Nascar Rules

[the H team]

[the H team]

With wins in the first two races of the Challenger Round,Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have advanced.Kevin Harvick (+41), Jimmie Johnson (+31), Kyle Busch (+28), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (+28) and Jeff Gordon (+21) have a solid buffer over the cut-off for the next round.

Matt Kenseth (+8), Carl Edwards (+8), AJ Allmendinger (+7), Kasey Kahne (+6) and Ryan Newman (+6) are in the top 12 for now, but they are only a precious few positions on the race track from missing their chance to continue on in the Chase.

Denny Hamlin (-6), Greg Biffle (-6), Kurt Busch (-8) and Aric Almirola (-10) need to rally to keep their championship hopes alive, with a win being their surest ticket to continue their Chase battle.

Of the drivers on the bubble, "Concrete" Carl Edwardshas the best average finish at Dover (10.2), which is second only to Johnson among active drivers. Edwards has a win, eight top-fives and 12 top-10s in 20 career starts.

Kenseth is next-best on the bubble with a 13th-place average finish. He's got two wins, 14 top-fives and 20 top-10s in 31 career starts.

Biffle is third-best with a 13.4 average finish and two victories to go with six top-fives and 11 top-10s in 24 career starts.

Newman's 13.6 average finish has come on the strength of three wins, six top-fives and 12 top-10s to go with four Coors Light Pole Awards.

Almirola has a 15.4 average finish, earning a sixth-place finish in his NASCAR Sprint Cup SeriesDover debut in 2012. It's his only top-10 in five starts. He'll get some additional seat time in the No. 98 NASCAR Nationwide Series ride, doing the double at Dover as he did in the Chase-openingMyAFibStory.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. The extra laps seemed to help before a blown engine ended what appeared to be a top-five run.

If the 12th position comes down to a tiebreaker, only the three races in the Challenger Round matter. Wins and finishes in the regular season won't, so these nine drivers will need to run up front to challenge for the win. If they can't win, they'll need to have more second-place finishes, third-place finishes, etc. than their competitors in order to break the tie and advance.

[the H team]

Welcome race fans to the Monster Mile at Dover Delaware. The sxtarting l8ine up is as follows;

Kevin Harvick
Kyle Busch
Denny Hamlin
Brad Keselowski
Jamie McMurray
Jeff Gordon
Kyle Larson
Jimmie Johnson
Clint Bowyer
Austin Dillon

[the H team]

Other race favs are lined up as follows;
Kasey-12th
Danica-13th
Matt-14th
Tony-15th
Joey-16th
Carl-18th
Ryan-20th
Aric-21st
Kurt-22nd
Dale Jr-25th
Greg-27th
AJ-28th

[the H team]

PRESSURE IS ON FOR THOSE ON CHASE BUBBLE AT DOVER

Denny Hamlin: 'This is the most important race of my career'RELATED: Track your picks in the Perfect Chase Grid Challenge and Chase Battle Grid Presented by Toyota

DOVER, Del. -- The pressures of Sunday's 400-mile event at Dover International Speedway boil down to many clinching scenarios with plenty of ifs. For the drivers without a cushy points margin, they'll need not only solid performances to avoid elimination in the Challenger Round finale, but some help from those near them in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings.
For Denny Hamlin, the ifs won't matter if he doesn't perform. His plan for Sunday is simple: drive the race of his life.





CHASE BUBBLE

Pos.	Driver	+/-	Start pos.
3	Kevin Harvick	+41	1st
4	Jimmie Johnson	+31	8th
5	Kyle Busch	+28	2nd
6	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	+28	25th
7	Jeff Gordon	+21	6th
8	Matt Kenseth	+8	14th
9	Carl Edwards	+8	18th
10	AJ Allmendinger	+7	28th
11	Kasey Kahne	+6	12th
12	Ryan Newman	+6	20th
13	Denny Hamlin	-6	3rd
14	Greg Biffle	-6	27th
15	Kurt Busch	-8	22nd
16	Aric Almirola	-10	21st

