Spotter's Stand: Kurt Busch Proving To Be a Title Contender

A second-place finish in the most recent race does not make a driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series an instant championship contender.

But Kurt Busch, riding a wave of good finishes with just a few recent blemishes (one caused by Jimmie Johnson), has vaulted into a position of dark-horse favorite for the 2010 title.

The 2004 series champ and driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge passed Marcos Ambrose late in the going of Sunday's race at Watkins Glen to earn his fourth-career top-five on a road course, and made up some ground from a disappointing finish just a week before.

"It's a solid finish. The tough part is a 33rd last week, a second today, you divide that by two, that's 17 and a half," Busch said Sunday. "That doesn't get it done when you're in the Chase. It does help ease the pain as far as where we are in points."

Busch was battling Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson for a position in the top 10 a week ago at Pocono Raceway when Johnson nudged the No. 2 a little hard down while bump-drafting as they raced along the backstretch. Busch slapped the outside and then inside wall, earning a DNF to go with a 33rd-place finish.

Busch currently stands fourth in the season standings after jumping ahead of Johnson, Denny Hamlin and his brother Kyle Busch with his second-place run on the road course. Most notable, though, is that Busch already has two wins to his name this season -- meaning if the Chase for the Sprint Cup started tomorrow he'd be seeded in a three-way tie for third.

In the last 10 races, Busch has had a win, four top-fives and seven top-tens. The three others included a poor-handling car at Chicagoland Speedway and a 26th place finish, Johnson's Pocono bump and more contact from Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon that relegated Busch to a 32nd-place finish at Infineon Raceway.

Busch wasn't lamenting that he missed out on the bonus points he could have earned toward the Chase had he beat race-winner Juan Pablo Montoya at Watkins Glen.

"To come up shy of those 10 points, I can't be too upset because Montoya really had us beat," Busch said. "Overall, just for us to finally put a nice exclamation point on a road course race without having anything go wrong, not running out of fuel, not having a flat tire, not getting run over by a Hendrick car, feels pretty good."

WHO'S HOT: None other than Tony Stewart. The owner-driver suffered a rough patch of races earlier in the year, but since a 15th-place run at Charlotte in May, Stewart has earned eight top-10s in nine races.

WHO'S NOT: Again, I have to go with Jimmie Johnson. Sure, he was caught up in a wreck not of his own doing, but the stats tell the story: his 28th-place finish makes it now four of five races he's finished 22nd or worse after winning two straight.

NOTABLE: Did you catch Denny Hamlin after his wreck with Johnson? He made sure to note that somebody on track was being too aggressive. That somebody, as Hamlin craftily left anonymous?

None other than his teammate, Kyle Busch.