Busch, Harvick survive trouble, secure Chase berth

RICHMOND, Va. -- Saturday night's dance at the back of the 12-man Chase for the Nextel Cup field had plenty of position swapping during the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway, but in the end, as expected, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the odd man out; and Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick, while mighty sweaty, were safely into the fourth annual 10-race championship playoff.

Lap-by-Lap

Jimmie Johnson won, Kevin Harvick secured the final Chase spot as Dale Earnhardt Jr. was eliminated shortly before his engine gave out at Richmond.

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Earnhardt's long shot to make the Chase, which he's missed two of the last three years, ended up 201 points short after his No. 8 Chevrolet's engine broke for the sixth time this season, relegating him to 30th position in the race.

While Earnhardt was running in the top five when his engine failed with six laps remaining, he never seriously challenged to get back into the top 12 all night, thanks to steady, high level efforts by Busch and Harvick, his chief rivals on "cutoff night."

Both Busch's No. 2 Dodge and Harvick's No. 29 Chevrolet were in the top 10 for more than half the race. While neither man led, Busch ran in the top 10 for 270 laps before finishing ninth and Harvick, 228 on his way to seventh. For his part, Earnhardt was in the top 10 for 258 circuits of the three-quarter-mile oval.

But both Busch and Harvick had moments that would have induced panic attacks for lesser teams, and they occurred simultaneously on a caution just past the race's midpoint, the eighth of 12 yellow flag periods, at Lap 243.

When Busch's teammate, Ryan Newman, spun coming off Turn 4, it stacked the field up behind him. Harvick drove through the grass rather than risk a collision.

With the Car of Tomorrow's splitter acting like a scoop in situations like that, Harvick's radiator was filled with grass and dirt. When the field slowed under caution and then a red flag, steam erupted from the No. 29's overflow valve at the base of the windshield.

Harvick said that was his major case of nerves for the night.

"I just wanted to make sure that the radiator, or something wasn't knocked out of it," Harvick said of his trip through the infield grass. "After it got cooled-off it lost water pressure -- so you get nervous about everything in these types of situations.

"But the Shell Pennzoil guys did a great job getting everything cleaned up, getting the tape off the nose and just doing what we had to do, so that was what was great about it, and it keeps it exciting."

Far from being excited, Busch said panic "definitely" smote him, then.

"I saw my teammate get loose or spun by [Matt Kenseth] and there was smoke everywhere," Busch said. "The best thing I could have done was just stop and hunker down and wait for the impact. So I held the wheel pretty tight and when you do that you get hit from behind.

"Our heart was beating at a thousand miles per hour after that cause I figured the rear bumper cover was flapping in the wind or there might be material dragging on the tires. Luckily there was a red flag at that point -- we checked the car out and everything was OK.

"Our car was a little loose after that, after the crush panels got tore out of the back and the downforce just didn't seem to be there. To come home ninth, it's just a testament to what this team is doing."

Despite Harvick's contention, there wasn't a lot of excitement to be had amongst the Chase hopefuls on this night. The closest Earnhardt got to 12th was when he was 46 points behind Harvick with about 150 laps remaining.

But that was when Harvick had been banished to the tail end of the longest line for pitting too soon under caution, for a restart at Lap 251, when he was 30th.

Busch never fell out of the top 15 and Harvick only did when he was recovering from lengthy pit service to correct the overheating issue.

Busch's ended up 10th in the driver standings after 26 races. But he'll be seeded fifth in the fourth annual Chase thanks to his two victories earlier this season.

Harvick had recovered enough by the end of the race to finish a strong seventh, but it wasn't enough to elevate the 2007 Daytona 500 winner out of the 12th position. But Harvick wasn't disappointed.

"It was solid, to come back like that," Harvick said. "It's kind of like everything's been this year. You have to fight back, and it seems like we always have our cars going pretty good. Tonight we had it going pretty good but we just had that one deal and we had to come from the back. Still, a good night for us, everybody's back on the same turf now, so it'll be fun."

Busch agreed with Harvick on that score.

"It's great to be back [in the Chase] and to hear that we finished 10th overall after the first 26 races -- that's a little feather in the cap," Busch said. "It's a nice little note to know that we did a good job over the first 26 races, especially as of late with [crew chief] Pat Tryson coming aboard.

"Since the beginning of July it's felt like a very solid race team. We're poised to be a threat in this deal. We have fast racecars, we have consistency and we have patience -- and the best thing is we have that experience [because] Pat has been in the Chase as a crew chief every year that it has existed."