NASCAR Cup Series

Who looks hot (or not) heading into Chase elimination race at Dover

Published Sep. 27, 2014 6:49 p.m. ET

foxsports

After two races in the Challenger 16 round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, one race remains for drivers to race their way into the 12-driver Contender round.

For four drivers, when the checkered flag falls on Sunday's race at Dover International Speedway their championships hopes will have come to an abrupt and sudden end.

Many face an uphill battle from the start.

Ten of the 16 Chase drivers will start Sunday's race outside the top 10. Six of them will take the green flag from outside the top 20.

At a track where clean air is king and passing is more than difficult, pit strategy and hard racing will be a major factor in determining who advances to the next round and who becomes an "afterthought," as Denny Hamlin put it on Friday.

Speaking of Hamlin, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver had a dismal day last weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and said Sunday's 400 miles at Dover will be the most important of his career.

His efforts throughout the weekend have shown he is doing all he can to race his way into the next round of the Chase, which starts next week at Kansas Speedway. Hamlin has been fast in practice, qualified in the third spot and ended Saturday's final practice in fourth.

On the other side of the coin, AJ Allmendinger, Ryan Newman, and Greg Biffle have not had the types of weekends to this point that would lead to giving them much confidence going into Sunday's crucial race.

Allmendinger entered the weekend 10th on the Chase grid, seven points ahead of Hamlin in 13th. The JTG Daugherty Racing driver finished final practice 16th on the speed charts, and will roll of for Sunday's race in the 28th spot, the deepest of any Chase driver in the field.

For Newman, he currently holds the final transfer spot into the next round, but so much can -- and will -- change during the 400 miles of racing on Sunday. The Richard Childress Racing driver starts Sunday's race from the 20th spot, but was 23rd in final practice, the slowest of the Chase drivers. Newman has three career wins at Dover, but has not finished in the top five since 2007.

Perhaps Biffle has the highest hill to climb to make his way into the next round of the Chase. The Roush Fenway Racing driver barely made the cut to get into the 16-driver field and has not finished inside the top 15 in either of the first two Chase races. Once one of the best at the Monster Mile, Biffle was 38th in June and has finished inside the top 15 in just five of the last 10 Dover races.

While Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Jeff Gordon seem to be the class of the field once again this weekend, there is no telling what this monster of a track has in store over the course of 400 laps on Sunday.

Dover is a track that puts a premium on clean air and track position, tests the best of drivers and equipment, and has been known to jump up and ruin many championship hopes thanks to its unforgiving walls and self-cleaning banks.

Most likely, the only two drivers sleeping comfortably before Sunday night's race are Team Penske's Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. The two Ford drivers won the first two races of the Chase and are already locked into the next round.

While 14 drivers enter Sunday's race with hopes of advancing to the next round and contending for the title for three more weeks, four will have those hopes crushed by the time the checkered flag falls.

As Dale Earnhardt Jr. pointed out Friday in the Dover media center, the new Chase format is adding stress to even the toughest of competitors.

"This has been really intense," he said. "We are not used to racing for our season in little chunks of two- and three- and one-race spans like we are going to do in this Chase. The Chase itself as 10-race schedule was a wild idea when it first came out. This is definitely making things really intense. You feel it all week long. It's inescapable as far as trying to get it off your mind or trying to take a break from it. You can't help but feel these nerves of having to deliver on every lap in practice, every qualifying lap, everything matters to the 10th degree when compared to the last format we had last year.

"The races feel wilder, more intense. I think the drivers themselves drive with much greater sense of urgency and everybody is just really super on edge. That is what I sense anyways. I think that will continue for whoever stays alive and probably get worse. We are all going to be drinking the Mylanta before it's over with. If we don't all have holes in our guts by the end of this thing I will be surprised."

VIDEO: A quick refresher course on how this 2014 Chase for the Sprint Cup elimination format works