Most Chase drivers have faltered

This year’s Nextel Cup championship chase has been a bust for most of the title contenders.

Consider this: Over the past six races, J. J. Yeley has scored more points than Chase drivers Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Martin Truex Jr. and Matt Kenseth.

It has been a weird Chase.

Pat Tryson, Busch’s crew chief, said it’s time for some good luck: “This car was certainly a strong car at Loudon before we had the problem with the carburetor. Kurt qualified third there and ran with the leaders through the first half of the race before the carburetor broke.

“We’ll have cars plenty strong enough to win all the remaining races, and we’re headed back to tracks where Kurt has done well.

“We’re on the brink of winning with our cars of tomorrow, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise if we win this weekend or at Phoenix. It’s a big goal of ours to get us a COT win this season.”

Busch ran 12th in the spring race at Martinsville Speedway, and he said, “our COT program is light years ahead of what it was then.”

Last Saturday’s 26th-place finish was a bitter pill to swallow.

“We were turning laps two to three-tenths faster than the leader before dropping a cylinder,” Busch said.

Former teammate Matt Kenseth is looking for some changes, too.

“At some point our luck has got to change,” Matt Kenseth said. “So maybe it’ll be this weekend — at a track I usually dread racing at.

“Martinsville reminds me of racing around two light poles in some mall parking lot. There’s very little room to race, it’s slow, and just real tight quarters.

“Forget passing on the outside. I think everyone saw that back in the spring when the second-place car (Jeff Gordon), which was a good bit faster, couldn’t get around the leader (Jimmie Johnson) for the last 20 laps. To me there’s nothing fun about that.”

For Michael Waltrip, most of the season has been like that. And he’s not enthusiastic about this weekend.

“My expectations have to be somewhat reserved,” he said. “I have some concerns, because I haven’t made a flat-track race all year.

“I don’t like the way my car drives. We’ve taken the COT to Dover and Bristol and been competitive, but when we went to the short, flat tracks like New Hampshire, it just didn’t work.

“I have expressed my concerns to our new technical director, Dr. Eric Warren. The car just will not stick at either end of the track. It feels as if the car is up on jack stands when I go in the corners.”

But for Ricky Rudd, life is beautiful, because he’s finally back in a car, after being sidelined for six weeks.

“As far as this weekend, I won’t really know my status with my shoulder until we get to Martinsville, and I have the chance to practice,” Rudd said. “I really didn’t have any issues in Charlotte. I had some pain and soreness, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t deal with.

“But Martinsville is a more aggressive track, and I don’t want to get into the situation where we have to change drivers in the middle of the race. But if my shoulder feels good, I will qualify and race.”

“Martinsville is just a track that wears you down physically.”

And then there’s David Ragan, who still chafes at a comment from Tony Stewart about his early driving style: “The first time I raced at Martinsville in the Cup cars I was referred to as ‘a dart with no feathers.’ So I am hoping I have sprouted a few by now.

“We have had a rough couple of weeks, so we definitely need to redeem ourselves.’”

Ragan finished third in his last short-track run, at Richmond last month.

Teammate Greg Biffle has turned the corner on his season, but Martinsville, he said, may be a setback.

“I don’t have a very good history at Martinsville,” he said. “We seem to have a lot of brake trouble — and just bad luck in general.”

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