Down to the wire
By RICK MINTER
Richmond International Raceway, site of

With one race to go before the 10 drivers in the Chase for the Nextel Cup are set, two spots - held by points leader Matt Kenseth and second-place Jimmie Johnson - are set, but the rest of the field is tightly bunched.

Saturday's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 and the host of the final race before the start of the Chase for the Nextel Cup, has become a place for NASCAR parity.

Chase contenders Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart lead all active, fulltime Nextel Cup drivers in the number of victories at Richmond, but they have just three wins apiece.

In the past 10 races, there have been nine different winners, with only Earnhardt repeating. Richard Petty leads in all-time victories, as he does at many tracks, with 13.

Earnhardt isn't exactly a short-track master. He has just one other short-track victory, at Bristol, and 13 on superspeedways in his Cup career.

Still, it's easy to understand Earnhardt's optimism about a return to Richmond.

"I am excited," he told reporters in California last week. "I was hoping by this time we would have more wins than we do, but going back to a place where we have an opportunity ... I know we have a good-enough car, so we might be able to pull it off. It is a very good track for me, and I have a lot of fun racing there."

GORDON

Jeff Gordon, back in the running for the Chase after missing the cut last year, is generally regarded as one of the best, if not the best, shorttrack driver in Cup today. Of his 75 career victories, 15 have come on short tracks, even though there are just three on the current schedule. But Richmond isn't one of his better tracks. He has five victories at Bristol, seven at Martinsville and just two in 27 tries at Richmond.

"It is probably the track where we have not had the success we would like to have, but we are certainly optimistic to turn that around," he told reporters. "That hasn't been the case the last few times we have been there."

Kevin Harvick, who is third in the standings and has all but locked up a Chase berth, has six career Cup victories, but just one on a short track - at Bristol.

But when the Cup circuit ran at Richmond in May, he led the most laps and finished third.

"We've been fortunate to be really good in both [Busch and Nextel Cup] cars and led the most laps in the Cup race and won the Busch race last time, so we've been fortunate to run really well there, and hopefully we can continue that going forward," he said.

The sleeper of the group may be Kyle Busch, who has two finishes of fourth and a fifth in his three Cup starts at Richmond.

While Busch, Earnhardt, Gordon and Harvick will have to balance their Richmond ambitions with making sure they remain inside the top 10 in points in the last run before the start of the Chase, Kurt Busch, another short-track master, can focus on being first to the checkered flag.

Seven of his 15 Cup victories have come on short tracks, and he's willing to gamble on chassis set-ups if needed to run his victory total to eight.

"Right now, we'll see what we can throw at the wall," he said at California. "If it looks like something good, we'll try