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Updated April 14
Jimmie Johnson was the biggest winner Saturday at Phoenix, but he wasn't the only successful gambler.
Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, Casey Mears and Bobby Labonte all greatly enhanced their finishing positions by choosing to gamble on fuel mileage.
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| A gutsy move late in Saturday night's race helped Clint Bowyer finish second in Phoenix. (Getty Images) |
"It was a good call by (crew chief) Gil (Martin)," Bowyer said. "He told me from the get-go we were only three laps from making it all the way. I just sort of started saving it and saving my brakes more than anything. And then in turn, it was saving fuel too. So it just worked out for us today."
Bowyer's Richard Childress Racing teammate Burton also benefited from the fuel mileage gambit, though he wasn't particularly pleased with his performance.
"We were going to run 11th, 12th or something like that, but (crew chief) Scott (Miller) made a great call and got us a sixth," Burton said. "We will certainly take it. I am disappointed in how we ran. I am disappointed in myself.
"It was a good finish for us, but we are missing something at this track, I am missing something at this track. It has been a thorn in our side."
Mears, a teammate of Johnson's at Hendrick Motorsports, had an average running position of 20th for the race but snuck away with 11th after the No. 25 team chose to forgo a final stop for fuel.
"It was a gamble worth taking, we needed the points," said Mears, who is 25th in the standings. "Once we committed to it, we just went ahead and let some of those guys go ahead and go. I'm excited about where we ended up. I'm not really excited about our performance, but the guys did a great job and it was a good team effort."
Labonte spent but 13 laps in the top 15 and had just four "quality passes" -- defined as the number of times passing a car running in the top 15 while under a green flag -- yet finished just one spot behind Mears in 12th.
"We really fought all night," Labonte said. "I don't want to say that these cars don't drive good because they can drive better. We just didn't do the best job that we could do. We came here and tested and were awful. We had a lot of things going against us tonight, but I'll take it."
The biggest gambler of all was Johnson, but the funny thing is, it wasn't necessarily a risk the 48 team needed to make in order to take the victory. The 48 car was strong all night and crew chief Chad Knaus noted that the win wasn't simply something they lucked into.
"We didn't win it on fuel mileage," Knaus said. "You know, we could have pitted right there with everybody. Say if everybody came down pit road and took two tires, everybody came down pit road and took four tires, I think we would have been in position to race for the win."
Power Rankings after Phoenix:
| POWER RANKINGS | ||
| Current | Driver | Previous |
| 1 | Carl Edwards | 2 |
| Did you know that only twice this decade has the driver with the season's most wins captured the Cup title? Jeff Gordon did it in 2001 and Jimmie Johnson last season. | ||
| 2 | Jimmie Johnson | 1 |
| Perhaps next year he can rebound to win his third Power Rankings title in a four-year span. Johnson did trump Edwards in at least one major statistical category: 1,959 laps led to 1,282 for Edwards. | ||
| 3 | Greg Biffle | 3 |
| He came on like gangbusters at the start of the Chase and then was just sort of average the rest of the way. Much like his season as a whole, there was no consistency with the 16 team. | ||
| 4 | Kyle Busch | 4 |
| It's hard to figure what happened to the 18 team down the stretch. Sure there was a little bit of tough luck involved, but Busch and his crew completely lost their way during the Chase after dominating the regular season. | ||
| 5 | Jeff Gordon | 5 |
| He hasn't won in more than a year, a span of 41 races. I'm wondering whether an offseason crew chief swap with Dale Earnhardt Jr. could be in the works. | ||
| 6 | Kevin Harvick | 6 |
| The 29 team found another gear the second half of the season with 14 of Harvick's 19 top 10s coming in the final 18 races. With just a little more muscle under the hood, Harvick can give the Hendrick Motorsports and Roush-Fenway Racing boys a run for their money. | ||
| 7 | Denny Hamlin | 9 |
| He has been a very good driver since he landed on the scene in 2005, but I'm beginning to wonder if he and the 11 team are going to take the next step and become great. | ||
| 8 | David Ragan | 8 |
| I was completely wrong about this kid. After a dismal rookie season and a wreck in this year's Daytona 500 that took out teammate Matt Kenseth, I questioned how he still had a ride. But he has turned things around and appears to be one of the young up-and-comers of the sport. | ||
| 9 | Jeff Burton | 7 |
| After winning Race 5 of the Chase, putting him in the thick of the title hunt, the 31 team fell apart. And that's the problem. Whenever it looks like they're ready to become a contender and start receiving praise, they suddenly fall into funk. | ||
| 10 | Clint Bowyer | 10 |
| Though still with RCR, he'll have a new crew chief and pit crew next season as he gives up the 07 car to Casey Mears. | ||
| 11 | Matt Kenseth | 11 |
| While he rallied to make the Chase after a subpar start, his first season without Robbie Reiser as crew chief was a rough one. He went winless for the first time since 2001, with his last victory coming in the 2007 season finale at Homestead. Don't be surprised if 2009 is his last at Roush-Fenway Racing. | ||
| 12 | Jamie McMurray | 14 |
| Jack Roush has been waiting for McMurray to show up since he signed him away from Chip Ganassi Racing. After more than 2½ seasons, it appears he might have finally arrived. | ||
| 13 | Tony Stewart | 13 |
| For a minute there, it looked like he was going to end his Joe Gibbs Racing tenure with one last victory. Statistically, 2008 was the worst season of his career with just one win, 10 top fives and 16 top 10s. | ||
| 14 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 12 |
| Easily my most disappointing driver. The season started with such promise and then, for some strange reason, disintegrated after his victory at Michigan. In the 21 races that followed that win, Earnhardt had only five top 10s. | ||
| 15 | Martin Truex Jr. | 15 |
| His first season as the lead dog at Dale Earnhardt Inc. wasn't a good one. He sunk from one win, seven top fives and 14 top 10s in 2007 to zero wins, three top fives and 11 top 10s in 2008. | ||
| 16 | Casey Mears | 16 |
| Though his performance was much steadier over the final months, he did nothing to make Rick Hendrick believe he was making a mistake in letting him go. It's off to RCR next season. | ||
| 17 | Mark Martin | 17 |
| He had 11 top 10s in 24 races, the same amount as his DEI teammate Truex had in 36. He also finished with more top fives (4-3). Next season, he's back full time with Hendrick Motorsports. Should be interesting. | ||
| 18 | Kurt Busch | 18 |
| A roller-coaster ride down the stretch. The new Dodge power plant had its moments but struggled at the 1.5-milers, which doesn't bode well for 2009. I wonder if he ever regrets jumping ship from Roush. | ||
| 19 | Brian Vickers | 19 |
| The first half of the season, Vickers and Red Bull Racing looked to be making significant strides. But over the final three months, he failed to snag a top 10 and finished outside the top 30 six times. Last season, when he failed to qualifying for 13 races he had five top 10s. He made all 36 races and had just six top 10s. | ||
| 20 | David Reutimann | 20 |
| Last season, he missed 10 races as rookie driver on a start-up team and finished 39th in points. He ended his second season 22nd in points with four top 10s and captured the first pole of his career in the season finale at Homestead. | ||