Source: Detroit Free PressSept.存倉 06--For Penske Racing's Joey Logano, a victory or finish of 11th or better Saturday night at Richmond will get him an invite to NASCAR's big dance.For teammate Brad Keselowski, well, the Ford driver must win the Federated Auto Parts 400 in Virginia and hope several other Chase rivals step on each other's toes and finish down the grid.Saturday at Richmond International Raceway will be rugged as Logano, eighth in the standings, and Keselowski, the defending Sprint Cup champion who is 15th, attempt to make stock car racing's playoffs.And it also will test the mettle of Roush Fenway Racing's Greg Biffle, ninth in points, who must finish ninth or better to make the list of 12 drivers who'll contest the 10-race Chase for the Championship, starting Sept. 15 at Chicagoland Speedway.While six drivers, headed by five-time Cup champ Jimmie Johnson, have locked in their Chase positions, Keselowski, who is winless this season, is 28 points out of the top 10 and needing the victory at Richmond to be in contention for one of two wild-card spots in the Chase.Nothing but a win by Keselowski will be good enough. Then he'll have to wait and see how drivers like Martin Truex Jr. (Michael Waltrip Racing) and Ryan Newman (Stewart-Haas Racing), 13th and 14th, respectively, fare on the challenging three-quarter-mile oval at Richmond.If the math is kind -- meaning that Truex, Newman, Kurt Busch (10th) and Jeff Gordon (11th) fin迷你倉 trouble and drop big time in points -- the Rochester Hills native might squeeze in.Newman, who drives the No. 39 Quicken Loans Chevy, might have the best shot of all the fringe dwellers of making the Chase. He won the Brickyard 400 at Indy on July 28 and would snap up a wild-card berth in the Chase with a victory Saturday."I've won there (Richmond) -- we did it in 2003, staying out on old tires, and we had a good car to be able to do that," Newman said in a team release this week. "Richmond is great side-by-side racing. I enjoy it."Newman will have to do more than enjoy -- he must be in position to race for the victory at the end of 400 laps on a track that will see plenty of door-slapping."The biggest thing at Richmond is it is pretty high-banking, so you have to keep a brake pedal in the car all night," Newman said. "But, like I always said, using the brake is one of the reasons I enjoy short-track racing so much."Newman has a victory at Richmond, Biffle a pole there in 2006, while Logano finished third in the April race and Keselowski 33rd after engine problems.It will be a nail-biter for all four in the regular-season Cup finale. Whoever is steely enough and gets a couple of breaks will move on to the Chase.Contact Mike Brudenell: mbrudenell@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikebrudenell.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Detroit Free Press Visit the Detroit Free Press at .freep.com Distributed by MCT Information Services自存倉
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