At New Hampshire, Chase already is looming large

LOUDON, N.H. -- It's not quite accurate to call what will happen Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway a 300-mile test session. But given the raised stakes that will be present when the Sprint Cup Series returns to the Granite State three months from now, it's not altogether erroneous, either.

The year-end championship Chase already looms large for the drivers in position to qualify for it, and nowhere does the specter of that title bout loom larger than at New Hampshire, where the 10-race playoff begins on Sept. 20. Of course, everyone at the 1-mile flat track wants to win Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301. But given how important it is to get off to a fast start in the Chase -- just ask Kyle Busch, last year's regular-season leader, who never recovered after suffering a broken suspension part here this past fall -- some are using this weekend to prep for their next visit to Loudon.

"Sure, for the first race of the Chase," said Jeff Gordon, second in points. "We feel like this is a very important race, very important track. We are in a position in the points to be a little more risky in our setup, in our pit strategy. But the most important thing is getting the car really dialed in this weekend so that when we come back for the Chase, that we start it off right."

No surprise, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson is of a similar mind.

"In a certain way you would look at it and know the importance of it because we come back here and start the Chase at this track," said Johnson, third in points. "I don't really see it as a throw-away. We'll experiment with some stuff and try to validate it for here so when we come back we have a read on whatever package that is. So yeah, I guess in a certain way there is a level of R&D that takes place at this first race, but it's pretty well scienced out. It's not, at least for us, we're not looking for the home run. We're just kind of making sure we've got it right."

Tony Stewart, though, doesn't even want to hear the question. The points leader has no plans to give up anything.

"You don't change anything. You do what got you here," he said. "You're still trying to go out and get those 10 extra bonus points, so you're trying to do the same things and you're trying to win each week. Those 10 points are valuable at the beginning of the Chase and you hope you don't have to count on them, but if ... you win by seven points, you know that the deciding factor was getting a win in the preseason part of it. So you've got to treat it the same. We're going to treat it the same all the way until the Chase starts. So just go ahead and mark it on your schedules for next week when someone wants to ask that question, it's going to be the same answer next week and all the way through the 26th race. It's a legitimate question, but we won't change anything. We won't change it all the way through the rest of the season."

Right now, those bonus points don't shape up as much of a factor. Busch and Martin share the series lead with three victories each, meaning they'd have no more than a 30-point advantage over anyone else in the championship field. Busch entered last year's Chase with a 30-point leader over Carl Edwards, the driver in second place. That advantage disappeared in a single afternoon.

"I still think somebody can rack them up in a hurry," Gordon said. "So I'm encouraged, because yes, we're only 20 behind and I feel like we can win races before the Chase starts. I'm more anxious to win races in the Chase. But 20 points to me is not a big deal. You start getting 50 or 60 points behind somebody, and that's tough to overcome, especially if it's somebody like [Johnson] or [Stewart]. It's just tough to do. So we're doing everything we can to take a little bit more risk in our strategy and our setups to get ourselves some more bonus points and also get ourselves into a solid position to win this thing."

Certainly, he's not the only driver in Chase contention thinking that way. But at least Gordon has the luxury of a relatively secure position that allows him to look ahead. For others near the Chase bubble, it's more perilous. Entering Sunday's event, the seven drivers in positions 9 through 15 are separated by 91 points.

"It's very hard," said Edwards, fifth in points. "Kasey Kahne won that race last week, Clint Bowyer's running well, Juan Montoya, David Reutimann -- there are a lot of guys that are just close that could rally, like Matt Kenseth did last year. Just rally. For every one of those guys that gets in the top 12, somebody has to leave. It could be because you run poorly. It could be because you get wrecked or have a flat tire or any of these things. You have to be the ultimate points racer, I think right, unless you're up there where Tony's at. You've got to really be smart."