RELATED: Full Richmond results
RICHMOND, Va. -- There were no last-second heroics, no pit-road gambles or stunning strategy in an effort to beat the odds.
For Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Paul Menard, points positions proved crucial. And in the end, proved to be enough.
The group collected the final five positions in this year's Chase for the Sprint Cup by failing to fail, running well enough to earn the final berths in this year's 16-team field.
"It was still stressful, because we had that last restart," Gordon, a four-time champion making his final Chase appearance, said after bringing his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet home seventh in Saturday night's Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway.
"It was nice not to have to really be sweating it."
Gordon needed a finish of 17th or better to clinch.
"I know this guy's happy," Gordon said as team owner Rick Hendrick eased up behind his driver to give him a congratulatory hug. "He was sweating it a little bit like the rest of us were. So that feels good to make him happy. This team, they deserve it."
Hendrick, who has seen Gordon evolve from a promising young talent into one of the most successful competitors in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series, provided a news flash: "Let me be the first to tell you," he said, "he's going to drive another year. He's not doing good enough, so he's got to go one more."
Hendrick was kidding. Sort of.
GALLERY: 2015 Chase drivers celebrate at Richmond
McMurray locked in his first career Chase spot by simply taking the green flag to start the 400-lap event on the .75-mile track.
Although he started 31st in the 43-car field, by night's end McMurray (Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates) had raced his way up to 13th.
"I'm super relieved," McMurray said. "I've been the guy on the outside trying to fight my way in, and I've also been in this a couple of times and been knocked out at Richmond."
Like McMurray, Menard (Richard Childress Racing) will be making his first Chase appearance when the 10-race playoff begins next week at Chicagoland Speedway.
The excitement of qualifying was tempered a bit by a difficult night on the race track -- Menard finished 26th, three laps down to race winner Matt Kenseth (Joe Gibbs Racing).
"We had a fast car, it just burned the left-front tire off after like 30, 40 laps and we started going backwards," said Menard. "Try to figure out what happened there."
His No. 27 team wasn't the only one to have issues with the left front, he said. But others had no similar problems.
"Some guys," he said, "obviously figured it out.
"We've had a lot of good runs this year; obviously this wasn't one of them."
Bowyer's Chase appearance will be his final showing with Michael Waltrip Racing -- the two-car organization will cease to exist after the '15 season.
"I hate to say this but it's actually nice to go into the Chase the way we are; the pressure is off," Bowyer said. "Hell, we were trying to make the Chase, that's big, that's monumental for our organization and our team.
"Let's just go have fun, let's get everything we can out of every single weekend and see what happens. Literally, the pressure is off until somehow, some way you're in the thing (for) two rounds or three rounds then all of a sudden the pressure kicks back up. But that's the neat thing about being in our situation, being part of this Chase. Right now, in the next three or four weeks, there is no pressure."
Bowyer's status as a Chase participant was the most tenuous -- a slip could have opened the door for someone else to bolt past. His 10th-place finish proved more than enough to accomplish what was required.
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"At the beginning we weren't real great," crew chief Billy Scott admitted. "We had to work hard on it. Just stayed calm, it was a long race. After that we just kind of found a place and ran our race.
"We were keeping an eye on guys that hadn't won and were running up front, where the guys were that we were racing in points and felt pretty comfortable with getting in on either side of that.
"There was no need to gamble. We just ran a pretty conservative race and brought it home in one piece."