NASCAR drivers feel the pressure in new Chase format

NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup has the NCAA Tournament feel it was seeking.

The Chase has at least nine teams on the bubble going into Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway. And it’s win or go home for four of them.

Twelve of the 16 race teams will survive and advance from the three-race Challenger Round to the Contender Round, which begins Oct. 5 with the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.

The only drivers whose tickets are punched to the Contender Round in the 10-race Chase are Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, who won the first two races.

“I’m sure Brad and Joey are sleeping just fine,” said six-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who is sitting comfortably in fourth place. “But the guys down in 12th to 16th, they’re stressing. In some ways, it spreads the championship pressure among everybody. Whereas, in the past, it started off with however many dealing with it, and then it just emerged with one or two at the end kind of feeling all the weight of the world. Now, everybody equally gets to share in the pain.”

Denny Hamlin, Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola enter Sunday below the 12-driver cutoff for advancing to the second round.

“It’s so frustrating because you know on performance you deserve to move on,” said Hamlin, who fell from seventh to 13 last week when a mechanical issue led to a 32nd place finish at New Hampshire.

“In this three-race section, you just can’t have one bad week. Not right now. And, so you’ve got to be flawless. … You’ve got to be at your best these last 10. We just got bit by a mechanical deal (at New Hampshire). We’ve had them bite us in the Chase in the past, but I thought we were past that.”

Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman are on the bubble, both just six points ahead of Hamlin and Biffle for the final transfer spot. Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards of Columbia and AJ Allmendinger are only one or two points ahead of them as only 12 points separate eighth-place Kenseth from 16th-place.

Even Jeff Gordon, a three-time winner this year who led the regular-season standings for 19 of 21 weeks, is in jeopardy. Gordon, who fell to seventh in the standings after a 26th place finish last week at New Hampshire, is just 15 points ahead of the cutoff.

“This has been really intense,” said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is third in the standings. “We are not used to racing for our season in little chunks like we are going to do in this Chase. 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 nth degree when compared to the last format we had last year. The races feel wilder. … The drivers themselves drive with a much greater sense of urgency, and everybody is just really super on edge. 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.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2014 at 4:31 PM with the headline "NASCAR drivers feel the pressure in new Chase format."