Greg Biffle

 

Finish: Winner

Unlike his controversial victory in 2007, there was no doubt about Greg Biffle winning this past Sunday’s Price Chopper 400. Biffle led three times for 60 laps and when the driver of the No. 16 3M/Sherwin Williams Ford won by a seven second margin over second place Jimmie Johnson.

“I felt early on in the race, we were going to finish in the top five,” Biffle, a two time Kansas winner, said. “I just needed to figure out a way how I was going to win the race.

“It was amazing. It was literally the best car I’ve ever driven here. I could drive anywhere on the racetrack. I could enter any line in the corner, push the gas down whenever I felt like it. It was pretty incredible.

It was Biffle’s second win of the season, the first coming at Pocono Raceway in July. It’s been a fairly quiet Chase for the Roush Fenway drivers, but can Biffle keep up this new found momentum and bring home another championship for Roush Fenway Racing?

Chase standings before Kansas: 9th

Chase standings after Kansas: 8th (+1)

Jimmie Johnson

Finish: Second

Any talk of Johnson faltering in this year’s Chase ceased with his win last week in Dover, and was further silenced by his runner up finish at the Kansas Speedway and his taking the points lead by eight points over former leader Denny Hamlin.

So is this it; has Johnson just won his fifth championship? That’s to be determined, but with all this momentum headed into the Auto Club Speedway, where driver No. 48 has five wins and 11 top tens in 15 starts, it’s not looking good for his 11 Chase competitors.

Chase standings before Kansas: 2nd

Chase standings after Kansas: Leader

Kevin Harvick

Finish: Third

Adding to his growing “where did he come from?” moments, Kevin Harvick rebounded from yet another bad qualifying attempt (he started the race 24th) and an early incident with Juan Pablo Montoya on lap 43 to finish third.

Fontana hasn’t always been a great track for Happy Harvick, who has just two top fives at the Auto Club Speedway, including a runner up finish the last time the series visited the track in February. Can Harvick’s steady finishes in the Chase send him back to the points lead where he spent so much of the regular season, or will he remain in the shadows of Hamlin and Johnson?

Chase standings before Kansas: 5th

Chase standings after Kansas: 3rd (+2)

 

Tony Stewart

Finish: Fourth

The 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup has certainly not gotten off to the start Tony Stewart wanted; in the first two races of the 10 race playoff, Stewart failed to finish in the top 20, despite leading 100 laps in the opening Chase race in Loudon.

Thankfully for him, things very much turned around during the series stop in the Midwest. Stewart ran up front for the majority of the Price Chopper 400, leading four times during the race for 76 laps and coming home with his eighth top five of the year.

“We were just a little bit off there at the end, and that late in the race everybody has their stuff right,” the 2004 Series champ said. “I would’ve liked to have stayed up there at least with Greg (Biffle) where we were at most of the day, but I’m really proud of our guys. It’s hard to rebound after two weeks like we’ve had starting the Chase.”

Stewart is 127 points out of the points lead, and as the season draws to a close it would be a long shot for Smoke to compete for his third Sprint Cup title.

Chase standings before Kansas: 10th

Chase standings after Kansas: 10th

Jeff Gordon

Finish: Fifth

Also getting off to something of a rough start in the Chase and turning it around in Kansas was Jeff Gordon, who finished in the top five for the 11th time in 2010 this past Sunday. Gordon, who hasn’t won in 57 races (his last victory came last year at the Texas Motor Speedway) is a mere 58 points behind points leader and teammate Jimmie Johnson.

Gordon is still in the thick of championship contention, but can he use the momentum of his top five in Kansas and charge to the lead? Can he outrun his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, or will he remain second best to the No. 48?

“I look at this season and it’s strange because I feel like we’re stronger this year than we’ve been in so many previous years that we’ve won a race or two or three,” the original four time champion said.

Chase standings before Kansas: 8th

Chase standings after Kansas: 5th (+3)

Carl Edwards

Finish: Sixth

Among the three Roush Fenway drivers in the Chase, Carl Edwards has the best chance of dethroning Jimmie Johnson for his first Cup championship. His average finish for the first three Chase races is seventh, which matches his average finish in Fontana, where he has one win (2008) and 10 top tens in 12 starts.

“Man, I wanted to win this thing for the hometown crowd,” Edwards said. “But we came from 31st and got up to sixth. I think Denny finished behind us, so we accomplished one goal: Beat the points leader.”

Edwards currently sits 53 points behind leader Johnson. He might be a dark horse in this year’s championship race, but if he continues his strong runs he could very well give the field a run for their money.

Chase standings before Kansas: 6th

Chase standings after Kansas: 4th (+2)

Matt Kenseth

Finish: Seventh

After a dismal two weeks, finishing 23rd and 17th in Loudon and Dover respectively, Kenseth finished seventh this past weekend. However with already two mediocre finishes this early in the Chase and sitting 149 points behind the points leader his hopes for a second Sprint Cup title seem to have already gone up in smoke.

