Chase Bubble: Michigan (cont'd)

No. 12 Kurt Busch

Busch expanded a slim seven-point margin on Earnhardt to a whopping 96, and Newman surged ahead of Junior by four points in the race for 13th. Busch drove to 11th at The Glen, playing it safe with an extra stop for fuel late in Sunday's race.

Busch is trending up, wrapping a victory at Pocono around 11th-place runs at Indy and The Glen, and he figures to fare pretty well at MIS, where he won in 2003 and averages 20.308 per finish.

No. 13 Ryan Newman

Newman, despite a trip into the kitty litter at Watkins Glen, rebounded for 13th at the finish. Combined with Earnhardt's engine failure, that was enough to let him slip past into 13th.

Newman's 96-point deficit is not enough to let Busch breathe easy during the next four races. The Rocketman has won twice at MIS, the last coming in 2004, and since the unfortunate 42nd-place result at Indy, he's finished seventh at Pocono and 13th on Sunday.

No. 14 Dale Earnhardt Jr.

That brings us to Earnhardt who, even after all that has transpired in the past several weeks, is still just four points behind Newman and 100 back of Busch. The engine failure at Watkins Glen was his fourth of the season in 22 races: an average of a blown engine every 5.5 starts. It's also more than he has had in the 180 races run during the past five seasons (see Truex item above).

Earnhardt has some good tracks coming up, like Bristol and Richmond, but is that enough to make up 25 points per race on Busch? The other two races before the Chase are Michigan and California. Like Harvick, he has no more mulligans left with four holes to play.

No. 15 Greg Biffle

The last driver in the threesome with a shot at the Chase is Biffle, who is 212 points out with four to go. Biffle has to run the table to have a chance, and he'll need help besides to make up 53 points per race on 12th place.

Biffle is a two-time MIS winner (the last coming in 2005), and his average finish is four spots better than the guys he's racing. Four spots isn't going to get it done. Biffle has to run in the top five and hope for mechanical trouble among the others to get close.

Biffle is neutral in the past three races, finishing 15th, 23rd and 10th, and while Michigan and California are good tracks for him, he's struggled at Bristol and Richmond.

The Bubble has burst

Despite a rousing fourth at The Glen, 16th-place Casey Mears is too little, too late for the Chase. He's 298 back with four to go, too big a margin to overcome.

Jamie McMurray just can't buy a break, and he'll have the last 10 races to think of a way to finish strong for next season. McMurray, too, was caught up in the Harvick-Montoya fur ball, pasting Harvick's stalled car on the way past. His last three finishes: 33rd, 40th and 36th. That adds up to 316 points behind, and that's too many.

Mark Martin didn't race at Watkins Glen and wouldn't figure in the Chase anyway, but he's 346 points back. That's five points better than Montoya, who went from Chase contender to spunky middleweight in an instant at The Glen.

• How the Chase works: What to know about the Chase for the Nextel Cup