Chase race heating up
If four-time NASCAR Nextel Cup champion Jeff Gordon is to make 2007 'The Drive for Five' -- and he pretty much has owned the top spot all year long -- he'll have to overcome the scoring anomaly that has put him behind teammate Jimmie Johnson after Sunday's Sharp AQUOS 500 at California Speedway if the season were to end today.
Although Jeff Gordon leads Johnson by a whopping 430 points and by five positions in the Chase for the Championship with just Saturday's race at Richmond International Raceway left to decide final standings, Johnson can move to the top spot because he has one more victory (five) than Jeff Gordon (four).
The math goes like this: All 12 Chase drivers start with 5,000 points when the post-season begins Sept. 17 at New Hampshire International Speedway, with an additional 10 points awarded for each win during the first 26 races.
Even if Jeff Gordon wins at Richmond he still only ties with Johnson at 5,050 points each.
The method in NASCAR's madness was that it felt winning during the regular season should be rewarded more than consistency.
Last season, defending champion Tony Stewart missed the Chase even though he had a pair of victories while Jeff Burton and Mark Martin made the post-season without any wins.
This season, the loser is Jeff Gordon. Even though he'll start the Chase in second, it gives Johnson a big advantage.
The 35-year-old Jeff Gordon, however, figures that his mediocre finishes in the past two Cup races -- 18th and 16th -- are more a result of knowing he has a spot in the Chase sewed up rather than a stumble on his team's part.
"It's like this; None of these races really mean a whole lot," he said. "And so we'd like to be running better and be out there getting bonus points but this team is going to come with a whole different focus and attitude when we get to New Hampshire.
"I'll be honest, it's kind of hard to be in this position because you're in a position where it really doesn't matter, and yet you're a competitor and you go out there and you run hard and try to lead laps and win races.
"But you know in the back of your mind that it really doesn't mean anything. So I'm a little disappointed in some of the things we've had happen to us. But at the same time, I'd rather have them happen to us now than in those final 10 races."
It is all well and good to say that now, but if Jeff Gordon fails to win his fifth championship, you can be certain that NASCAR will get an earful of complaints.
LYNCH CLINCHES WIN
Derek Lynch spent much of the past decade pursuing dreams of NASCAR stardom in the U.S. in several weekly series -- most notably the Busch East Series -- but the opportunity to turn race promoter at Kawartha Speedway a couple of years ago brought the Warkworth, Ont., native home.
However, he still had the need for speed and this season he has been a regular on the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, where he earned his first win Saturday at the Subway 200 at Cayuga Speedway Park's 5/8-mile oval.
Lynch's experience paid off when Peter Gibbons and Jim Lapcevich crashed in front of him on the final lap, giving his No. 77 Allied Steel Buildings/Canadian Shield Dodge the victory.
"Gibbons and Jim were going at each other pretty hard there for a long time," he said. "I wasn't going to stick my nose in there. I had a Top-5 car and I wanted to bring it home that way."
Series points leader Andrew Ranger, of Roxton Pond, Que., solidified his hold on the top spot with a second-place finish in the No. 27 Wal-Mart/Tide Ford.
D.J. Kennington, of St. Thomas, finished third in the No. 17 Castrol Dodge.
FINISH LINES
With her second-place finish Sunday at the Detroit Indy Grand Prix on Belle Isle, Danica Patrick has just one race left in the 2007 Indy Racing League season to record her first win ... Hall of Fame Racing owners Troy Aikman, Roger Staubach and Bill Saunders have sold majority interest in the No. 96 Nextel Cup team to Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jeff Moorad. The team also announced it will switch to Toyota next season from Chevrolet, which will end GM Racing driver Ron Fellows' connection to the squad ... Sunday's 15th and 17th place finishes, respectively, by Alex Tagliani and Paul Tracy at the Champ Car World Series event at Assen, in the Netherlands, was the worst for Canadians in recent memory ... Insiders in Champ Car are wondering out loud why Jerry Forsythe has let the series be mismanaged so badly this season. The majority shareholder, along with Kevin Kalkhoven, appears to be letting minority interest holder Paul Gentilozzi steer the ship. That would be the same Gentilozzi who was at the wheelhouse when the Trans Am series hit the iceberg in 2006.
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