Keller's Title Hopes Just About Over

He has twice finished second in the NASCAR Busch Series championship point race, but Jason Keller's hopes for that elusive title appears over once again following his 13th place finish Saturday afternoon in the Target House 200 at the North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham.

With impressive 19-year-old Brian Vickers finishing sixth and David Green 10th, Keller lost 10 points in his title drive and now trails Vickers by 70 markers with but one race remaining in the 2003 campaign at Homestead, FL next Saturday.  Keller did manage to move up one spot in the point standings to fourth thanks mainly to some very bad luck experienced by his ppc Racing teammate, Scott Riggs.

Riggs, the points leader entering the Rockingham event, was in the midst of a miserable day when he crashed with 38 laps remaining and was forced to settle for a championship-killing 38th place finish.  Riggs dropped from first to fifth in the standings and now trails Vickers by an almost insurmountable 85 points.

Green, who won the Series crown back in 1994, and veteran Ron Hornaday stand the best chance of overtaking Vickers for the title when next Saturday's Ford 300 takes the green flag at noon.  NBC will televise the season finale.

Keller already had enough of his Rockingham experience after a brutal qualifying day on Friday.  After qualifying 18th in the 43-car starting field, Keller's Albertson's Supermarkets / Northeastern Supply Company Ford Taurus suffered some damage during the final practice when a fire broke out under his car's hood when an oil line broke.  The team was able to make repairs quickly and got Jason back out onto the track in enough time to get in some more practice lefts when another Gremlin struck.  Keller lost control of his machine and hit the second turn wall requiring his team to go to its back-up car and to start the race from the 43rd spot.

Thanks to some good pit work, solid adjustments by crew chief Steve Addington and heady, steady driving by Keller, the Albertson's Ford steadily moved through the field.  By lap 77 Keller had moved into the top 20, and by the halfway mark had found the top 15.   Unfortunately, Jason had used up his tires and his race car by then and had nothing left for the front runners in settling for his third straight finish outside the top ten for only the second time this year.

Winston Cup Series rookie Jamie McMurray won the race, his third straight Busch Series triumph at Rockingham, with Martin Truex, Jr., second in the Chance 2 Motorsports Chevy owned by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt.  Bobby Hamilton, Jr., the hottest driver on the Busch circuit over the last half of the year, was third after winning the two of the last three races and has actually moved to within 89 points of the points lead.  Hamilton, Jr., the leader by nearly 300 points at one stage of the season before embarking on his streak engineered by his new crew chief. Harold Holly.

Kevin Harvick, driving the #21 PayDay Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Richard Childress Racing, finished a spot behind Keller in the 14th position but was able to clinch the car owner's championship for RCR.  The #21 machine had three different drivers this season, but Harvick won three times in just 18 starts and his effort this week became the only one this year in the Busch Series in which he failed to notch a top 10 finish.  This will be the first year in Busch Series history that the driver and car owner's championships will be held by different teams.