to be - but by no means secure," states the NASCAR press release. "Trailing Busch are two other drivers within immediate - meaning, one race - striking distance of 12th: 13th-place Ryan Newman (No. 12 Alltel Dodge) and 14th-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet). Newman is 96 points behind Busch; Earnhardt is 100 back."

If he can hold serve for four more races, 2007 would mark Martin Truex Jr.'s first appearance in the Chase. Kurt Busch won the title in 2004 and made the Chase in 2005, but missed it last year, finishing 16th in the standings.

Neither Ryan Newman nor Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won a Cup championship. Newman was a Chase contender the first two seasons but, like Busch, missed the cut in '06. Dale Jr. made the Chase in '04 and '06, but finished the 2005 season out of the Chase and 19th in the standings.

While the fate of these four "bubble" drivers is uncertain for this year's Chase, we do know that for two of them, their bubble is going to burst four weeks from now.

And with a high profile name like Earnhardt in the mix, the focus of the NASCAR nation between now and Richmond will be on the race for 12th.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.