THEY'RE DOING THE CHASING GORDON, EARNHARDT JR. SCRAMBLE FOR TOP 10 SPOTS.

Byline: Tim Haddock Staff Writer

This probably wasn't what NASCAR had in mind when it devised the Chase for the Championship format.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, perhaps the biggest names in NASCAR, are in danger of not qualifying for the Chase, the 10-race playoff to determine the Nextel Cup champion.

Gordon cracked the top 10 for the first time since June with a sixth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on Saturday night. Despite a ninth-place finish at Bristol, Junior sits 15th in points - 117 points away from the final Chase spot.

Are either of them worried? Not really. At least they're not saying so.

``Well, it's pretty interesting,'' Earnhardt Jr. said earlier this month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. ``I think that it will hold and captivate the audience more so than the old format. And there's a lot less pressure, you know, with this new format. With the old format, we wouldn't have a chance at finishing even in the top 10 much less getting a chance to race for the championship.''

With two races to go before the Chase begins, Earnhardt Jr. and Gordon need strong finishes Sunday at California Speedway to keep their championship hopes alive.

Both drivers have been outside the top 10 for most of the year. They have also been well beyond the 400-point threshold of the leader, another way to qualify for the Chase.

But it's not like either driver has completely gone in the tank.

Gordon won the Daytona 500 to open the season and followed with a win at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia in April.

A series of mechanical failures and poor finishes sent Gordon tumbling in the standings. Bad luck more than anything else led to Gordon's struggles.

``You go along thinking we had this or that happen or we had a bad weekend. You don't panic,'' Gordon said when the Cup drivers were racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. ``But when it adds up week after week after week, you say, `We've got to get ourselves together here.' Or, not let these bad races affect your confidence and make things even worse.''

Junior, on the other hand, took a risky gamble to start the season and it appears to have bankrupted his team.

He swapped crews and equipment with his Dale Earnhardt Inc. teammate Michael Waltrip and the results were devastating.

Once the dominating team at the restrictor-plate tracks, Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, DEI became vulnerable.

The swap seemed to make Waltrip's team marginally better, but it made Junior's team noticeably worse. Earnhardt Jr. has only one win this year, which came at Chicagoland Speedway in Illinois, and has been a contender in only a handful of races.

Still Earnhardt Jr. and Gordon have managed to stay within striking distance of the top 10 and keep their slim championship hopes alive.

The possibility of making the Chase has given Earnhardt Jr. hope especially. Under different circumstances, if he was 15th in points and there was no Chase format, there would be little left at stake.

``The pressure for me is if we didn't have this Chase, and if I was sitting 14th in points and no opportunity for me to win the championship, then that would be pressure,'' Earnhardt Jr. said. ``Because you've got to think about your sponsors and your team and your guys. If you've got a good group of guys and you're 14th in points, you've got to look around and wonder who might be leaving at the end of the season. That's pressure.''

Now NASCAR must deal with the possibility of a Chase without Gordon or Earnhardt Jr. It's like a World Series without the Yankees or an NBA Finals without the Lakers.

That may be good news for the likes of Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle, who might have the ability to win races, but it can't be good news for NASCAR, which is looking at the equivalent of a Spurs-Pistons NBA Finals. Or even worse, a Blue Jays-Phillies World Series.

There was some talk a few races ago about adding wild-card entries or having fans vote in a driver for the Chase. Brian France, the chairman and CEO of NASCAR, said there will be no modifications to the Chase format.

``Zero discussion in my office and nowhere in NASCAR because this is a performance-based sport and you got to perform to get in it,'' France said. ``Our drivers wouldn't want that anyway. I know there were theories on this, but they wouldn't want to limp in on a fan vote or something like that. They want to earn it.''

Earnhardt Jr. said he hopes NASCAR doesn't do anything drastic to ensure he or Gordon get into the Chase.

``It takes a lot away from the credibility of the sport if you're giving somebody a helping hand to make it more exciting,'' Earnhardt Jr. said. ``I just don't feel like it's fair to those drivers. I don't think it's fair to my team. In a sense, it takes a lot away from them. It wouldn't be cool if that happened. I wouldn't be too comfortable with it.

``What happens on the race track, you're in control of that. If you feel that you're one of the best race car drivers out there, you can always put the blame on somebody else if you're not running good. This system is easier on the mind as far as what goes on on the race track.

Gordon said he wouldn't mind having a little drama surrounding the race at Richmond International Raceway, the last race before the Chase begins.

``But right now, I think we're too far out of it to be even thinking about that,'' Gordon said. ``We've got some ground to make up before we can be excited about being in that craziness.''

Tim Haddock, [phone]

timothy.haddock(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, 5 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 2) NASCAR fan favorites Dale Earnhardt Jr., left, and Jeff Gordon are having a hard time qualifying for this year's Chase for this year's Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Nick Laham/Getty Images

(3) Matt Kenseth

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