LONG POND, Pa. -- If Matt Kenseth and his Roush Fenway Racing crew chief Chip Bolin aren't completely spun out after two consecutive weekends of nearly incomprehensible outcomes, they've got the Watkins Glen road race next weekend.

Bolin's got just one hope for next Sunday's Centurion Boats at The Glen, after seeing his team fall five spots in the standings in the last two weeks and out of a qualified spot for the Chase for the Sprint Cup with five races left until the cutoff.

"Don't run off the racetrack and finish as best we can," Bolin said in the lengthening shadows of the post-race Pocono garage, as he contemplated next week's race where Kenseth's finished 12th, 21st and 18th in his last three outings. "We've just got to stack up as many top-10s as we can and hope that we finish in front of [Kevin Harvick] and [Clint Bowyer]."

"Every point matters all year from Daytona to Richmond [the Chase cutoff race] to get in so, yeah, it matters -- but it doesn't matter today if you're 13th or fifth," Kenseth said. "You've got to be in after Richmond so we'll just keep digging as hard as we can and, hopefully, we'll make it."

Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion whose long run back from 35th in the standings after the season-opening Daytona 500 put him eighth in points going into last weekend's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. But he left the Sunoco Red Cross 500 at Pocono Raceway Sunday unofficially 13th in points -- 11 behind 12th-place Bowyer and 20 behind 11th-place Harvick.

Kenseth finished 11th at Pocono, but only after a wild shuffle of cars making fuel stops or flat running out of gas in the race's final laps moved him up from 17th. It was a blessing on a day in which Kenseth thought he and Bolin had made the right calls.

"Obviously, I probably couldn't keep track of what's going on out there very well," Kenseth said. "You kind of know what's going on, but it's really hard to keep track of."

Kenseth, who had a rear tire explode last week at Indianapolis and take most of the right-rear bodywork off his No. 17 when it did, saw his fortunes fluctuate all day Sunday.

He started fifth and by midway through the race had picked up three spots in the standings, to eighth. But when the weather began threatening, including a 41-minute red flag for rain at Lap 131 of 200, Kenseth's fortunes started spiraling downward.

Kenseth said his Waterloo came on a decision not to pit after the race restarted on Lap 134.

"We knew when we stayed out there when it rained that we were about three laps short of making it on one stop and everybody else was gonna make it on one stop, so unless we had more rain or more caution laps, we knew we were gonna be a little short," Kenseth said of the circumstances that caused his stop for fuel in the race's last 15 laps. "That's just what we chose to do. I thought it was gonna rain one more time.

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Our stuff has been fast, so I'm optimistic about it. It's just that this is how things are now -- it's not racing as we knew it.

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MATT KENSETH

"We didn't think it was gonna rain out, but I thought there was gonna be another little delay and then we would have been able to make it."

He couldn't. In the end, while teammate Carl Edwards pranced on after his final pit stop on Lap 166, Kenseth's yellow Ford had to pit for two tires and gas on the 184th lap, when he was running fourth.

He fell back to 17th and it was only in the last two laps, when championship leader Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Scott Riggs, David Reutimann and Brian Vickers ran out of gas, that he picked up five more spots. It wasn't enough to keep him in the top 12 that will make the Chase.

And rather than take any satisfaction for having another strong chassis, Bolin only smiled.

"The positive is, five people ran out of gas on the last lap and we finished 11th instead of 17th," Bolin said of the 18-point gain, as he watched his car, one of two selected for a random teardown by NASCAR, get dismembered behind its hauler. "[But] it doesn't look like the strategy worked out too good, did it?

"We didn't necessarily think the weather would end the race, but if they would have ran three more laps under caution there, at any given point, I'd have been on the same fuel cycle as everybody else. But when you take chances that's what happens."

Kenseth understood what he'd lost for the last two weeks, but said his demeanor was no less as he headed to The Glen than it had been at any other recent point.

"I've been optimistic the whole time," Kenseth said. "Our car was really fast at Indy. We qualified really well -- we qualified well here. Our stuff has been fast, so I'm optimistic about it. It's just that this is how things are now -- it's not racing as we knew it.

"It's not the fastest cars out front -- you pit, the tires wear out so everybody's got to come in for four tires and the fastest car passes the slowest cars and gets back in front. It's just not that kind of racing anymore. It's [figuring] out how much gas you've got in the tank and being in clean air. It's just really different. You've got to have a fast car to win, but it's almost as much or more about strategy and being in the front than having the fastest car. If you have one of the fastest 15 cars and pit the race right and get lucky and all that stuff and you're up front, then you've got a shot at it."

Bolin's eager to find out why he didn't have a shot at Pocono.

"It was decent," Bolin said of his car. "It wasn't near as good as what [Edwards'] was, so we'll have to look at what they were doing. Overall, it was a good day right up until I decided to stay out and the guys we were racing with pitted -- and that was the difference between 11th and fifth, sixth or seventh -- somewhere in that neighborhood.

"The guys that finished in the top three were running in the top three, then you had [Kasey Kahne] and you had us, and everybody who was between us and [that top group] just played the fuel mileage game and it worked out for 'em."

Owner Jack Roush was in Victory Lane with Edwards, but like any good father would, he was feeling some pain, referring to a comment he made to a reporter at mid-race.

"I said, 'I've got winners and I've got losers -- I've got people who stayed [out] and people who came [into the pits] and we'll see how it works out,'" Roush said. "From where Matt was and where Chip was and the fact that their car didn't have the fuel mileage that [Edwards'] did and for everything we could see it should have had -- but it was down a couple of 10ths a mile per gallon and it wasn't as close for them; it wasn't as clear a shot for them that they could make it.

"It took more cautions than it took for the 99 to be able to do what they were able to do and Chip made the decision not to do that. If it had rained, he would have been a winner.

"The 17 has got a lot of speed and Matt and Chip are doing a nice job. I just hope that the races in front of them and the way they unfold won't end up leaving them on the outside."