When it comes to bad luck this season, the list of Sprint Cup drivers who can commiserate with each other is long.Start with Kyle Busch. Throw in Jeff Gordon and maybe teammate Dale Earnhardt. And Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin, and maybe Tony Stewart. And that's just at the front of the pack."We had a decent run last week at Martinsville and were able to get a top-10 finish," said Kenseth, the 2003 champ. "For me that's a huge accomplishment. It seems this year we're either really good or really bad ... and we either have awesome luck or we crash."But few drivers can stand in front of Jamie McMurray in terms of misfortune."It's been pretty weird to think of the bad luck the team has experienced the last few weeks," said McMurray, one of Jack Roush's five drivers. "We were wrecked at Dover -- in one of the best cars I've ever had. We were taken out at Talladega while running in the top five. And then this past weekend we had a mechanical failure in the rear-end gear."It's disappointing, but I know how strong and fast our cars have been over the last couple of months. We had a solid run in Charlotte ... which shows how good our team has been when we don't have bad luck hit us."And now the Sprint Cup series moves to Atlanta Motor Speedway."It has to be the fastest place we race," McMurray said. "The speeds we carry into Turn 1 are probably the fastest of any track."Yet drivers love the place ... usually. Goodyear's choice of rock-hard tires in March didn't make for a fun afternoon, as Stewart made so clear. Atlanta is typically very abrasive on tires, which is why Goodyear went hard. But too hard, there's no wear, and drivers were slipping and sliding all over the place.In response to those complaints, Goodyear put on a major effort to come back this week with a much better tire combination, and there were several tests to confirm the choice.For Roush and McMurray, a change in command appears in the offing. Larry Carter, although he certainly hasn't been to blame for any of the team's bad luck, will most likely move to another brand of Team Ford, and there is speculation that Donnie Wingo, the laid-back crew chief who once worked with McMurray, might come over for 2009.Carter, though, is more concerned with getting his team on track in this season's final four races. He said that the Roush teams in general "have come a long way with this new car at the intermediate tracks, like Atlanta."We didn't have the best run there in the spring, but with all the testing we have done, and how far along our engineering program has come, I don't expect the same thing this return to Atlanta."We've had some tough luck the last few races. But if we can get the bad luck out of our system, we can contend to win any of these races."The driver to beat at Atlanta is typically Dale Earnhardt Jr., who has an affinity for the place, just like his father had. Even on the bad-tire day, Earnhardt still pulled off a third: "I like running at Atlanta a lot. It's a good track ... and real, real fast."And coming off a good run like Martinsville (second to teammate Jimmie Johnson), I think we have a good shot at it."As far as tough luck goes, Earnhardt had has his share, too. He hasn't been as dominant this season as he typically has been, but that's probably because he has tried so hard not to make mistakes, rather than just throwing caution to the wind.Elsewhere, changes for 2009 are in the wind.Owner Richard Childress is picking Shane Wilson as Clint Bowyer's crew chief next season, thus apparently pairing veteran crew chief Gil Martin with incoming Casey Mears.Wilson, a long-time NASCAR veteran, ran Childress' 2006 Busch championship effort, with 10 wins that season.With his team out of the title chase, Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's crew chief, also is also looking ahead ... to hunting season."I really look forward to the end of November, because I can get to doing some hunting," he said. "We've got a trip planned in Kansas, me and Dale Jr. and my uncles. I'm looking forward to that."By the time the season ends (Thanksgiving week), you ain't got but about six weeks (before January testing cranks up), so you try to get in all you can."(Contact Mike Mulhern at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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