HAMPTON, Ga. — With one race left until NASCAR’s “top 35 rule” switches over to this year’s standings, there are some pretty high-profile drivers in jeopardy of missing the cutoff point after next Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
That is why Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Kobalt Tools 500 was so important to last year’s Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti and 2006 Indy winner and three-time IndyCar champ Sam Hornish, Jr.
Hornish is 36th and Franchitti 38th after Sunday’s 500-miler at AMS. Hornish finished 25th and Franchitti was 33rd in the race, but that leaves them precariously close to getting tossed back in the “go-or-go-home” ground of drivers that have to make the race based on speed after next Sunday’s Bristol bash.
The reason that is so important is the top 35 drivers are guaranteed a starting position for the next race. Those cars outside the top 35 have to make the field based on speed for the final eight positions.
Hornish appeared to be safe after the season-opening Daytona 500 when he finished 15th. But he crashed early and finished last at California followed by a 41st-place finish at Las Vegas and that has him in jeopardy of missing races after Bristol.
“It’s pretty difficult,” Hornish said. “We just need to be calm and patient and that is the same thing that we need to do Sunday to try to get ourselves out of that hole that we’re in in the points with being in the wrong place at the wrong time at California and blowing the front tire at Vegas.
“That pretty much put us in a deep hole, so we’ll just keep working away at it.
“I was a little bit frustrated at times with the car, just decided that we couldn’t get any better. Next week will be different and each time we go to one of these races and get to run the full thing, I’ve got a better idea of what I need out of the car the next time we come back.”
The task gets even more difficult for Franchitti, who hasn’t really raced his way into the top 30 this season with three finishes of 33rd and a best finish of 32nd at California.
“Ah, it is what it is,” Franchitti said. “We just do our best. If we’re out, we’re out. We’ll just have to do qualifying performances like we did on Friday night. If we end up out of it, we’ll work our way back in. Nothing else we can do.
“Bristol is going to be wild. In one way, I’m looking forward to it and we’ll see what happens.”