Kenseth has been writing a special column for the USA Today, and recapped his weekend at Kansas, which you can read in full here.

“Even though I wish we could have finished even better than we did,” Kenseth states. “our No. 17 team did a great job all weekend we’ll build on that heading into California this weekend.”

If things are going to pick up for Kenseth in this year‘s Chase, the Auto Club Speedway is a very good place for him to enter with momentum. In 17 starts, Kenseth has three wins, 12 top tens and an average finish of ninth.

Chase standings before Kansas: 11th

Chase standings after Kansas: 11th

Denny Hamlin

Finish: 12th

The points leader entering this past weekend’s Price Chopper 400, Hamlin hoped to come out of the heartland with a top five. However, Hamlin ran poorly all day and salvaged a 12th place finish and wasn’t too ecstatic about the run.

“You’re going to have to run well all 10 of these races,” said Hamlin. “The good part is we didn’t panic and get ourselves into a wreck or something like that.”

With Johnson taking over the points lead, Hamlin- and his fellow Chasers- are going to avoid any mistakes if they want to take the No. 48 out. Hamlin has a 18th place average at Auto Club and Charlotte Motor Speedway. Escaping disaster the next two races will be vital if Hamlin wants to retake the points lead.

Chase standings before Kansas: Leader

Chase standings after Kansas: 2nd (-1)

Kurt Busch

Finish: 13th

While his brother’s on track incident made headlines, Busch’s 13th place finish in the Price Chopper 400 kept him in the shadows of this year’s Chase. Despite finishing third two weeks ago in Dover and being in the top ten in points, Busch has been the silent man in this ten race play off. If he doesn’t start making noise soon, he could be out of championship contension before he knows it; he’s 70 points out of the points lead heading into this weekend’s race at the Auto Club Speedway.

It was a solid to p15 car for our Operation Home Front/ Miller Lite Dodge Charger at a track that has been tough for me through the years,” Busch, who has an average finish of 19th at the track, said. “But with so many of the chase guys finishing in front of us, it certainly wasn’t the type of day that we really needed out there.”

Chase standings before Kansas: 4th

Chase standings after Kansas: 6th (-2)

Clint Bowyer

Finish: 15th

The last few weeks Clint Bowyer has been in the headlines not because of his Chase performance but because of his 150 point fine and the suspension of his car and crew chief (team owner Richard Childress’ latest appeal this week was reduced to a four week suspension for CC Shane Wilson and the team’s car chief).

Returning to his home track of Kansas Speedway, Bowyer was looking to gain some of the momentum that he lost after the Loudon win and penalty. The driver of the No. 33 Chevrolet admitted this past weekend that his championship hopes are over, and his top 15 this past weekend seemed to solidify the thought.

However, making the Chase this season was a leaps and bounds improvement over Richard Childress Racing’s performance last season, when none of them made the Chase. With the penalty finally behind him and his team, Bowyer now has the opportunity to rebound and start building momentum not only to finish out 2010 but in preparing for the 2011 season.

Chase standings before Kansas: 12th

Chase standings after Kansas: 12th

Jeff Burton

Finish: 18th

Jeff Burton has had a very up and down Chase, and it continued this past weekend at the Kansas Speedway. Burton, who started 23rd, was running in the top ten by lap 35 but lost the handling of his car in the last run of the race and fell back to 21st.

“It’s really frustrating,” Burton said. “I don’t know if we had a bump stop fail or something else went wrong, but we went from having a really good race car and being able to, I thought, contend for the win, to where we wouldn’t have stayed on the lead lap if we had gone another run.”

Chase standings before Kansas: 7th

Chase standings after Kansas: 9th (-2)

Kyle Busch

Finish: 21st

It’s an age old question; should non-Chasers race the top 12 in points differently when it comes to the last ten races? David Reutimann’s answer to that this past weekend was a resounding no. After he and Busch got together on lap 53, sending Reutimann’s No. 00 Toyota into the turn two wall. One hundred and three laps later, after returning from the garage, Reutimann sought revenge, tagging the No. 18 and sending himself spinning yet again.

“I have a serious problem with what just happened,” Busch told his crew matter-of-factly. “And I don’t think anybody in the tower is going to do a damn thing about it. And if they don‘t, we‘ll have a meeting about it afterwards”

The 21st place finish was Busch’s seventh finish this season of 12th or worst this season, and sent him dropping to seventh in the points standings. It’s been the first sour finish in the Chase for Busch, and if he can avoid anymore incidents like the one at the Kansas Speedway, Busch could find his way back into championship contention.

Chase standings before Kansas: 3rd

Chase standings after Kansas: 7th (-4)

Thanks to Racing Reference, the Kansas City Star, SPEED Sporting News, NASCAR.com, Motorsport.com, USA Today, and the Daily News for the statistics, information and quotes used in this piece.