A win on Sunday could be the difference in making the Chase for the Sprint Cup or being an also-ran the rest of the season.
For drivers proficient in road racing, a victory on the 1.99-mile Infineon Raceway may be all it takes to earn one of two wild card positions for the playoffs.
“To tell you the truth, I think if you are in the top 15 or 16 in points and you get a win, you are going to be in the Chase,” said Juan Pablo Montoya. “I think one will do it. I think the guys that got more wins are outside looking in, they are going to keep running better and push some people out of the points. It's going to be interesting to see.”
Montoya, who qualified 17th on Friday with a lap of 92.411 mph, started 32nd in the field when he won his first career Sprint Cup race at Infineon in 2007. While he enjoys the course, he knows running a smart race Sunday could be a game changer for the No. 42 Chevrolet.
If not, given that Montoya is currently 16th in the point standings, the former Formula One racer may have to rely on a win to make the Chase field. Despite a miserable run at Michigan last Sunday where he spun and finished 30th, he doesn't feel this is a “must win” weekend.
“It's a must win when it's good weekend,” Montoya said. “We had a great Pocono, and I thought we were getting back on track, and last week was hard. It was a shock for us. I thought we had a decent race base in practice and just decided to change the car a lot. We had a 10th to 15th-place car in practice and we thought we could go better with our normal stuff, and we kind of shot ourselves in the foot there.
“This week, the Cottonelle car looks pretty good. We'll just have to wait and see. This is a place I think we are in a really good position to either get a win or run up front at least and get a lot of points. I think we can still make the Chase by being in the top 10. We have a car that is capable of doing that. I think if we make good calls in the next few weeks we should be pretty good. If we get a win here, yeah, I think it would be great. But (we have) two really clear chances of victory here or Watkins, it's exciting.”
FEELING THE PRESSURE
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. acknowledged that his emotions got the best of him last Sunday — and felt remorse for the way he handled the situation with his teammate Mark Martin at Michigan.
Martin accidentally ran into Earnhardt which resulted in a 21st-place finish for the No. 88 team. While Earnhardt didn't lose his third-place position in the point standings, he did lose considerable points.
Earnhardt says everything “is good” between he and Martin.
“We handled it after the race and talked a little bit and texted each other back and forth,” Earnhardt said. “Everything's cool. In the heat of the moment, things just didn't go my way. I was mad about finishing wherever I think we should finish that day. That's the way it goes.”
Earnhardt Nation was just as fired up following the race. Many fans found it exhilarating to see their favorite driver show such passion after a rough day.
“I'm just trying to do the best I can,” Earnhardt said. “I just show up and try to do my job and not worry about nothing else. I just show up and try to do my job and try to run as good as we can run. I had a good idea of what kind of race car we had, and I wanted to finish where I feel like we should have finished that day.”
Earnhardt qualified 18th on Friday with a lap of 92.372 mph.
GAME OVER
Kurt Busch earned the final qualifying position after posting the fastest lap in practice, but he couldn't pull off posting his third consecutive pole position.
Busch qualified 11th after he bobbled the car in Turns 4 and 7 and was admittedly slow through Turn 10. He immediately apologized to his crew over the radio following his lap of 92.616 mph.
“When you add all that up, you just can't give away that much time on this track,” Busch said. “Our Shell/Pennzoil Dodge is really fast in race trim. We'll work on it tomorrow.”
SAY WHAT?
When five-time Sonoma winner Jeff Gordon was asked to describe his Infineon experience last season after run-ins at Sonoma with Kurt Busch and Martin Truex, Jr., he replied: “Disaster. It was just one of those terrible days where I made a lot of mistakes, no doubt made a lot of people unhappy and been trying to move on from it ever since. Thanks for bringing it up, though.”
