RICHMOND, Va. — David Ragan’s chances of making the Chase for the championship went from reasonable to terrible and then to hopeful before he faded late in the Chevrolet 400.
Seventeen points behind No. 12 Clint Bowyer to start the race, Ragan’s chances took a hit when he and teammate Matt Kenseth both spun out 123 laps into the race and sustained damage.
But the Roush-Fenway Racing driver moved back into contention for the playoffs when he stayed out on the track as most of the leaders pitted on the 243rd lap, actually climbing over Bowyer and into the top 12 before Bowyer’s stronger car proved better in the last 150 laps.
Kasey Kahne, who was 14th to start the race and 48 points behind Bowyer, never was a factor at Richmond International Raceway and missed the Chase for the third straight season.
Bowyer won the spot by 69 points over Kahne, and Ragan finished 77 points back.
Kahne had a stretch midway through the season that including both of his victories and a second-place finish in a span of four races, but said it was disappointing to have an eighth- to 15th-place car for most of the rest of the races. He finished 19th on Sunday.
“We just have a lot of work to do. We need to get better to run with Kyle, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and all those guys,” Kahne said. “We’ve got to get better.”
Ragan does too, and knows it. He said this weekend he knew five top-five finishes showed he isn’t ready to contend for a championship, but he still would have liked the chance.
“I felt like the first 100 or so laps we had a top five car,” Ragan said, speaking of the time before the spin on lap 123. “It just seemed to turn a corner after lap 100 and we didn’t have the speed. … Running back there 30th, 25th, you don’t deserve to make the Chase.”
Ragan said it was unfair to blame his failure on one race. “Our speed has been in the race car; it’s just a matter of making good decisions on Saturday or Sunday,” he said.
SWEET REVENGE? Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leading the race in the closing laps here in May when Kyle Busch bumped him from behind, sending him spinning as Busch assumed the lead.
On Sunday, Busch was leading when Earnhardt cut inside him bidding to take the top spot. As they headed into the turn, Busch came down and perhaps didn’t see that Earnhardt’s car was already nearly side by side with him, and as Busch attempted to move down, the left rear of his car clipped the right from of Earnhardt’s, sending Busch spinning out of the lead.
Earnhardt said the mid-race contact was purely accidental.
“If I wreck somebody, I ain’t going to leave them in good enough shape to come back and get me in the same race, so that wasn’t really my intentions,” he said with a smile.
HANDICAPPING THE CHASE: Jeff Gordon is the winningest active driver with 81 trips to Victory Lane and four titles, and he said Jimmie Johnson is the favorite to win the title.
In fact, he figures the top three choices to win it are in reverse order of the way they will be seeded when the 10-race playoffs begin next week at Loudon in New Hampshire.
Kyle Busch, he said, is still a little bit too aggressive.
“I think Kyle has — he has the ability to go really hard, really fast, and he’s made big improvements in my opinion this year over last year,” Gordon said of his former teammate at Hendrick Motorsports.
“Last year when he drove for us, there wasn’t a single practice that they didn’t have to knock out the right side on the car. This year it seems to be like every fifth race that happens. … That’s why he runs fast and they’ve won a bunch of races so he’s gotten more comfortable. He’s close. He’s as good as anybody out there right now.”
But still not the favorite, Gordon said.
“I would put Carl (Edwards) ahead of him as far as being ready experience-wise, and I’d put Jimmie ahead of both of those guys with just his experience of winning the last two.”
BAD CAR-MA: Denny Hamlin dominated the spring race at Richmond, leading 381 of the 400 laps around the track that’s just about 10 miles from where he grew up, but he returned this weekend with a different Toyota than the one that should have won handily back in May.
In that race, no one came close to challenging him until a leaking right front tire allowed Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch to pass him as he faded to a disappointing 24th.
“We definitely had a dominant car, but things change so much and the weather is so much different than what it was here in the spring that I don’t think what we had would be perfect like it was the last time,” Hamlin, a native of Chester, said. “Already we took what we thought was good setup-wise in the spring, brought it here and we’ve changed it quite a bit.”
Hamlin started 11th and finished third, his third third-place run in succession.
TRUCK STOP: The slumping economy’s impact on NASCAR is growing.
Once the powerhouse in the Craftsman Truck Series, Dodge plans to stop providing financial support to that series next year, senior manager Mike Delahanty of Dodge Motorsports said.
The change was first reported by ESPN.
Delahanty said Dodge teams in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series would not be affected.
The manufacturer won 46 of 99 races from 2001-04, and has claimed championships in the truck series with Bobby Hamilton in 2004 and Ted Musgrave the following season.
Only two teams are racing fulltime in Dodges in the truck series this season, and one of those, driven by Jason White, has been without financial help from the maker all season.
PIT STOPS: The two-day postponement of Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race ended Richmond’s string of consecutive sellouts at 33. … Kyle Busch finished the regular season with a 207-point advantage over Carl edwards, but will start the Chase with just a 30-point edge.
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