Crashes at Daytona affect battle for Chase position

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- How intense is the Race to the Chase for the Sprint Cup?

Despite nine of the 16 drivers that are in contention for one of the 12 playoff spots being involved in incidents of varying degrees Saturday evening in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, only five of those drivers changed positions.

Martin out early

Mark Martin's distaste with plate racing continued when the No. 5 moved up the race track and into Matt Kenseth, sending Martin spinning.

• Martin is first caution
• Big wreck involves 13
• Reutimann smacks wall
• Burton cuts down a tire
• Final Laps: Crazy finish

Just how crazy the night was for the point chasers was pointed out by Kasey Kahne's fortunes. He came into Daytona in 13th position -- one point behind 12th -- but left the in the final Chase spot despite being involved in two major accidents and finishing the race in a totally wrecked race car.

"To get a 15th-place finish and gain in the driver point standings is pretty cool," Kahne said after leaving the infield care center. "It could have been a lot worse."

Indeed it could have been. Kahne was involved in starting what was called a 13-car accident on the backstretch just before halfway, which caused little damage but knocked his No. 9 Dodge back to 29th in the running order.

Kahne's Charger was so good he was running 12th on the final restart with four laps remaining. But with 90 percent of the final lap run, Kahne ended up with Kyle Busch's No. 18 rear end planted in his windshield, with his car pushing Busch's across the line in 15th spot.

Kahne had mixed feelings about his night.

"I'm not sure we survived the big wreck," Kahne said. "We finished the race, but it was an awful hard hit for a stock car that I took when I got caught up in that [last] wreck.

"It was a decent day for our Budweiser Dodge [Saturday]. We just struggled a bit with speed on the straightaway, but were fast in the corners, which made it tough to race all night. It's what we had."

The best part about Kahne's night, which was his sixth top-15 finish in his last seven starts, was that it placed him unofficially 65 points ahead of 13th-place Mark Martin in the standings.

Kahne's crew chief, Kenny Francis, said the best thing his team had on the horizon was that it would have Dodge's new R6 engine package in the car for next weekend's race at Chicagoland Speedway, where he was 15th a year ago.

Only time will tell how devastating the misfortunes that befell Martin, David Reutimann, Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer might be. Juan Montoya, for one, was thrilled to gain a spot in the standings, to a career-best 11th at this point in the season, after a see-saw evening ended with his No. 42 Chevrolet in ninth.

Reutimann, who ran in the top 15 early and had almost gotten back into the top 10 by half distance, was involved in the 13-car fracas and that spelled the figurative end of his night. His team repaired the car, but a short time later the right-front tire blew out and the damage relegated him to a 36th-place finish, and when the points were tallied, Reutimann maintained his 14th position although falling from 12 points out to 74 points back.

Martin's two-spot points hit was the biggest, as he had his worst finish, 38th, since the last restrictor-plate race, at Talladega, where he finished 43rd. And adding insult to injury, Martin took the blame for his crash into the inside backstretch wall on Lap 13, which brought out the race's first caution when he involved Matt Kenseth and Montoya.

"Matt ran the top side there and got a run up off the [second] corner, and I was trying to keep it down and leave us room and I just pinched him," Martin said. "[My] front wheels were cut and it just didn't turn quite enough. It's really slick out there. It's my fault."

The good news was that Martin's No. 5 Chevrolet, which sat in the garage getting serious nose repairs done to it, was 42nd in the running order at the time. But his Hendrick Motorsports crew, by repairing the car, picked up four spots by getting him back on the track and gaining 12 potentially critical points.

Burton went from leading the race at Lap 128 to having a tire go flat, which sent him a lap down. He got a free pass and maneuvered his way back to 16th at the finish, which enabled him to actually gain a spot in the standings, to 15th, and pick up a few points. He is 105 points behind 12th-place Kahne.

"We had a tire going down after we took the lead, which was unfortunate, but we were able to get our lap back and had a fast enough car to get some spots," Burton said. "Things are bound to happen when you have double-file restarts in the closing laps of the race and even though we got caught up in the last-lap incident, we did cross the finish line."

While Martin took the biggest positional hit by losing two spots, Clint Bowyer was the biggest loser in actual points. Bowyer came into the night 15th in the standings, only 99 points out of 10th. But after getting involved in the backstretch Big One and finishing a lap down in 29th, he fell only one spot to 16th and is now 133 points out of 12th.