Still seventh in points, Busch focused on final five

Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch and his Pat Tryson-led Penske Racing No. 2 Team enter this weekend's Subway 500 at Martinsville committed to getting all they can out of the final five races of the 2007 Nextel Cup season.

"We're 315 points out of the lead in the Chase, but that doesn't mean that we can't make up some spots in the final five races," said Busch, who had a strong top-five run going in last Saturday night's Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway before late-race engine problems dropped him to a 26th-place finish. "We're less than 120 points [117] out of fourth, so there's a lot of ground that we can make up.

"But most important to us now is to get all we can out of the final five races this year," said Busch, who stands seventh in the point standings entering this weekend's final short-track race of the season. "We really have our intermediate track program dialed in now and with three of the final five races being staged on that size track, we're hoping to knock off a couple more wins there before we're done for the year.

"One of our biggest goals this season has been to put one of our Miller Lite Dodge Avenger COT cars into Victory Lane and we think we have an excellent chance of doing that either at Martinsville this weekend or at Phoenix next month," Busch added.

Crew chief Tryson echoed Busch's staunchness to maximizing their team's extracting everything possible down the stretch run this season. Ever the optimist, Tryson is enthused with what lays ahead for the remainder of the year.

"It's a shame that we had the engine problem last Saturday night because we were headed toward making up some ground in the points," Tryson said during a break in Monday's tire testing for Goodyear at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "But like I was already telling Kurt on the radio when we had the red flag period there at the end of the race, we still have a lot of great races ahead for our team.

"We'll have cars that are plenty strong enough to win in all the remaining races and we're headed back to tracks where Kurt has done well and had much success in the past," Tryson continued. "We're right on the brink of winning with our COT cars and it shouldn't come as a surprise if we win this weekend at Martinsville or four races from now at Phoenix. It's a big goal of ours to get us a COT win this season.

"Like I told Kurt, we'll be racing the Michigan winning car [the PSC-111 chassis named "Roger"] at Atlanta and the Pocono winning car [the PSC-78 chassis named "PT Special"] at Texas, so we have the groundwork laid out for a lot more success before we're through this season," Tryson said. "I seriously think we can win some more races this year and I am confident we'll be up front and challenging for the win in all of them."