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RICHMOND, Va. — By NASCAR standards it’s been a kumbaya season in the Sprint Cup ranks — no pit road confrontations, no egregious fender bending, no wrestling in the garage or fingers in the face.
“We beat the hell out of each other in the motorhome lot,” Toyota driver Clint Bowyer joked. “No, really. That’s how Denny Hamlin hurt his knee. You didn’t know that?”
All kidding aside, drivers are expecting the intensity to ramp up exponentially beginning with Saturday night’s regular-season finale here at Richmond International Raceway and continue into the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoff push beginning next week at Chicagoland Speedway.
The elimination format NASCAR instituted last year helped create a new intensity, and that resulted in several high profile, hot-tempered incidents. Normally mild-mannered Matt Kenseth was so angry after the fall Charlotte race he tackled Brad Keselowski in the garage. Weeks later, Jeff Gordon confronted Brad Keselowski on Texas Motor Speedway pit road in an epic shoving match caught on live television.
And those are just some of the headline-grabbing incidents that we know about it.
“I think after last year’s Chase, everybody had to calm down a little bit in the offseason,” Ryan Newman explained Friday morning before opening practice for the Federated Auto Parts 400. “It’s probably been a little tamer this first 25 races, just kind of watching, because people are giving and taking and not being quite as aggressive. I saw a little bit more of that (aggressiveness) at Darlington (last week) than I thought I was going to see and there were quite a few guys that typically when you’d get underneath somebody, they’d let you go. And that didn’t happen last week.
“So, I think it’s building; especially going into the Chase. But I think the Chase itself is what really lit that fire. There was a lot of fuel in the air last year, and that Chase lit that fire. I think there is potential for that to happen again.”
Saturday night’s race presents ample opportunity for hurt feelings, bruised egos and desperate maneuvering. Two preseason championship contender picks, Kasey Kahne and Kyle Larson, need help to earn a Chase berth (Larson must win the race outright). Fifteenth-ranked Paul Menard and 16th-ranked Bowyer are still vulnerable in the points standings and will be racing for their postseason hopes.
“Everybody is on different agendas,” Bowyer said. “I think this weekend could be the first step in some wild activity on the race track and it will only progress from there.
“The pressure cooker definitely heats up, just like (NASCAR) intended it to in this Chase, and that’s when you guys (in the media) started getting blisters on your fingers writing stories. I think that’s going to be the case again. It just seems like there’s no time, there’s nothing — no period of the Chase that it’s a comfortable moment where you can ride a little bit.
“It’s always crunch time, and you’ve got to go.”
