JGR teammates poised to make runs at Chase title

RICHMOND, Va. -- During the closing laps of Saturday's Air Guard 400 at Richmond International Raceway, as Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch battled for the lead, J.D. Gibbs was fighting the urge to look away.

"I've been doing this for 19 years, so you'd think I'd be at peace with it," said Gibbs, president of JGR. "But [Saturday night] when they were racing each other for the lead, it was hard for me to watch. You think it's going to get easier, but it gets harder.

Press Pass

Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch talk about their Chase chances.

• Hamlin: Richmond winner
• Busch: Richmond runner-up

2010 Chase

Seedings

Pos.	Driver	W	Points	Behind
1.	D. Hamlin	6	5,060	--
2.	J. Johnson	5	5,050	-10
3.	K. Harvick	3	5,030	-30
4.	Ky. Busch	3	5,030	-30
5.	Ku. Busch	2	5,020	-40
6.	T. Stewart	1	5,010	-50
7.	G. Biffle	1	5,010	-50
8.	J. Gordon	0	5,000	-60
9.	C. Edwards	0	5,000	-60
10.	J. Burton	0	5,000	-60
11.	M. Kenseth	0	5,000	-60
12.	C. Bowyer	0	5,000	-60

• Official Standings
• Shop: Chase gear

"You want the guys up there. And Joey [Logano, the third JGR driver] was right there, too, close to making it 1-2-3 for us. But it's always stressful."

That's because it doesn't always end well when your guys are racing hard in close quarters with each other.

It was only this past May during the Sprint All-Star Race in Charlotte when Hamlin knocked Busch into the wall with two laps remaining in that event. An enraged Busch launched into an expletive-filled tirade over his in-car radio and then drove his mangled machine directly to Hamlin's hauler to wait for him after the race.

A week later, they were still trading pointed verbal barbs. Gibbs knew that the teams of Hamlin and Busch could go one way or another from that point in the season -- as in they could go their separate ways or use the incident as incentive for trying to work better with each other.

"When you've got two hard chargers with different personalities -- and we've been there before in the past, even with [former JGR drivers] Bobby [Labonte] and Tony [Stewart] -- it is one of those things you kind of always worry about," Gibbs said. "You want guys who are hungry. At the same time, what we learned from that is that Kyle and Denny needed to do a better job of communicating. And now they do.

"I think those guys, in reality, they get it. As they mature and they work together, what Denny knows is that Kyle has helped him out a lot and what Kyle knows is that Denny has helped him out a lot. So I think that's a big piece of getting a foundation that you can work off of."

Who's the favorite?

And that's why Hamlin and Busch rank as two of the favorites heading into the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, which will commence with next Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Gibbs didn't say that. He won't, either.

But the 1-2 finish Hamlin and Busch pulled off Saturday at Richmond went a long way toward convincing everyone else that the JGR duo will need to be reckoned with before the 2010 Cup champion is crowned.

The favorite, of course, still has to be four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson -- because, well, he's the four-time defending champion. But by virtue of his win at Richmond, Hamlin now has Johnson looking up to him in the reset point standings because it was Hamlin's series-high sixth victory of the season. That comes with 60 bonus points to start the Chase, and Johnson, with five wins, starts with only 50.

Asked to name his Chase favorite, Gibbs hedged and named just about everybody but his own guys. Yet you got the impression that he was doing so simply to avoid being accused later of somehow jinxing them.

"I think Jimmie. I think the [Richard] Childress [Racing] cars are strong. Tony Stewart can be strong," Gibbs said. "You just have to make it through those first five, six or seven races. Then you kind of get a feel for where you rank. When we won our recent [championships] with Tony there, that's kind of what we went through. It was like, 'Don't go out there worrying about winning everything; just be consistent and smooth and be there with a chance to win it all at the end.' " (Continued)