Guarantee of top-35 keeps pressure on drivers, teams (cont'd)

Elliott used only one of his allotted six champion's provisionals in his first 15 races and did manage to wedge the No. 21 back into the top 35 for a short span.

Later, the 22 and 21 swapped positions three times, with Davis' gang finally knocking the 21 out of the top 35 after Talladega. Elliott has been in a tailspin lately, using four 43rd-starting position provisionals in his past five starts, including Homestead.

Bill Elliott

Blaney and Elliott were the only two drivers besides Kasey Kahne who were able to get their cars back into the critical top 35 after falling out, this season.

Given that Blaney's owner, Davis, is 136 points ahead of Elliott's owner Glen Wood, and that the 21 has not out-pointed the 22 in any race this season by that much, it's all but assured the 22 will go to Speedweeks locked into the Daytona 500 while the Wood/JTG car, which has four Daytona 500 victories to Davis' one, will have to qualify.

"This team is in a pretty good position heading into Homestead as far as the top-35 points battle is concerned," Blaney, who'll start 23rd Sunday, said. "Barring something really unexpected, we should be able to walk away knowing we are locked into making the first five races next season, and that's huge.

"The pressure of knowing we had to race our way into the Daytona 500 would have made for a really stressful offseason, so we're hoping all goes well [Sunday]."

Rick Hendrick, who has already locked up his seventh Cup Series championship heading into Sunday's finale, has lived life on both sides of -- and earlier this season -- right on top of the fine line that separates the "haves" and the "have nots" in Nextel Cup.

Given the fact that the lowest placed of his four teams is driver Casey Mears' No. 25 Chevrolet in 16th, and going into Sunday's event Hendrick's teams had already won half the series' races, Hendrick supports maintaining the status quo.

"I was 35th in points with Casey early in the year, so I know what sweating qualifying is like," Hendrick said of the two races he spent in that position, following Phoenix and Talladega in the spring. "And I've been to the racetrack with no sponsor, and was one race away from shutting the doors, in 1984, and there wouldn't be a Hendrick Motorsports.

"So trust me -- I look at those guys [outside the top 35] and I feel it, every time I see them. I don't know how to change the system. I feel it's a good system -- if you're top-35 you're locked, and everybody has an opportunity to do that.

"I've looked at Jack Roush and Joe Gibbs and those guys, when they were winning races and we weren't -- and trying to figure out how to be better. I know how the rest of the competitors feel.

"I'm amazed that we've won that many races this year, because we've lucked into a lot of races. We've had a lot of races we shouldn't have won, that we did win. I was kidding J.D. Gibbs about going by the hospital every Monday morning to get the horseshoe sewed back in so it doesn't fall out.

"But the worm's gonna turn and you just have to accept getting beat and running through a dry spell. Fortunately, we've won a race every year we've been in [Cup racing], and hopefully we can continue, and with the talent we have, I think we will."

Blaney acknowledged the role his team had played in getting him into a position in which he could concentrate on racing better, rather than qualifying for their lives.

"I like to think we'll start 2008 with a little better luck than we did this season and not dig ourselves into such a hole," Blaney said. "All the guys on this team have worked unbelievably hard this year and we've really been under a lot of pressure.

"We've had our ups and downs and we're hoping to finish the season off on a high note."

Kyle Petty, who late in the season fell near the top-35 cutoff but never actually fell out of locked-in status, and came to Homestead a safe 165 points clear of the Wood/JTG car -- with 161 the maximum a team can make up in one race -- put a postscript on his team's late-season philosophy.

"Our cars had been great over the last several races, but we needed to finish the season strong," Petty said. "I'm really proud of how the guys responded. We've locked ourselves into the first five races next year and that is a big relief.

"Now we can just race our tails off at Homestead. We don't have to be cautious or hold anything back. It'll be kind of like the all-star race for us -- just go out there and let the rough side drag."

Petty also addressed the ramifications of next Speedweeks being the 50th Daytona 500.

"It's hard to believe that the next time we go to the track for a race weekend, it will be the 50th Daytona 500," Petty said. "Everyone always puts a lot of time and effort into the Daytona 500 [and] there will be more than ever during this offseason.

"We will have a lot of eyes on us next year. Plus, the race will be run with the new [Car of Tomorrow]. Looking back over my career I can't think of a more important winter than the one coming up."

And this is from a driver locked into the top 35. Every other owner who plans to be at Speedweeks has even more to contemplate.