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.

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-- 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."

For his part, Bowyer struggled to find a bright spot in his day.

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

Bowyer had a right to be disappointed, as he's lost 72 points to Martin in two weeks. Bowyer came in with a slim 34-point advantage over Martin -- who won three consecutive WGI Cup races from 1993-95, leading 67 percent of the laps in those three races.

But Bowyer, who started 34th, had worked his way into the top 15 while Martin was struggling to stay in the top 25.

"I was able to drive back up through them -- I knew I would be able to," Bowyer said. "I can't ever qualify very good here, but I can always get back up through them in a race. It's disappointing."

"Clint forgets he ran in the top 10 almost all day last year, when we finally got going," Wilson said through a laugh. "We had passed [Jeff Gordon] and [Bowyer] was probably on pace to finish eighth to 12th -- somewhere in there, I think, was feasible based on our speed -- but it just wasn't to be."

Bowyer had raced up to 14th before he pitted, but while green-flag pit stops continued to cycle through, he had to take his No. 33 Chevrolet to the garage area with a broken rear suspension that occurred on the farthest point away from the pits, out near the end of the backstretch.

"Oh yeah, I almost crashed when it broke," Bowyer said. "It was all over the place. It was pretty wild."

"We ripped the trailing-arm mount out of the cross-member, with the abuse these road-race cars take," Wilson said. "It looked fine before the race -- we inspect all that stuff -- but it's just a lot of stress on these things. They make a lot of horsepower and that horsepower goes through those two truck-arm points so good horsepower and a little too much abuse and it just broke at the wrong time for us."

The crew did well to get Bowyer back on track in 36th position after losing only three laps.

"The guys did a great job," Wilson said. "They came in there and welded up that deal, all of our stuff worked and we only lost three laps. So I commend our guys -- they're good and I feel bad that they haven't got the finishes that they deserve, sometimes, because we're a better team than where we're at right now and it's just discouraging."

Bowyer's luck got even greater when a caution fell on lap 63. As the first car not on the lead lap, Bowyer received the first of two consecutive free passes.

"I did think I was gonna get back on the lead lap," Bowyer said. "And I had no idea [how many laps remained] -- then when I saw the white flag I was like, 'Oh man, I thought I had a lot more time.' But just run out of time.

"The car was not quite as good after they fixed it. It broke the truck arm mount and when they welded it, they pulled it back a little bit so it cocked the rear end a little bit sideways. That made it a little bit looser in the rights [right-hand corners] than it was in the lefts, but we didn't have anything to gain right there. We just had to ride and hope the caution came out. It did a couple times and helped, but we needed it to come out one more time."

Bowyer persevered and, as other cars had trouble and fell behind him, eventually picked up four spots and the accompanying points. But Martin and Gustafson, who had maneuvered their pit strategy to lead two laps during the same green-flag cycle in which Bowyer had his trouble, also picked up a few spots in the final stint to hold a narrow advantage heading to Michigan.

Martin said he wasn't aware of what Bowyer had been through.

"I'm not concerned about that and didn't even know about it until late in the race," Martin said. "We have got to continue to get better if we want to make [the Chase] and if we want to be relevant if we do make it -- so that's what we're focused on. We're working really, really hard -- we're testing and my guys are digging in and we're making improvements and I'm proud to see that."

Even if the point chart is not embedded in his memory, Martin's fully aware of what he and his team need to do over the next four races.

"We've got to pick it up," Martin said. "We've got to keep getting better. We got better at Chicago, Indy and Pocono -- now we need to get better yet at Michigan. If we can do that, keep gaining momentum in these last four then we've got a shot at it.

"But if we trip and stumble anywhere, it will be curtains."

His teammate, four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, still found time to support Martin.

"Usually during the week I'll pay attention somewhere online or through some of our debriefs and stuff," Johnson said. "We want to see all four of our guys in the Chase. We're always pulling for everybody. Mark is just one of those guys who is just solid at so many places that you have confidence that he's going to find his way in there."

"We're fighting hard for this -- we're battling as hard as we can go," Martin said. "I couldn't be more proud of the rock that Alan Gustafson is providing this team and that's what we're going to do. We're going to stay solid, keep fighting hard, work on our stuff and see if we can get in this thing.

"We're making progress. We're not where we need to be, but the last three weeks before we got to the road course we were improving each week so we hope to be strong at Michigan."