With only eight races left until the start of NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, it’s nervous time for some of the drivers on the outside who are within reach of a spot in the stock car postseason.
Brian Vickers, 15th in the standings and just 112 points behind Tony Stewart — currently in 12th, the final Chase position — is one of them.
Vickers, driving the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota, has put himself in contention with a surge that began in June with a second-place finish at Pocono followed by a fourth-place run at Michigan. In the past six races, he has piled up the third-most points in the Cup series.
But he still has veteran Kevin Harvick and rookie David Ragan between him and Stewart heading into Saturday night’s race at Chicagoland Speedway.
“I’m excited, and a little anxious. (I) just want to get through it,” Vickers said. “When you’re on the cusp of being in the Chase, there’s a lot of pressure there.
“I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself or the team. We are a second-year team with a second-year manufacturer, so the fact that we’re even in contention for the Chase is fantastic. We’re capable of it with a little bit of luck, hard work and focus. We have to make the ground up. It’s not ours to lose.”
The 1.5-mile Chicagoland oval has been good to Vickers.
He has not finished outside the top 15 and has completed every lap in his first three starts at the Joliet, Ill., track.
Meanwhile, Stewart, coming off his announcement last week that he will leave Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the 2008 season to become an owner-driver, also has some work to do if he wants to assure himself a spot in the Chase.
Going into Chicagoland, Stewart is just two points ahead of Harvick. But he is also just 21 points behind ninth-place Matt Kenseth.
Stewart, who wound up 13th, just missing the Chase, in 2006, isn’t as nervous about the situation as Vickers, who has yet to make the postseason.
“It’s not a life-or-death situation if you have a bad day as long as after 26 races you’re in that top-12 group,” Stewart said.
“If you have one bad race and it puts you 16 points out, like it did us back in 2006, then it is bad. It just depends on each individual team’s scenario.”
Most popular.
More than 1 million votes have already been cast this year for the 2008 NASCAR NMPA Chex Most Popular Driver Award.
The award was first given in 1956 and has been won by some of the best-known drivers in NASCAR history, including Bobby Alison, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Richard Petty. More recently, Bill Elliott and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have dominated the voting.
Petty, who won the award nine times, said winning it was like a season-ending bonus.
“I was always just doing my job, trying to get along with people and win races,” Petty said. “It just so happened, at the end of the year they call you up and tell you that you won the ‘Most Popular’ award. It makes you feel like you had a good year.”
The voting, which continues until the end of the Cup season, is being conducted on the Internet at .
