BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Neither Van Gogh nor Pavarotti, with their exquisite talents would've had a prayer of displaying the facial pain or the agony in Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Alan Gustafson's voice as Sunday's sun began to set on Michigan International Speedway.

Gustafson's driver, Mark Martin, and their team have won a league-leading four races -- including a Michigan fuel mileage special in June -- but Martin sits only 12 points away from falling out of the 12-man field for the Chase after his car apparently ran out of fuel on the last lap and Brian Vickers, one of three drivers who still has a shot to race his way into the Chase, won the Carfax 400.

In June, Martin went from third to first on the final lap when Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle ran out of fuel in front of him. Martin's car also ran out of fuel coming out of Turn 4, but he had enough steam to win -- but not Sunday.

Shortly after, the lanky, 6-foot Gustafson stood behind his hauler, team cap pulled tight down on his brow, dark glasses hiding his eyes, as he watched his crew load Martin's No. 5 Chevrolet and its equipment.

Pushing the car was lightened by its lack of fuel, which dropped Martin from just outside the top 10 at the white flag to 31st in the final rundown.

The weight of losing at least 52 points as the race to the Chase reaches its most critical point, with only three races remaining until the Richmond cutoff, is something that'll take a little longer to purge.

"I blew it," Gustafson said. "I had a chance to top-off [with fuel] there, and if I would have, we probably would have finished second at worst, if not won. So there's no way to make it pretty, or nice.

"It cost our team a lot of points and it's on my shoulders -- so I feel terrible about it, because I blew it, there's no other way to put it."

Martin, who hoofed it back to his hauler after his car coasted across the finish line, changed clothes, bolted out the side door of the transporter, grabbed a bottle of water from an assistant and then out-hustled everyone who was tailing him as he left the track.

Gustafson, who's continually proven in victory and defeat his shoulders are plenty capable of holding no limit of responsibility, tried to explain where his strategy went wrong.

Martin pitted on Lap 149 for fuel and tires with his Hendrick teammates -- runner-up Jeff Gordon and the race's dominant leader, Johnson (133 laps led) -- along with Vickers.

“

I blew it. I had a chance to top-off [with fuel] there, and if I would have, we probably would have finished second at worst, if not won. So there's no way to make it pretty, or nice.

”

-- ALAN GUSTAFSON

What made the whole group feel even worse was that Martin, who had started the race in the second position next to pole-sitter Vickers, actually led the second-most laps, 26, and had four stints in the lead. He never fell out of the top 10 until his final pit stop, before he began his final spiral, which started when he fell from third at Lap 171 trying to save fuel and ended when he coasted across the line.

"We needed some help, we needed some cautions and I thought with the double-file restarts we'd get some cautions," Gustafson said. "And it just didn't go that way. And in our position I didn't need to take that gamble -- that's where I made a mistake."

After the Lap 153 restart, the race's seventh and final caution flew on Lap 159 when David Stremme spun down the frontstretch. When he didn't hit anything, the yellow was only out for three laps, which kept several drivers, including Martin, from being able to conserve enough fuel, ironically including Johnson, who ran out while leading with little more than two laps to go and finished 33rd.

At one point in the race's stretch run, Martin was ninth in the standings. If he would have finished where he was at the start of the last lap, ostensibly he would have gone to Bristol Motor Speedway next week with more than a 60-point cushion to 13th place Vickers, instead of just 12.

"I'm not giving up by any means and we're going to fight hard," Gustafson said of his outlook for Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond. "It would've changed the way we looked at strategy [if things had worked out Sunday], but no, we're still on the hot seat and we're going to fight hard and do the best that we can.

"I just hate it for all these guys because we had a race-winning car and Mark drove his tail off and I just made a blatantly wrong decision and it cost us a lot."

For the so-called "bubble" drivers, the race to the Chase remained intense, as the gap from eighth place Kasey Kahne to 15th place Kyle Busch shrank from 168 to 163 points. But more critically, only 42 points separate 10th place Biffle, who struggled to finish 20th on Sunday, from Vickers, who's finished in the top seven in five of the last six races.

Busch ran in the top 10 only briefly and faded to 23rd late, yet with Martin's misfortune Busch is only 70 points outside the top 12. Clint Bowyer, whose fuel gamble resulted in an eighth-place finish, is 58 points behind Martin in 14th.