Focus on finishes gives Ragan shot at joining Chase

ATLANTA — Back in January, David Ragan laid out a simple plan for making the Chase for the Sprint Cup, NASCAR's season-ending, 10-race, 12-driver championship format. To some, it might have seemed presumptuous because the year before he had been known better for wrecking than running for a title.

But his plan made sense, statistically speaking. All he had to do was finish about eight positions better each week and he would be a Chase contender.

With four races left to run before the start of the Chase, Ragan is closing in on that goal.

Last year in his rookie season in Sprint Cup, his average finish in the 26 races leading to the start of the Chase was 23.4. Kevin Harvick made the cut last year with an average of 15.5, and Clint Bowyer got in with a 14.8.

Heading into this week's race at Michigan, Ragan is averaging 16.8 and is 14th in the standings, 89 points out of 12th place. And three of his best tracks — California, Bristol and Richmond — are coming up on the schedule.

"I'm just trying to stay focused, to be smooth on Friday and Saturday, be consistent on Sunday and get some top 10s and see if we can't make our way into this Chase," he said by phone as he spent one of his rare days off hooking up a public-address system on his latest toy — a 1985 Ford FMC firetruck he bought on eBay.

One key to the improved performance this year, according to his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle, is that Ragan's team has given him good cars, and he has been able to work with his crew to make them fast for the final run to the checkered flag.

"What David has done is taken that ball and run with it," Biffle said. "He has done a good job with getting good finishes.

"The main thing is finishes. That's what is really tough for new guys to end up with. They run good periodically through the race, but having good finishes is the biggest thing. They have been able to do that."

Ragan agrees with the assessment of his veteran teammate.

"I've learned that the hard way," he said. "It's fun to go fast and qualify good, and it's fun to lead practice, but that doesn't get you anywhere."

He said that in the past he often found himself trying to run every lap as hard as he could. Now he realizes that was a mistake.

"There's a point in your career when you can run like that," he said. "But I didn't have the feel and the experience to run like that every lap, and I made mistakes, blew tires, slapped the wall or something like that."

Now he tries to focus on a bigger picture, one made brighter by good results that come from being at one's best at the end of races.

"Being consistent and smooth and getting the feel that I want in the car for the last run is something I watched these other guys do," Ragan said. "It was frustrating to outrun guys almost all day and then at the end, I'd look up and they'd finish fifth and I'd be 15th. I'd wonder, 'How in the world did they do that?'

"It's tough to do, tough to give and take a lot, but that's what you have to do in these long races."

Still, what he'd most like to do is get his first career NASCAR victory. His best finish so far is a third at Richmond last fall, and he has four top-five finishes so far this season.

"I'm pretty frustrated because I'm ready to win one of these things," he said. "But I don't know what I'd do different to try to win. If I go out and all I think about is winning the race and leading laps, I'll find myself in trouble again, so we've got to just try to be a top-five car.

"Then, one of these days at the end of one of these races we'll have a car that's fast, and we'll have track position, and we can go out the last 30 laps and give it our all."

Rick Minter writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.