Jeremy Mayfield knew he had to finish third or better Saturday night to grab a spot in NASCAR’s new playoffs. He did better, winning the Chevrolet Rock and Roll 400.
That vaulted Mayfield from 14th in the standings to ninth but bumped his teammate, rookie Kasey Kahne, out of the Chase for the Championship.
Mayfield was the only driver to qualify for the playoffs who hadn’t already been in the top 10 in points coming into the race.
Ryan Newman, with a 20th-place finish, claimed the 10th and final berth for the Chase, which begins Sept. 19 at Loudon, N.H., and covers the final 10 races of the season.
Jimmie Johnson fell from first to third in the standings after being crashed out early. His teammate, Jeff Gordon, moved into the points lead, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Johnson, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, Elliott Sadler, Mark Martin, Mayfield and Newman.
Earnhardt and Gordon improved their places in the standings by finishing second and third, respectively, in the race.
Mayfield led the most laps but didn’t take the lead for keeps until Busch ran out of gas with eight laps remaining.
“What a night!” Mayfield said. “That’s what I had to do–come in here, lead the most laps and win the race. We wanted it so bad.”
By contrast, Kahne finished a miserable 24th. He said he had “too many problems all night long” and a “pretty pathetic race car.”
Mayfield had made the race a matter of all or nothing.
“We might have made it if we’d finished second or third,” he said, “but winning was our goal, and we weren’t going to settle for anything less.”
He hadn’t won since 2000 and had never won for team owner Ray Evernham, who as a crew chief launched Gordon to stardom a decade ago.
“I saw a whole new level of intensity in Ray,” Mayfield said. “As Jeff can attest, it’s like a power Ray has, to turn it up to another level.”
Still, Mayfield had been through such streaks of bad luck that when he saw Busch run out of gas, “I couldn’t believe it was happening,” he said. “The way my luck’s been running, I thought, now it’s my turn to cut a tire or something.”
Barely missing berths in the playoffs were Jamie McMurray, only 15 points out of 10th place, Kahne (28 from 10th), Bobby Labonte (49), Kevin Harvick (57) and Dale Jarrett (86).
Tenth-place Newman finished 416 points behind leader Gordon. So that negated the additional rule that would allow anyone outside the top 10 but within 400 points of the leader to qualify for the Chase.
That situation was blown wide open just before halfway, when Johnson was knocked out of the race in a 10-car pileup that appeared to be caused at least partly by tempers.
With Johnson out so early, the way was opened for more drivers. But as the race wore on and Gordon hung in, the hopes of the others disintegrated.
Johnson’s car was damaged beyond repair when, on Lap 171, notoriously rough-driving Jimmy Spencer wrecked Casey Mears to start the 10-car melee. Gordon barely navigated through the mess by steering into the infield grass.
NASCAR at first parked Spencer in the garage for rough driving but after reviewing videotape called the wreck “a racing accident” and allowed Spencer to return.
A fuming Johnson said the whole thing was started by “just a bunch of idiots. I don’t know what [Mears] did to make [Jarrett] and [Spencer] so mad. I find it hard to believe that he got both of them upset at him.
“For about three laps, [Jarrett] tried to wreck him, and he couldn’t get it done,” Johnson continued. “Then [Spencer] went up there and tried and finally got it done.”
Johnson wasn’t taken out of the Chase, but was concerned that such incidents could have serious consequences once the playoffs begin.
