This Week in Auto Racing May 2 - May 3

NASCAR

Crown Royal 400 - Richmond International Speedway - Richmond, VA

The series travels north to Virginia for race No.10 of the 26-race "regular" season and the "Chase for the Sprint Cup" picture is beginning to take shape.

At the top of the charts are points leader Jeff Burton, two-time winner Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin. The four drivers are within 100 points of each other and the way they are performing are seemingly pretty safe to make the "Chase." All four have at least six top-10s to their credit with "Junior" leading the way with a series-high seven.

Two-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson leads the second group of four drivers (also Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Greg Biffle) who are between 102 and 199 points behind Burton.

However, the race for the final four positions is a free-for-all in which at least 10 drivers are contenders.

Tony Stewart holds down the ninth position and always improves as the temperature warms up. Carl Edwards is 10th overall, but leads the series with three wins and would be seventh if not for a 100-point penalty incurred after his win in Las Vegas. Ryan Newman, the 2008 Daytona 500 winner and Juan Pablo Montoya hold down the final two spots, but they are anything but secure.

Kasey Kahne sits just one point behind Montoya and a ticket into the "Chase." Jeff Gordon, four-time series champion is just 11 points behind Montoya after a well-publicized slow start, but he and his No.24 Dupont Chevrolet team are obviously capable of putting together a string of wins.

Also close enough to be real contenders for the "Chase" are David Ragan, Brian Vickers, Martin Truex Jr. and David Gilliland. All are within 100 points of 12th-place Montoya.

And that list of 18 drivers doesn't include such perennial "Chase" drivers as Matt Kenseth or Kurt Busch. Driving the No.17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, Kenseth has never missed the "Chase" while Busch won the it all in 2004 and has qualified for the "playoffs" in three of four years.

At Talladega, Busch fought back from one lap down and was sitting near the top-10 when he got caught up in one of the "big ones" near the end of the race.

"It looked like the No.20 (Stewart) tried to go for a hole that closed and clipped the No.43 (Bobby Labonte) and that triggered the crash," said Busch.

"It was another bad day for the Miller Lite Dodge and that's about all you can say," Busch added. "This was a race where we had high hopes to do really well and things just didn't turn out that way. It's very disappointing."

Busch has one win and four top-10s in 14 starts at RIR. Kenseth has been a little more reliable at Richmond with one win and nine top-10s in 16 starts.

Four drivers in particular are very good on the 0.75-mile oval. Stewart owns three wins here as does Earnhardt Jr., while Gordon has two wins in 30 starts.

But if you are trying to predict a winner, you would probably have to go with the No.48 Chevrolet and Johnson. The HMS driver swept both events in 2007 including a whopping three-second win in September.

Nationwide

Lipton Tea 250 - Richmond International Speedway - Richmond, VA

The 2008 Nationwide Series championship remains a three-way battle between Sprint Cup regulars Clint Bowyer, defending series champion Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch. However, Busch continued to remain mum on whether he will compete in the series for the entire season.

"The consideration is there," Busch said. "But we're not letting anything out of the bag quite yet. I don't even know if there's anything in the bag."

Bowyer, the defending race winner, leads Edwards by 27 points and Busch by 39 points. He won last year's event by 1.483-seconds over Matt Kenseth. Kenseth was set to cruise to the checker, but Derrike Cope was spun by J.J. Yeley to bring out a caution flag and set up a 23-lap fight to the finish.

Edwards and David Ragan took a gamble and stayed out, but Bowyer's crew got him first across the stripe while Kenseth came out fourth. The gamble didn't work for Edwards, who was sixth before the caution, and he finished 13th.

Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Kenseth battled for the win. The No.2 Chevrolet got through the two fading leaders faster than Burton and Kenseth and built a 1.2- second lead. Kenseth and Burton continued to fight each other for second place, but it allowed Bowyer to expand on his margin even further. It was over two seconds with 10 laps remaining and he cruised to the checkered flag.

While the three Sprint Cup drivers are dominating the top of the charts, there are five Nationwide Series-only drivers in the top-10. Mike Bliss leads the quintet, which also includes Brad Keselowski, Jason Leffler, Mike Wallace and Bobby Hamilton Jr.

For Hamilton Jr., who finished sixth in last year's final standings, it is his first appearance in the top-10. Amazing considering he did not run in Mexico City (road-course specialist Boris Said was behind the wheel). Hamilton finished third at Talladega, his best finish since 2004 when he finished second at Nazareth.

"Overall, it was a pretty good day," said Hamilton Jr. "Talladega is simple: Put yourself in position and you're going to have a shot at winning."

The late Bobby Hamilton Sr., won at Richmond in 1989, for his only NASCAR Nationwide Series victory.