No. 2 Nationwide Series driver hopes consistency keeps him in championship picture
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DOVER, Del. – Brian Scott has spent the better part of the 2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series season chipping away at a points deficit that refuses to diminish.
Only six races remain, including Saturday's 200-mile event here at Dover International Speedway.
Scott, driver of the Richard Childress Racing No. 2 Chevrolet, is doing his part, enjoying a career year of sorts with 17 top-10 finishes and contending for the title.
He's won three poles (Kentucky and a pair at Chicago); sports an average finishing position of 9.6 and his 6.6 average starting position is tops among NNS competitors.
He hasn't finished outside the top 16 since the season's ninth race and he's posted 11 consecutive finishes of 10th or better.
He also has yet to win, finishing second three times, including last weekend at Kentucky Speedway.
Maybe it's a two-driver race -- Chase Elliott leads JR Motorsports teammate Regan Smith by 20 points -- but RCR's Ty Dillon (-38) and Scott (-55) aren't to be overlooked, although that's been the case for Scott for much of this year.
"It's not a bad situation to be under the radar," Scott, 26, said Friday from Dover. "To be chipping away at it. Hopefully we'll get to the last couple of races and everybody will be like 'maybe we should have paid more attention to them.'"
Thus far, Elliott and Smith have avoided the setbacks that would open the door for Dillon or Scott.
When Scott scores a top five, Elliott is generally close by. Smith has been as well, one either just ahead or just behind.
"That's the frustrating thing; we're not going to get into this championship battle if Chase and if Regan keep racking up top-10s and top-fives," he said.
"But if we keep those up and then they each have a bad race, it's going to be a four- or five-person (battle) real quick."
It's easy enough to go back and see where the points gap grew -- a crash at Talladega left him 33rd and "average" finishes of 16th at Road America and Daytona didn't help Scott's efforts. But those were seemingly small setbacks at the time. Now, they look much bigger in hindsight to Scott and crew chief Phil Gould.
"Yeah, we led 10 laps at Talladega; it was basically a battle between Elliott Sadler and I," Scott said. "Instead of ending up top five or even top 10, we ended up 35th because we get caught up in a wreck ... that's 20 or 30 points right there. ... At Road America, we're running second in the rain ... get a caution that puts it in overtime; we err on the side of caution, top off fuel and instead of finishing fifth, we finish 16th."
Of course, everyone can point to a race or two and explain where potential points slipped away, Scott acknowledged.
"They've had bad races as well. I'm not telling you anything that anyone that's in this championship couldn't tell you," he said.
"I guess my point is our performance has been there. There have been some times we failed to capitalize, sometimes bad luck bit us.
"We're capable of being in this championship hunt; we're deserving of being talked about; we still could be somebody you have to go through come Homestead, if the other guys get a little bit of bad luck."
In the meantime, he'll hope consistency keeps him in the title picture. Dover holds promise -- he finished third here in 2012 while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing's Nationwide Series program and won a Camping World Truck Series race in '09.
"I love Dover," he said. "It's been a good track for me. ... I think we've got the speed and the car capable of winning, but there are so many things that can happen.
"If we're in position late in the race, our cars are good enough and have enough speed that we can get it done."
On Friday, Scott was fastest in opening practice and eighth overall in the final session. Saturday's race is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. ET start (ESPN).
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