by Darrell Waltrip

Four of Jack Roush's drivers are on fire. Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth are peaking and hitting their stride at the right time. Greg Biffle is right there with them, and Carl Edwards is a threat on any mile-and-a-half to two-mile racetrack.

Then, there's the consistency of Mark Martin. While Martin and Rusty Wallace haven't won a race, they are in the top 10 because they've been consistent. Wallace's Penske teammate, Ryan Newman, hasn't won a race either. So Martin, Newman and Wallace haven't won races, but two of those guys — Martin and Wallace — have been very consistent, which could pay off for them over the 10-race Chase.

All five Roush cars are a threat to win every week, and everybody else in the Chase is pretty much falling by the wayside. For whatever reason, Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus just haven't been able to hit the right setup lately, and it makes me wonder if NASCAR has taken something away from them. Knaus is notorious for pushing the envelope on setup, car prep and everything else, and over the last few weeks, that car just hasn't performed like it did earlier in the year. Jeremy Mayfield is in the Chase again this year because he won a race on fuel mileage, and it'll be interesting to see how he fares.

So you've got:

• five Roush cars
• two Penske cars with no wins
• one car that won a race on gas mileage
• Johnson, who is falling like a rock and
• "Smoke" (Tony Stewart) who has started to smolder.

It's a pretty shaky top 10, and Jack Roush probably has reserved his seat at the head table in New York. He's certainly sitting in the catbird seat right now.

Changes on the 8, 24 teams

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon. Both teams will be revamped. We're hearing that the No. 15 team's crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., is going to be Earnhardt's crew chief again, starting next week. That could light a fire under the No. 8 team and put it back like it was last year when it won six races and made the Chase. Probably sooner than later, you're going to see a shakeup on Gordon's team, too.

So it'll be interesting to see how the guys that are not in the Chase use the last 10 races to get ready for next year. That's the hand they've been dealt. They can't win the championship so they should start working on their team to get better for next year.

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And oh by the way...

I love Ray Evernham, and I think he's a smart guy. But I don't think I would have run Erin Crocker at Richmond. That's a tough racetrack for anybody. Taking a rookie with limited experience to the Busch race in Richmond is a tall order.

If I was going to run Crocker in the Busch Series, I would want to run her on tracks with some wide-open spaces and a little bit more room. I've watched her race, and she seems to do OK on the bigger racetracks. But I felt like she would probably struggle at Richmond, and she did.

She's got talent, but I think you've got to pick and choose right now where to run her because you don't want her to lose confidence and get discouraged.