Kyle Busch gets his first win and race for the Chase tightens up

Kyle Busch became the youngest driver to win NASCAR Cup race with his win on Sunday night.  Busch had a strong car, the only ones that could challenge him were Kenseth and Edwards at times.  Kenseth's car was real strong at the end but had a hard time passing Brian Vickers, then the caution came out setting up a green-white-checkered finish, where Busch just pulled away on the restart.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s very slim chance of making the Chase went up in smoke, literally, on lap 211.  He had been complaining about the car and it's performance all race long.  When asked about how he felt about being out of the Chase with the engine blowup, he said his chance at making the championship had been over with for at least 80 laps.  It was obvious is was very frustrated with how his car ran. 

Matt Kenseth vaulted two more spots in the standings, up to 9th and Jamie McMurray also jumped two spots to 10th.  Both Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon, with sub-par performances, fell two spots and out of the top ten by the end of the race.

Next week, they go to Richmond, where is appears there will be five drivers fighting for the last two spots for the Chase.  This is how it looks going into next weeks race in Richmond.

• (9th)   Matt Kenseth       2939
• (10th) Jamie McMurray   2929
• (11th) Ryan Newman      2928
• (12th) Jeff Gordon         2899
• (13th) Elliott Sadler        2877

As you can see, it's fairly close and any of those drivers could put themselves in the Chase depending on how they do at Richmond.  One thing for sure is that there will be a race within a race next week, the regular race and then the race between these five guy.  This should make Richmond even more interesting than it usually is.