NASCAR race Sunday at New Hampshire should set the Chase tone
LOUDON, N.H. (AP) – Call it the calm before the storm, that quiet time before the Chase for the championship officially begins and NASCAR’s 10 title contenders are one big happy group – best friends forever.
Those 10 drivers are fresh off a festive swing through New York City, where their status as Nextel Cup contenders was feted everywhere they turned. They sat together on shuttle buses, shared strategies over a steak dinner and laughed as a group during their appearance with David Letterman.
“It’s the calmest, nicest I’ve ever seen these guys,” Kasey Kahne revealed. “It was weird.
“We had a good time in New York and everyone was calm and happy. This weekend could explode. Who knows?”
It’s a good bet that it will by the time the checkered flag falls on Sunday’s race at New Hampshire International Speedway. In the first two years of NASCAR’s championship-crowning creation, the first round of the Chase has collected its share of contenders.
Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and Jeremy Mayfield all had their title hopes crushed when they were collateral damage in Robby Gordon and Greg Biffle’s bumper-car battle in 2004. None recovered enough to challenge Kurt Busch, who went on to win the race and ultimately the championship.
But Busch wasn’t immune from the wreckage last season. Contact with Scott Riggs on the second lap of this race sent him spinning into the wall and to a 35th-place finish. It put him in a deep hole he could never climb out of, ruining his chances of defending his title.
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