"For us, we don't control our own destiny unless we win," said Hamlin, who starts third Sunday, tied with Greg Biffle for 13th in points and just outside the 12-driver cut line. "I really don't want to know. Honestly, this will be the hardest race I'll definitely ever drive for 400 miles. I'm just going to be as aggressive as I can, not put myself in a bad position. This is the most important race of my career because it's the most significant of my career at this point. We've got to get the job done, and I'm going to do my part to try to make sure we're successful."
The pressure around Hamlin and others in the bottom half of the 16-driver Chase field is palpable heading into Sunday's AAA 400 (2 p.m. ET, ESPN), the third race of the playoffs and the last chance for drivers to secure a berth in the Contender Round in the new-look Chase. The only certainty is that four drivers will be removed from title eligibility; the question is which four will make up the unfortunate quartet, potentially cracking under the weight of the stress.
The only two drivers safe from elimination are Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, who won immunity for the Contender Round with victories in the first two Chase events. Beyond the Penske pair, those in third through seventh are relatively comfortable, only needing to avoid disaster while keeping their rivals behind them.
From eighth on back, it's a logjam with just 12 points separating nine drivers, from the eighth-place tie between Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth to 16th-place Aric Almirola. With so many possibilities and combinations, making in-race calculations will become more and more difficult for teams. Edwards, for one, would rather not fuss with the numbers.
"It's simple with this many guys involved: You just have to go perform," said Edwards, just eight points ahead of 13th place in the standings; he'll start 18th Sunday. "You have to just do your job. Every competitor's goal is to not worry about the other guy, just to go be the very best you can be, and then you can walk away from the race and you can say, 'Hey, that was it. That's what I had.' I hope we're able to do that on Sunday."
Though the first run-through of the new Chase format is just two races old, the use of three three-race series of eliminations before the championship race has created a pressure cooker. As last week's rough-and-tumble race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway showed, as the intensity grows, the margin for error shrinks.
Kasey Kahne said there's a good chance the frenzied nature of New Hampshire could repeat itself at the Monster Mile. But Kahne -- who enters Sunday's race tied for 11th in points with Ryan Newman, just six points ahead of the 13th-place pair of Hamlin/Biffle -- has faced similar pressure before, needing a Hail Mary-style victory in the next-to-last race of the regular season at Atlanta to clinch his spot in the Chase grid.
"I just want to race, and if we're better than the rest, then we move on," Kahne said. "That's what I hope happens, but that's usually not what happens in the Cup Series, so we just have to be prepared and ready for everything. I just want to have a fast car and race. If we're good enough to move on, we will."
Edwards has faced the grips of postseason stress before, coming up just short in a championship tiebreaker won by Tony Stewart at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2011. While a title can't be won Sunday at Dover, it certainly can be lost -- and Edwards welcomes the challenge.
"For me, I put that same type of pressure on myself every week," Edwards said Friday after Coors Light Pole Qualifying. "I really do. I got nervous before that qualifying run. I get wound up and anxious, and I kind of feel that way every time. But overall, I do understand the consequences of this race are higher than any of the other ones we've run this year, but that's kind of fun. There aren't many things that make me focus like that and get me excited, but everybody's different so I don't know how everybody in the garage responds to that stuff, but for me, I enjoy it.
"It's not quite the gravity of the 2011 race at Homestead, but you realize that your championship could be determined here."

[the H team]

The cars are getting ready to start.

[the H team]

At the green, Happy jumps out to a quick lead.

[the H team]

Happy, Brad, Kyle, Denny & Jeff, the top 5.

[the H team]

Jeff goes by Denny for 4th.

[the H team]

Jimmie passes Jamie for 6th.

[rockit]

Hello H

Nice day for racing...

Cheers

[the H team]

Jeff up to 3rd.

[the H team]

Hello H

Nice day for racing...

Cheers

Sure is. Cheers!

[rockit]

Almirola in 27th will be next to go lap down

[rockit]

Harvick next puts AJ Allmindinger down a lap