NASCAR Richmond preview: Jeff Gordon plans to race smart to secure Chase berth

The scenario would have seemed preposterous at the beginning of the year -- that Jeff Gordon would not only fail to win one of 25 races, but enter the regular-season finale facing the possibility of not qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

And yet as Gordon prepares for Saturday night’s race at Richmond International Raceway, that is the very situation the four-time Cup Series champion finds himself.

“Certainly there is no comfort in where we are at,” Gordon said Friday. “It is so easy for things to go wrong and you are just trying to focus on doing everything right.

“We can’t over-think it and stress too much about the pressure that is on us. We have dealt with pressure here before and so no matter what happens (Saturday) we have learned is to just fight. You just fight hard for every position on every lap.”

Because he is 47 points above the Chase cutline, Gordon controls his playoff destiny no matter who wins the Federated Auto Parts 400. It would take a cavalcade of misfortune for him to not secure a playoff bid. A finish of 17th or better and he’s in, but a poor result and the door opens that his final season before retirement will end in disappointment and unfilled expectations.

“What I will tell you is that throughout my career every time I went into a race and someone said that I have to finish 17th or better we usually hovered around 18th all night,” Gordon said. “So we are trying to do everything we can think of to be top-five or top-10.”

Appropriate considering his place on the Chase bubble, Gordon must balance between racing with one eye on the big picture and not running too conservatively that he places himself in harm’s way.

“We have to be smart and not get too far outside our comfort zone and do things too crazy, but we also can’t be too conservative,” Gordon said. “And that is the downside of the position we are in.

“I would rather be in this position than like the ones on the outside looking in, but the advantage that they have is that they have nothing to lose and they can just go all out and not even worry about it. For us, we can’t necessarily do that and sometimes when you get conservative that is when you get yourself in trouble.”

But while Gordon is afforded the comfort of knowing he doesn’t need a victory Saturday night to punch his playoff ticket, others don’t enjoy a similar luxury. With the points gap quite substantial between those provisionally in the Chase and those not, registering a good finish will in almost all certainty do little to help elevate a driver.

“We showed up here with one goal in mind and that’s to win the race and put ourselves in position,” David Ragan said.

The mindset of Ragan, 25th in the standings, is widespread among the winless. Anything short of a victory and their Chase hopes -- and the chance of winning a championship -- will vanish into the Virginia sky.

Coming off a fantastic 2014 that garnered him Rookie of the Year honors, Kyle Larson was regarded as a likely Chase participant when the season began. Instead, the 23-year-old has had an underwhelming sophomore campaign and is an unsurmountable 96 points behind Clint Bowyer for the final Chase spot.

A win would Larson’s year to some degree. He set the tone by leading the first session of practice Friday, then qualifying 11th.

“We’ll hopefully try and do our best as a team can do to get a win,” Larson said. “That’s our only shot at making the Chase, so if we could get a win that would be pretty awesome.”