Nascar Race Today

Posted: 08/12/2013 04:48:00 PM MDT

Updated: 08/12/2013 06:05:19 PM MDT

Kurt Busch suffered through a bad day Sunday at Watkins Glen. And for a bad day, it went pretty well. He drove Denver's No. 78 car to a ninth place finish and jumped two spots closer to NASCAR's playoffs.

"On bad days, we're finishing ninth. A year ago, we would have been slapping high-fives and touting around, "Ninth, baby. Yeah!" Busch said Monday in an interview with The Denver Post.

"Now it's a common theme. So that's when you know you're getting to the next level."

The next level for Busch's Furniture Row Racing team is a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. The top 10 drivers in the season standings qualify, with two other wild card spots.

Busch is now 11th, just two points behind Martin Truex and four points

behind Greg Biffle. With four races left before the playoffs start, Busch is moving up.

"Bottom line is, we're 11 points out of eighth place overall," Busch said. "That's our goal. To just get in above and ahead of people, that way there's a bigger buffer when we get to Richmond."

The Chase field will be set on Sept. 7, after racing a night draw at Richmond. And for the first time in FRR's nine-year existence, the team, behind Busch, is in contention.

"Right now, four weeks away, we're right there in the Chase mix," Busch said. "Half the races we're basically finishing top 10. And that's Chase material statistics."

Busch has 10 top-10 finishes this season and five in the top 5 - both among NASCAR's leaders. But he has yet to win a race and with the two wild-card spots going to the drivers with the most victories, Busch needs to make up ground.

Saturday's race at Michigan gives Busch another chance to move up. In June, he qualified second at the two-mile track and led the first 21 laps before getting loose into Turn 2 and wrecking the day.

"We're patterning Michigan off our Pocono results," Busch said. "At Pocono the first time around, we finished seventh. The next time, we finished third. We knew exactly what to do the second time at a track that's very similar to Michigan. So we'll take that car, that set-up and all the little things we learned from that June race."

Busch is working this season on a one-year contract with FRR and would be a free-agent after the season without an extension. It's led to some speculation that a larger team, perhaps Richard Childress Racing, could sign Busch away from FRR.

Busch, though, said he has been talking to FRR about a new deal.

"I hope that I'm back," he said. "What's been tough is we're focused on right now, to make the Chase. Let's not cluster up (contract) numbers and days off or goofy things with side-tracking what performance needs to be done.

"But talks have been going well. It's been a nice family atmosphere of 'Let's do our job at the track and focus on that, then the other stuff will come along with it.' "