Kyle misses Chase by a whisker

Kyle Busch fell one spot short of qualifying for the Sprint Cup Chase for the championship despite being one of only two drivers to win a series-best four Cup races this season.

Mark Martin is the other four-time winner but made it in with a fourth-place finish Saturday in Richmond, Va., where Busch placed fifth. Brian Vickers finished seventh and passed Busch by eight points for the final Chase spot.

My column Friday will take a deeper look into the Chase and its format, but here are a few things to ponder until then: * No big rumblings about a four-time winner — Busch — not making it into the Chase, but I bet there would have been had Martin been left on the outside looking in.

* A great comeback year for Kurt Busch, who qualified seventh after missing the Chase a year ago. But he goes into the Chase with a lame duck crew chief; Pat Tryson will leave the team after the season to become crew chief for Martin Truex Jr., when Truex begins driving the No. 56 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing.

* What happened to Ford? The only one of three U.S. manufacturers not to seek government support for sagging car sales will have only two Fords — Roush Fenway’s Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle — in the Chase.

Even more shocking is Ford is tied with Dodge for last in the manufacturers’ standings. Chevrolet is first with 190 points (12 wins) followed by Toyota (154 points, nine wins), Dodge (114 points, three wins) and Ford (114 points, two wins.)

Ford’s Matt Kenseth, who did not make the Chase, started the season by winning the first two races, and a Ford hasn’t won since.

Takes it like a man

As disappointed as Kyle was after Saturday night’s race, he stood by his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and fielded questions from the media.

“It’s very, very frustrating,” he said. “I’m heartbroken, but the good Lord put me in this predicament for some reason and some day I’ll find out what it is. Right now, I’m not quite sure.

“We’ll take this and go the rest of the year and try to win some more races. We just need to work on our consistency. We picked up at some tracks that we needed to and we faltered at some tracks that we thought we were good at. Just wasn’t our year and wasn’t meant to be for some reason.”

Four wins with 10 left is a pretty good season. A few more wins can show the weakness in the Chase qualifying format that doesn’t do enough to reward race winners.

Gaughan gets new chiefs

Rusty Wallace Racing announced Monday that effective immediately Wes Ward (director of competition) and Dale Ferguson (lead engineer) will serve as co-crew chiefs for driver Brendan Gaughan’s Dodge in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.

Ward and Ferguson replace Brian Berry.

"This was a hard decision for us to make,” Rusty Wallace said. “Brian’s a good person and a good crew chief. There are just times when the communication between a driver and crew chief doesn't work out quite right, and this was one of them."

F1 might return to North America

Formula One is set to return to Montreal next year, according to The Associated Press.

The sport's governing body and Grand Prix F1 du Canada Inc. have settled a financial dispute that began last fall and led to the cancellation of the 2009 Canadian Grand Prix.

Montreal promoter Normand Legault says an announcement that Montreal is back on the F1 schedule is "forthcoming." He says he has no plans to be involved in staging future editions of the race.