Backstretch Motorsports

If the New Hampshire opener proved nothing else, it shined light on just how volatile the Chase can be, just as humbling.

Now enter Dover, The Monster Mile, it can be it’s own “wildcard” in The Chase, have no doubt.

It’s a tough track. Speeds are quick, disaster looms and can become reality just as quickly.

The drops in points position are hard to recover from, the gains are just as hard to maintain.

Dover has that modus operandi: 400 miles, hard on drivers, hard on equipment…

It can be a game changer for certain.

One race neither wins or loses a championship, but two races can become an indicator, a look at the end for some.

Case in point: Following a 15th-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, the 2009 “Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup” began just the way Jeff Gordon wanted it to.

Sort of.

Before the start of the 12-driver ‘Chase’, Gordon pointed to the performance of the No. 24 team during the first 10 races of the season as a model for how they would like to perform over the final 10.

Although the DuPont team entered the season-opening Daytona 500 with high hopes, Gordon departed Speedweeks 12th in the standings after a 13th-place finish in “The Great American Race.”

But it did not take long for Gordon and team to make up that deficit. After a second-place finish at California and a sixth-place finish at Las Vegas, Gordon was atop the standings – the same spot he held after race No. 10.

Fast forward to this Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway, and Gordon faces a similar deficit.

Rewind to the last race for Gordon at the “Monster Mile”

In May at the “Monster Mile,” Gordon posted one of the quickest times during practice on Friday but destroyed the chassis in a qualifying wreck. After starting from the rear in a backup car and gaining positions at the start of the race, he lost a lap when a caution waved with Gordon on pit road just past the 100-lap mark.

Gordon lost the points lead to Tony Stewart.

Keeping it real: In 33 starts at Dover, Gordon has four wins, four poles, 14 top-fives and 20 top-10’s

The much experienced Gordon, who is 10th in the standings and 102 points behind leader Mark Martin with nine races remaining, understands the road to a Sprint Cup championship.

“That’s a lot of points to make up, but we have to try to rebound this weekend at Dover.” says the Pittsboro, Ind. driver. “It’s certainly going to be tough to get ourselves back into the thick of the battle, but there are still some strong tracks for us remaining and we have to make the most of them.”

Glance one position up on the scale, look to Greg Biffle, last years winner of this race. The Roush Fenway Racing driver is not easy to count out in this.

Following a ninth-place finish in New Hampshire, Biffle is ninth in the point standings and only 92 points out of the lead.

Biffle has an average finish of 10.6 at Dover and has nine top-10 finishes in 14 starts.

His hot streak began here last Chase after dominating this and the NHMS opener.

“I will be disappointed if we are not in contention for the win this weekend at Dover.” says the 3M Fusion driver. “We led several laps there in the spring and won this race last year. Our pit crew is at the top of their game week in and week out. I was at the shop this week going over our notes from Dover with Greg (Erwin) so we would be ready to hit the ground running as soon as we unload. Dover is a great racetrack, the racing is good and as a driver, it’s a fun place to race. We need a good finish there to keep Mark Martin in our sights. If we can keep gaining a little every week, we’ll be right there in contention for the title at Homestead.”

‘Gravy on the ‘taters’ or is that ‘Icing on the Cake’:

Everybody’s favorite awakened sleeper (including Mark Martin’s) - Juan Pablo Montoya.

Montoya has the pleasure of doing exactly what he needs to do, racing as aggressively as he needs to, finding where he needs to run, looking at the Chase as an absolute bonus to a performance season of record for the No. 42.

He comes off a great opening week in the Chase. Juan started the Chase 11th in the standings, finished third at New Hampshire and jumped up to fourth in the standings going into Dover.

In some circles, it was almost predicted that the Earnhardt Gannassi Racing Target team would be showing out and in good form for the title hunt.

At the least, the operaton would be continuing the tested on-track methods that got them to this rarified air.

The Columbian driver , former F1 and Indy 500 winner looks at each race in this final 10 contests benefiting from the confidence of 26 regular season races with the timeline goal obtained: making the Chase.

“Anything that happens from now to the end of the year, it’s a bonus.” he says.

The outlook from the driver’s seat in the Target Chevrolet form the EGR stables is just as goal-oriented and just as specific in scope: one step at a time always looking for the best from the total team operation.

“I think our car so far seems to run good everywhere, so I couldn’t come and tell you, we are not going to run good here or there. We are bringing our best equipment every week and we are hoping that’s good enough.” explains Juan Pablo.

“You know, I’m sure there’s going to be a week where it’s not going to be fast enough, and I think everybody is going to go through that.” he continues. “And then when that happens, you’ve just got to see how good you go and how far off you’re going to be, you know what I mean. You can’t hope to try to win a championship and run 20th, you know what I mean. It might happen and you might get a lock in if you don’t wreck in Talladega. But you know what I mean, at the end of the day, how good, our mile and a half cars are really good, and all of the fast racetracks, our cars are normally even better. So it’s hard to say, this is right and that’s wrong. We just take it as it comes.”

Weekly points position changes, part of the beauty of this format, the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

When it works, that is, and there’s not a dominating favorite from the beginning race.

Someone gets hot and someone falls from favor lap-by-lap. This season is filled with potential hot-streakers.

Jimmie Johnson is lurking out there, Denny Hamlin has the “A game” going on, Mark Martin is racing like a man possessed… there’s a hungry pack of wolves nipping hard at the brink of finding the best to come…

And somebody is going to fall out quickly, regardless of past performances or the luck, skill or otherwise favors of the 26 races leading here.

New Hampshire is only the first race, but it may be a key indicator to just how volatile this Chase may be. Dover’s concrete surface , with the bite potential can cement someone’s fate for the post-season.

How tightly contested this can turn out to be…

or not to be .. Aye, there’s the rub…

But I’m just stating the obvious… (apologies to Shakespeare)