NASCAR Cup Series

Pressure cooker: Water beginning to boil as the Chase heats up

Published Oct. 3, 2014 11:40 a.m. ET

Jeff Hammond

If you caught my column Wednesday, you saw my reference to the pressure cooker that these 12 remaining Chase-contending teams are in. The 12 remaining drivers start clean this weekend as the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins, with the points re-set after conclusion of the opening Chase Challenger round that ended with four drivers being eliminated from the original field of 16..

The problem is that the third and final race of this Chase Contender round is Talladega. That's a race where we all know anything can and usually does happen.

So even today the water inside that pressure cooker is starting to boil. There are 12 drivers who desperately don't want to have to pin their 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship hopes on what happens to them in Talladega in a couple weeks.

That makes the pressure of this race at Kansas and then next Saturday night at Charlotte even greater.

They all realize they have to get out of the gates early at these next two races and put points on the board now. There are 12 drivers vying for eight spots in the third round. That's a pretty crowded field. So you can see where the water is going to boil to a point where it blows the lid right off the pressure cooker.

The other factor that no one can lose sight on is the non-Chase drivers -- a group which now also includes the four drivers who were just eliminated following Dover last Sunday. They all still have something to prove. They all have owners, sponsors and fans they want to take care of.

So there also are 31 piranhas out there right now in the NASCAR Sprint Cup waters who won't think twice, if given the chance, about taking a chunk out of our remaining 12 championship contenders. Combined with all the other factors swimming about, that's going to make these next three weeks very interesting.