FONTANA, Calif. (AP) -Thirteen is going to be a very unlucky number for David Ragan if that's where he winds up in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup championship standings a week from now.
He went into Sunday's Pepsi 500 trailing Clint Bowyer by 12 points for the 12th and final spot in the Chase. Bowyer finished 10th at Auto Club Speedway, with Ragan three spots behind.
So Ragan and his crew head for Richmond and Saturday's final race before the Chase 17 points behind Bowyer for the final spot in the 12-man field.
"We dug ourselves a bigger hole, but we just didn't have the speed all night and battled poor track position," Ragan said. "It's not an outright, disappointing, horrible race. I tried as hard as I could every lap of the race, to go as fast as I can without tearing my car up."
Reminded that he's a mere 17 points out of the Chase, Ragan said, "That's better than 20 or 25, but not as good as 10 or five. We've got to have more speed. We didn't have the fastest car on the racetrack today."
That would be Jimmie Johnson, who led 228 of 250 laps on his way to a dominant victory in winning the race for the second year in a row.
Ragan said he and his Ford Fusion crew remains determined.
"Whether we make the Chase or not, or win the championship and finish 15th in points, we're going to try as hard as we can every week, and that's the bottom line," he said.
"Whatever we get out of it, we'll learn and move on from there."
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RAISING KAHNE: Kasey Kahne finished eighth to pick up eight points on Bowyer, but still is 14th and 48 points out of the top 12 in the Chase standings.
"We came into the race with the mind-set that we had to run inside the top 10 and finish in front of Clint (Bowyer) and David (Ragan) and we did. Unfortunately not enough to make that much of a difference," Kahne said. "I said earlier in the week that not only do we have to run well to catch the guys in front of me, but they have to stumble a little.
"Tonight was pretty much a draw."
