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Clint Bowyer just has to finish in front of David Ragan and Kasey Kahne to clinch a spot in the Chase.

Data favors Bowyer for 12th and final Chase spot

Ragan's best RIR finish is third; Kahne, Bowyer have won

By Official Release
September 5, 2008
03:26 PM EDT

type size: + -

While other Chase for the Sprint Cup clinching scenarios will be playing out, the hottest battle will involve 12th-place Clint Bowyer, 13th-place David Ragan and 14th-place Kasey Kahne.

The one left standing will earn a Chase berth.

Bowyer leads Ragan by 17 points and Kahne by 48.

Though the sample is small, based on past Richmond performances, it looks like Bowyer's Chase spot to lose. Bowyer has five Richmond starts, while Ragan has just three. Kahne has nine.

At Richmond, Ragan has "out-pointed" Bowyer by 18 or more once -- during last year's cut-off race. Kahne has never gained 49 points on Bowyer in a Richmond race. Below are their head-to-head points and finishes at Richmond (Ragan was a rookie in 2007 and therefore does not have Richmond numbers in 2006):

Clint Bowyer, David Ragan and Kasey Kahne

Head-to-Head at Richmond

	Clint	Bowyer	David	Ragan	Kasey	Kahne

Year	Points	Finish	Points	Finish	Points	Finish
5/06	134	10th	N/A		61	34th
9/06	137	12th	N/A		170	3rd
5/07	138	9th	103	20th	43	40th
9/07	132	12th	165	3rd	142	8th
5/08	190	1st	112	17th	134	10th

Here is more on each driver going into Richmond.

Clint Bowyer

Bowyer can guarantee himself a spot with a Richmond win -- which he did in May -- or by finishing second and leading the most laps or third and leading the most laps.

Of course, simply finishing ahead of both Ragan and Kahne will also lock up a spot. Richmond sets up perfectly for Bowyer, who has been at his best on the short tracks this season. In the four short-track races in 2008, Bowyer has four top-10s and has posted Driver Ratings over 90.0 in each of them. See his 2008 short-track statistics below:

Clint Bowyer

Short Tracks (2008)

Track	Finish	Avg. Running Pos.	Fastest Laps Run	Laps Top-15%	Driver Rating	Laps Led

Bristol	3	4.3	46	100	121.0	81
Martinsville	10	9.5	3	97	95.7	0
Richmond	1	9.4	7	82.4	110.8	13
Bristol	7	11.2	24	78.6	92.3	0
Total	5.3	8.6	80	89.5	105.0	94

David Ragan

Simply, Ragan needs to finish 18 points ahead of Bowyer (which translates to four-to-six positions), while losing less than 31 points to Kahne. Regardless of what any other driver does, he can guarantee himself a spot in the Chase by winning and leading the most laps at Richmond.

Ragan finished third at Richmond last year, which ties his career-best finish. His other two Richmond results were outside the top 15:

David Ragan

Richmond Cup results

Year	Finish	Avg. Running Pos.	Fastest Laps Run	Laps Top-15%	Driver Rating

5/07	20	19.9	4	14.5	66.3
9/07	3	15	11	51.5	90.7
5/08	17	21.3	0	1.0	68.1
Total	13.3	18.7	15	22.1	75.0

Kasey Kahne

Kahne needs to finish well ahead of both Bowyer and Ragan to have a shot. In other words, he needs a repeat of his 2005 Richmond win -- which was his first career victory -- where he set track-bests in Driver Rating (147.9) and Average Running Position (1.6).