Points shake-up at Bristol for NASCAR's Chase

As expected, there was a points shake-up at Bristol Motor Speedway, the top seven stayed the same position wise, but the rest got shuffled up a bit.

Matt Kenseth not only won the race in dominating fashion, but he was also the one who gained the biggest amount in points, moving up four spots to 11th in the standings and is only 11 points out of 10th.

Just like with most Bristol races, there were a lot of cautions and bad feelings to go around because of the tight racing and bumping going on.  Edwards seemed to have had in it for Petty Enterprise, it was just a coincidence mind you, but he first spun Jeff Green and then later in the race spun Kyle Petty.  Petty talked to him after the race, they showed in on camera, them talking, but there was no audio, but it looked like Kyle was just explaining to him about what he did and maybe saying something about impatience on Edwards part and Edwards seemed to have been trying to defend himself from what Kyle was saying.  They shook hands afterward, so it seems all good between them.

The other big incident was between Ryan Newman and Dale Jarrett, it didn't end that well, Jarrett refused to talk to reporters after the race.  Newman bumped Jarrett and spun him, Jarrett hitting the rear of his car on the wall.  Sixteen laps later when Jarrett was back out, Newman was passing him on the high side, Jarrett turned right into Newman and took both of them out, along with damaging Harvick heavily and also damaging McMurray, Bliss and Earnhardt Jr.  Jarrett was held two laps for rough driving once they got the car repaired enough to go back out on the track.

Harvick was clearly mad and it didn't seem to be at Jarrett or Newman, it seemed more like he was mad at his spotter and team.  Very frustrated about the whole thing and the way the team has been going this year, I wonder if he will re-sign with Childress or go somewhere else?

The second biggest mover, Chase wise, was Jeff Gordon, moving up two spots into 10th in the standings, although he is in now, he's got a lot of hungry guys behind him that are fairly close in points.

The top four - Stewart, Johnson, Biffle and Wallace are basically locked into the Chase, all they have to do is start the final two races before the Chase and they are in.  The rest still can get shuffled up a bit, but I think Martin is pretty much safely in and also Mayfield and Busch as long as nothing catastrophic happens to them.  The rest of the them will be fighting all the way until the checkered flag flies at Richmond.

Only 50 points separate 8th through 10th, so they can easily be shaken up in just one race as we saw at Bristol and only 117 points separate 10th through 15th, so these final two races are going to mean a lot to a lot of drivers.  With as close as it is, it is too hard to say who will make it and who won't, we won't really know all of the Chase drivers until the checkered flag flies at Richmond.

The question that comes to mind is that when it does come to Richmond, how many drivers will remember what happened at Bristol and who will retaliate?  No matter what, these final two races should be telling and Richmond should be very exciting.

Picture credit - CIA Stock Photo