Handicapping Kyle Busch's chance to make Chase

So what are Kyle Busch's chances of rallying to make the 2009 Chase? After finishing 38th at Indianapolis, Busch is now 82 points behind 12th-place Matt Kenseth with six races remaining before the field is set. With three Cup wins this season, Busch would seem the logical choice to supplant someone currently residing in the top 12. However, this has been a season of all or nothing for Busch, who has just six top-10 finishes, and only one in his last eight races.

Can he do it?

Most everyone thought Kyle Busch was a shoo-in to make the Chase this season. But with six races left, he's 82 points out. Our writers debate Busch's chances of erasing that deficit in Track Smack.

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If past performance is any indication, somebody currently outside of the top 12 has a one-in-five chance of fighting their way back in by the time the checkered flag falls at Richmond, which could provide some consolation for David Reutimann, 68 points behind with six races to go and best positioned to take advantage of somebody's stumble.

But for Busch to be the one, he'll be swimming against the mathematical current. The same goes for Brian Vickers and Clint Bowyer, who still harbor long-shot chances of making the Chase field.

Since the Chase format was created in 2004 -- and taking into consideration the current rules allowing for a 12-driver Chase -- at least one driver would have bumped their way back into the top 12 in all but one season. Even though Jeremy Mayfield provided the drama at Richmond by racing his way into the inaugural Chase, he was 11th in points after 20 races, so he fell out only to get back in.

The real impressive late-season run in 2004 might have been provided by Mark Martin, who made the Chase field despite being 13th after Pocono, 20 points out of 12th (and 89 points behind 10th-place Kevin Harvick).

In 2005, Matt Kenseth erased a 201-point deficit -- the largest comeback in the last decade -- to make the Chase, while Jeff Gordon (102 points behind at the time) would have tied for 12th with Jamie McMurray had there been a 12-driver field. And in the last two seasons, the driver 13th in the standings after 20 races has made the Chase: Kurt Busch in 2007 and Harvick in 2008.

Looking at the five seasons prior to the Chase format, and taking the assumption that finishing order would not have changed, two other drivers would have raced their way into a 12-car Chase in 2003 and Jeff Burton would have come close to matching Kenseth's rally in 2001, making up 159 points in a six-race stretch.

However, the top 12 remained unchanged in 2006, 2002, 2000 and 1999, so there's no guarantee that there will be a wholesale shuffling of the standings between now and Richmond.

And there's the rub. Of the 31 drivers who were within 205 points of 12th place with six races remaining since 1999, only Kenseth, Gordon and Burton have made up the kind of deficit Busch faces heading into Sunday's Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. In 2006, Carl Edwards came close, putting together a streak of four top-10s in a five-race stretch to close to within 28 points of 12th-place Greg Biffle.

So why have fewer than 10 percent of the drivers facing a deficit as large as Busch's seen that kind of a rally? There are several factors. Under the point system designed by Bob Latford, consistency is key. A bad finish penalizes a driver more severely than a good finish provides a reward. It's very difficult for a team struggling to stay in the top 15 to suddenly put together a six-race stretch that allows them to leapfrog several positions. And sometimes it comes down to nothing more than avoiding the bad luck that strikes your competition.

Kenseth's 2005 provides the perfect example. Seventeenth in the standings after finishing 36th at Pocono, Kenseth's chances of making the Chase appeared to be slim at best. But he scored a top-five finish at Indy while five of the six drivers immediately ahead of him in the standings had mediocre-to-poor performances that day. And despite an 18th at Watkins Glen, Kenseth went on to finish third at Michigan, win the Bristol night race, score a seventh at Fontana and finish second at Richmond to cap his comeback.

At the same time, Dale Jarrett finished 22nd or worse five times. Harvick's lone top-10 in that span of races was a 10th at Richmond. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Chase chances were sunk when he finished last at Indy and 38th at Fontana. And Joe Nemechek strung together three top-10s during that stretch, but bad finishes at the Brickyard and Richmond wrecked his hopes.

Similar circumstances four years earlier allowed Burton to jump four positions in the standings between Indianapolis and Richmond. Kenseth, 12th at the time, hit a rough stretch where he finished 23rd or worse in five of six starts. Jimmy Spencer blew engines at Watkins Glen and Bristol and crashed at Darlington. And Steve Park had an excellent chance of finishing in the top 10 in the points before a freak accident in the Busch Series race at Darlington, resulting in severe head injuries, put a premature end to his season.

So back to the original hypothesis: Can Kyle Busch make the Chase this season? The odds say it's possible, but not probable. And chances are he'll need a great finish at Pocono, combined with someone else's ill fortune, to have a shot.