Nextel Cup notebook: 11th place — what a bummer for Bowyer

He was the long shot, but any shot he had ended Sunday. Clint Bowyer was eliminated from contending for the Nextel Cup championship after finishing 11th in the Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Bowyer, who needed points leader Jimmie Johnson and No. 2 Jeff Gordon to have terrible races, finished 11th. Johnson won and Gordon was 10th. That left Bowyer 231 points behind Johnson with one race, and a possible 195 points available, remaining.

“Just frustrating,” said Bowyer, who drives the No. 07 car for Richard Childress Racing. “We fought brake problems all day and just weren’t really a factor.”

The good news is his 11th-place finish on Sunday will likely allow him to hang on to third place in the Chase for the championship at the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Our goal for Homestead is to finish,” said Bowyer, who won the Chase opening race. “It would be good to get another win, but we just have to finish the year strong and not give up anything from behind and we will be fine.”

TOUGH LUCK FOR CARL

Carl Edwards appeared to have the hot rod to beat all hot rods at the start of the race, speeding away from the field to lead the first 87 laps. However, engine problems forced him into the garage on lap 106, effectively ending his chances to win. He returned to the track on lap 144, scored 37 laps down, but headed back to the garage after running 31 more laps. He finished 42nd, dropping him from fifth in the Chase points to ninth.

DOWNER FOR JUNIOR

It was another tough Sunday for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who failed to finish a race for the ninth time in 35 races during his nightmarish final season driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc.

On lap 119, Earnhardt spun and clipped the inside wall on the backstretch, causing enough damage to his front end to send his car to the garage. That left him with a last-place finish.

THIS BUD’S FOR KASEY

Kasey Kahne has been spending some of his down time this season getting to know his primary sponsor for 2008. Kahne, driver of the No. 9 Gillett Evernham Motorsports Dodge, takes on Budweiser from Dale Earnhardt Jr., who moves over to Hendrick Motorsports next season.

One of Kahne’s first duties as pitchman? “(Yankees) outfielder Johnny Damon and I shared a bucket of Budweiser (in Charlotte, N.C.),” he said. “That was fun. Good times.”

Kahne has already done a couple of photo shoots for Bud, but the highlight of his new beer connection was his trip to St. Louis, home of Anheuser-Busch Co.

“I went to the brewery and met a lot of the people there and learned a lot about the brewery and how they brew the beer,” he said. “I was really kind of in awe of how big and how cool and neat that whole system was.”

And there will probably be several more opportunities for Kahne to sample the product.

HELLO, WALL

NASCAR has asked International Speedway Corp., owner of Phoenix International Raceway, to either fix or improve the inside retaining wall between pit road and Turn 4 at PIR. The wall was cracked during an accident in Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. Track workers welded metal braces in place to secure the 3-foot-high wall for Saturday’s Busch Series race and Sunday’s Nextel Cup race.

NASCAR would like PIR to have its engineers look into the possibility of replacing the wall with an impact-absorbing SAFER barrier, spokesman Ramsey Poston said.

However, there may not be enough room for the wider SAFER barrier, PIR president Bryan R. Sperber said. Installing the barrier would narrow pit road too much, he said.