OBSERVATIONS Rick Minter's
The cream rises

Jeff Burton captured the pole, but finished 42nd at Michigan.

The cream of the NASCAR crop rose to the top at the finish of Sunday's GFS Marketplace 400 at Michigan International Speedway. Race winner Matt Kenseth and the next five drivers in line - Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. - all are among the drivers with realistic chances of making the cut for the Chase for the Nextel Cup, which begins after three more races.

And Denny Hamlin's ninth-place finish, along with Kevin Harvick's 11th-place run and Jimmie Johnson's 13th-place finish, made a total of nine drivers in the top 11 in the standings who finished in the top 13 at Michigan.

Eleven seems to be the magic number of Chase contenders as the Nextel Cup circuit heads to Bristol Motor Speedway for Saturday's Sharpie 500. Kahne, who is now 11th, is 49 points behind 10th-place Earnhardt Jr.

Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards, who finished second and third in the standings last year, are 12th and 13th in points now with only long-shot chances of making up the deficit.

Carl Edwards wasn't happy about the end of Saturday's race.

Biffle, despite a seventh-place finish at Michigan, is 189 points out of 10th; Edwards is 244. Sudden impact

Jeff Burton's blown engine just after the start of the Michigan race shows just how close the points are between third and 11th. He entered Sunday's race fourth in the standings, but after finishing 42nd, he dropped all the way to ninth. While points leader Jimmie Johnson and second-place Matt Kenseth seem to be shoo-ins to make the Chase, only 216 points separate third-place Kevin Harvick from Kasey Kahne, who is 11th.

Kyle Busch also found out how quickly fortunes can change. He hit the wall and finished 39th, which dropped him from a solid fifth in points to seventh, just two points ahead of eighth, six better than ninth and only 42 points away from being out of the elite 10 who will participate in the seasonending, 10-race run to the title. Anger management

There's a lot more to Carl Edwards than the toothy smile and the friendly, outgoing demeanor. He doesn't like to be messed with, especially on the track, and he doesn't try to hide his displeasure.

During the Nextel Cup race at Pocono last month, he was wrecked by Tony Stewart and responded by spinning Stewart at the entrance to pit road, then blasted Stewart in the press.

Then on Saturday, in the Busch Series race at Michigan International Speedway, he was knocked from the lead on the last lap by eventual race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Edwards, who dropped to 23rd at the finish, drove onto the track and slammed Earnhardt Jr.'s car as he cruised down the frontstretch to collect the checkered flag.

"I just wanted to see what he had to say," Edwards told reporters afterward. "It's just about sickening to have someone wreck you and then [he] gets to win the race. I probably shouldn't have done that, and I'm sure I'll be penalized."

Troubling trend

The 2006 season is looking like it will be an off year for network TV viewership.

In Atlanta, one of NASCAR's leading markets, TV ratings for NASCAR races were off 28 percent this year - from 11.9 to 8.6 through the Pepsi 400 - compared to the same period last year.

Nationwide, ratings for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard were down 11.3 percent, from 6.2 in 2005 to 5.5 this year, according to a report in NASCAR Scene.

NASCAR and network officials say they're not too concerned at this point. They said the important thing to remember is that ratings in general are up in the long term.

Fox commentator Darrell Waltrip said during a recent teleconference that he's not worried.

"I think as long as we can continue what we've done for 50 years, we're fine," he said. "The basics of our sport is: Drop the green flag; run 400 or 500 miles; put on a good show; drop the checkered flag and somebody wins the race.

"We are always going to have fans that love that and buy into it and want to be a part of it."