document.write('									<p class="storyheadline">All about consistency</p>																																				<p>									<span>The Sprint Cup Series hasn\'t always been all about winning. It\'s also about consistency. A driver doesn\'t necessarily have to always run great, but he needs to avoid running bad and finishing way back in the pack.<br /><br />Enter Matt Kenseth. His 2009 season, for all the early glory it had, has been a rough ride for most of it, and he\'s now clinging to the 12th and final spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, whose field will be set after Saturday\'s race in Richmond.<br /><br />Kenseth\'s season couldn\'t have started better. He followed up a win at the Daytona 500 with a win in California and was leading the standings. He hasn\'t been to Victory Lane since and finds himself fighting for his life.<br /><br />"I just want to run good and be back up front where we belong," Kenseth said. "We have a championship-caliber team as far as personnel ... we\'re capable of much better than this."<br /><br />Kenseth has been at the top of the NASCAR mountain before, claiming the series championship in 2003, the final year before the Chase format began.<br /><br />Since then, it\'s been mostly a solid run. He and Jimmie Johnson are the only two drivers to qualify for the Chase each of the five years it\'s been used, but he hasn\'t been that close to winning it.<br /><br />Kenseth\'s strategy to getting back for a sixth time sounds like stating the obvious, but it\'s right on the mark.<br /><br />"We\'ve got to beat all the guys we\'re around to get in the Chase. There are about five or six guys that are really close in the points and whoever outperforms the rest of them will make it in, so we\'ve just got to go out and run as hard as we can and hope our results will be good enough."<br /><br /><br /><br />No. 1 or nothing<br /><br />With four wins apiece this season, Kyle Busch and Mark Martin both are in line to possibly be the No. 1 seed in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.<br /><br />Or, they could both miss the 12-driver field entirely.<br /><br />Here\'s how that works.  The 12 qualifying drivers each have their points reset to 5,000, with 10 bonus points given for each victory in the first 26 weeks of the season.<br /><br />That part is good for Busch and Martin. They lead the series with their four wins each.<br /><br />The bad news is Martin is 10th in the standings and Busch 14th going to Richmond. Bad outings for either, or even a decent outing for Busch, could leave them outside of the top 12 and not even in the playoffs.<br /><br />It really is about consistency.<br /><br /><br /><br />Notes of note<br /><br />Eleven drivers are still eligible for the final eight spots in the Chase, although David Reutimann will be eliminated if a handful of the drivers just start Saturday in Richmond ... Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin are the only drivers who have clinched spots in the Chase ... Ron Hornaday\'s 225-point lead in the truck series is the largest ever at this point of the season in the 15-year  history of that series.<br /><br />Christian Potts 366-3531 cpotts@normantranscr'+'ipt.com</span></p>      																				<div>																																																							</div>	');