by Larry McReynolds

But they'll finally get one after this weekend when the Nextel Cup cars are at Martinsville. Well, not all of the Busch teams will get a break. I talked to Butch Hylton, the crew chief on Kevin Harvick Inc.'s No. 33 Busch car which Tony Raines will drive this weekend. I said, "You guys finally get an off-weekend come Martinsville." He said, "Nope, we've got to go up there and run Kevin in a Craftsman Truck." So there's one Busch Series team that still won't have an off-weekend.

Looking ahead to Martinsville, Jeff Hammond and I are doing everything we can to help Darrell Waltrip run in the top five and the top 10 in next week's Craftsman Truck race, like he did a few years ago when he was actually a contender to win a couple of those races. We want to put last year's runs behind us and get back to where we were a couple of years ago.

22 races until the Chase

It's still early. The Busch Series has run five races, and the Nextel Cup Series has only run four races so we haven't even scratched the surface. But with one year of the Chase for the Nextel Cup format in the books, teams now look at a 26-race regular season, and then a 10-race playoff. Everybody is going to run 36 races, but they will focus on the playoffs. I know that NASCAR does not want us to use that word but those 10 races are the playoffs in a small way. The only difference is all of our players still play each game.

We're a sixth of the way through the regular season, and some "playoff" teams have dug themselves a little bit of a hole. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is sitting at 26th in points. Matt Kenseth is 31st and has really only had one good finish. In four races, Bobby Labonte has had three DNF's. He's not even in the top 35 in points. Ricky Rudd's in 39th place, and you've got to throw him in that mix, too, even though he had a great run going at Atlanta before brake issues ended his day. You would expect that those four teams want to win the race, but those teams really need solid finishes to start digging their way out of this hole.

Speed Mail Larry McReynolds
SpeedMail Subject: Comment/Question: Name:  Email:  Hometown:

It takes two months to gain points and get back in the title hunt, and it takes one week to lose points. That's always been the nature of the beast. Who would have ever believed that these teams, especially Kenseth and Labonte, would be in the hole that they're in right now. In my book, they've already used up most of their mulligans. They're going to have to be pretty solid for these next 22 races if they want to be part of the Chase for the Cup which starts Sept. 18 at Loudon, N.H.

Kenseth and Labonte have the championship provisional, which always goes to the most current champion. If neither one of them is in the top 35 after Bristol when 2005 owner points kick in, and both of them have bad qualifying runs at Martinsville, the provisional would go to Kenseth first. He's the most current champion. But a lot of people are flirting with not being in that top 35 after this week. If Earnhardt Jr. falls out of the top 35, as atrocious as his qualifying seems to be, he does not have a championship provisional.

Kevin Lepage and Jason Leffler are just inside the top 35 in owner points, and while they want to run to the finishing order to see where they finished after Sunday's race, they're also going to run to that point sheet to see if they happen to be in the top 35 in owner points after this week.

---

FOX race analyst Larry McReynolds has more than 25 years of NASCAR experience as a mechanic, crew chief and broadcaster. He and his fellow Crew Chief Club members take you behind the wall at www.crewchiefclub.com.

"Larry McReynolds: The Big Picture" is on bookstore shelves now, or you may order your own autographed copy from www.DWStore.com.