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Chase will have taste of Coca-Cola Family

July 30, 2012, Andrew Shain, Special to NASCAR.COM, NASCAR.com

Five drivers, including defending champion Stewart, could make 10-race playoff

With seven races to go before the Chase for the Sprint Cup starts, the Coca-Cola Racing Family looks like it will be well represented in NASCAR's version of the playoffs.

The top-10 drivers in points after 26 races make the Chase, along with the two wild cards among drivers between 11th and 20th place who have the most wins.

"Just a couple of positions on the track can completely change the outlook of things from here on out."

--JOEY LOGANO

Three Coca-Cola drivers look set to make bids for the title.

Greg Biffle, who spent much of the season leading the points, is in third place. Denny Hamlin, who has two victories, stands fifth.

Defending champion Tony Stewart, who is seventh, has enough of a cushion with a series-high three wins that he could secure a wild card if he falls outside the top 10. That shouldn't be an issue though. Of the drivers currently in the top 20, Stewart has the best average finish at the remaining pre-Chase tracks during the past seven-plus seasons.

Meanwhile, two more members of the red-and-white brigade, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano, are sitting just outside the Chase. They will have to race their way into the hunt with another win or two.

Newman is the first driver outside of a wild-card spot. He has a victory at Martinsville along with a fourth at Las Vegas and a fifth at July's Daytona race.

He stands nine points behind Kyle Busch, who currently holds the second wild-card spot. Both have one win.

Of the tracks leading up to the Chase, Newman has done well at Pocono (fifth-best average finish in his career) and Richmond (second best). He finished in fifth and eighth places, respectively, in the second races at those tracks last year.

He also had three top-10 finishes a year ago in the four races before the Chase began.

Newman will look to improve this week at Indianapolis, the track with his third-worst career average finish of 20.2. Newman, however, is doing better in the past four years at the Brickyard, averaging 14th place.

Logano sits behind Newman in the hunt for the last wild-card spot. Like Busch and Newman, he has one win this season. He had a fourth-place finish this month at Daytona. He is 12 points behind Busch.

Logano looks like he has a chance to make an impression at the start of this final push before the Chase.

Indianapolis happens to be his best track among the seven remaining before the circuit's playoffs. He has an average finish of 15.3 at the Brickyard, his third best track in his 3-1/2-year career.

His victory this year came at Pocono, which comes again after Indianapolis. He finished fifth last year at Watkins Glen, the race that follows Pocono.

Logano will want to change his luck at Atlanta (the track with his worst average career finish at 27.6) and Bristol (fifth worst at 24.1).

"We lost a couple of spots in the wild-card standings [after a 14th-place finish at New Hampshire last week], but the points are still really close," he said. "Just a couple of positions on the track can completely change the outlook of things from here on out. So things could have been worse. We just have to move on and try to win a couple of races before the Chase starts."

The rest of the Coca-Cola crew -- Jeff Burton (19th in points), Jamie McMurray (20th) and Bobby Labonte (23rd) -- need to pile up victories to have any chance of making the Chase.

Weekly Coca-Cola Roundup Archive

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