WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- With four races remaining until the cutoff for the seventh annual Chase, Mark Martin provisionally moved into the 12th and final spot Sunday by making the most of a potentially bad day at Watkins Glen International.

"We had a slow race car and Alan [Gustafson, crew chief] was just a rock all weekend and kept battling to make it better," Martin said after his 19th-place finish. "We got better as the race went -- every stop we made it better, which is hard to do on a road course.

“

Oh yeah -- the guys did a good job getting it welded up and getting back out there. But as far as I'm concerned, it is catastrophic, for now.

”

-- CLINT BOWYER

"We knew we wouldn't run well here -- we hoped we would, but we pretty much knew from our performance [at WGI] last year and our performance at Sonoma [in June] that our road racing really is weak, so we raced really, really hard and I'm pretty proud of what we did. We're not very fast so we raced our guts out and we came up with what I would think is a great finish for what we had to work with."

Strangely enough, Clint Bowyer did the same thing as Martin in the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen, despite falling from 12th to 13th in the championship hunt. The rear suspension broke on Bowyer's car and he fell three laps down but finished 32nd, only one lap behind race-winner Juan Montoya.

"It's just frustrating," Bowyer said as he scrambled to leave the garage area. "We broke a piece of the car -- I mean, the frame broke both road courses. I don't know if we're making them too light or what, but it's disappointing for everybody."

Crew chief Shane Wilson seconded that emotion.

"It's unfortunate because we had a decent car today but we just couldn't capitalize on it once again -- it's kind of been the story of our year," Wilson said, adding he wouldn't change any strategies. "Whether you're behind or right there at [the Chase cutoff spot] you've got to make as many points as you can and [Sunday] we were on pace to do fine and probably make some because we had a better car than [Martin].

"We've just got to go to Michigan [this week] and do the same thing."

And now, with Martin and Bowyer officially separated by only 10 points in the standings, it sets up a potentially spectacular race to Richmond, with Ryan Newman and Jamie McMurray, who moved to within 83 and 94 points of 12th, respectively, also lurking.

"We gained in the big picture [but] we're still out [of the Chase]," Newman said after finishing 12th. "It's still a great race for that [12th] position. There's a lot that we're racing for, everybody is racing hard [and] there's a lot of pressure on us." (Continued)