NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Clint Bowyer qualified in the 12th and final spot for the Chase for the Cup on Sunday at Richmond./Photo courtesy of Getty Images
Bowyer steers clear of the storm
Driver qualifies for Chase; leaves Kahne, Ragan out
By TRAVIS BARRETT
GWC Staff
09.07.08
For the second straight year, none of the Chase positions changed hands in the final race of NASCAR’s "regular season."
Clint Bowyer rallied when David Ragan could not, locking up the 12th and final Chase for the Sprint Cup spot on Sunday at Richmond International Raceway. Ragan tagged the turn one wall on lap 122 to damage his car, while Bowyer came back from a bad pit stop that cost him track position.
Bowyer finished 12th in the Chevy Rock ’n Roll 400. Ragan was 32nd and dropped to 14th in the standings. Kasey Kahne took over the 13th – and first non-Chase spot – with his 19th place finish on Sunday.
"I knew you were going to go through so much emotion – it was just a roller-coaster, you know," said Bowyer, who ran outside the top-20 at one point in the second half of the event. "We just kept our heads together.
"We’ve got a lot of homework to do. We’ve got to prove that we’re in this thing for a reason."
Jimmie Johnson won the race and will start the Chase as the second seed with 40 bonus points. Kyle Busch entered the weekend already locked in as the top seed in the Chase with eight wins this year.
The 10-race Chase begins next weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with the running of the Sylvania 300. Bowyer is the defending champion of the event, and he’ll be seeded fifth as the Chase gets underway.
Kahne, who has the most wins of any driver not in this year’s Chase with two, was 69 points behind Bowyer at day’s end.
"We’re a little disappointed," Kahne said. "That’s what we worked all year for was to make the Chase."
Ragan was running near the front of the field for the first couple of green-flag runs, but he lost control of his car on lap 122 and slapped the wall with his Ford. Teammate Matt Kenseth – who joins Johnson as the only two drivers to qualify for all five Chases – was collected in the incident.
"It’s very disappointing," Ragan said. "It just seemed to turn a corner sometime after lap 100. We didn’t have the speed. We brought out that one caution, and then we seemed to have poor track position. And the car really fell off on the long run."
"Certainly this race doesn’t dictate how our season’s gone. We’ve got 10 races to try and get our first win."
Posted at 5:35 p.m. by TBarrett
