Atlanta the benefactor of close battle for Chase berth (cont'd)

The six in front of them in the standings are virtually locked in, no matter what arithmetic is used and whether or not some officially have clinched a Chase berth. The drivers behind the eight aforementioned competitors have squandered their chances of making it and reduced themselves to little more than a collection of sideshows working mostly toward next year.

Of the eight, only three -- Martin, Kahne and Busch -- have won Cup races previously at AMS. Martin is the only one who has done it twice.

But you have to dig into the numbers deeper than that to draw a reasonable conclusion of what to expect from this bunch come this Sunday.

Martin, for instance, won the pole for the last Atlanta race in the spring -- but cut a tire late in the race while running near the front and finished 31st. That was nothing but bad luck, and considering Martin finished second to Busch in the last Cup race at Bristol, both of those drivers bring some momentum into this event.

Then again, some drivers don't believe in such things as momentum carrying them from one race to another. Busch and Martin are more likely to run up front in Atlanta because they've done so there lately. Busch finished fifth and first in the two 2008 races at the track, but in eight other career starts at AMS has never finished higher than 12th.

Breaking it down

For consistency, you can't beat Kenseth at Atlanta -- and when you're sitting 12th in the points with two races left before the Chase cutoff, consistency is what you're after. His average career finish of 13.8 at AMS is far superior to the average finish offered by any of the other Elite Eight.

Kenseth has never won at the track, but he has seven top-five and 11 top-10 finishes. Except for Martin -- whose 22 top-10s at the track reflect the fact that he has been racing there almost since it opened in 1960 more than anything else -- none of the other eight scrambling for their Chase lives has more than seven top-10s.

Those seven top-10s belong to Biffle, whose 15.4 average career finish at AMS ranks second to Kenseth among the eight drivers. Like Kenseth, he has never won there.

Five of the eight drivers have career average finishes of 18th or worse at AMS, including Newman (18.5), Montoya (24.4), Kahne (18.5), Busch (18.2) and Vickers (18.4). Of course Newman, Montoya and Kahne also enter Sunday's event with the small luxury of being ahead of the rest in the standings before the green flag drops.

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Add it all up and what does it mean?

The semi-educated guess here is that Martin, Busch and Vickers will all be good. It will be interesting to see how Busch and Vickers handle it if they run well and in close proximity to each other, especially if they're close at the end. They aren't exactly fond of each other these days.

Montoya, as always, is a wild card. His career average finish is deceptive because he's run only five Cup races at AMS, and it is a track where he has shown flashes of coming around. One way or another, he will be a factor Sunday.

What could make the race great is that the top six in the current standings have little or nothing to lose, so they'll be aggressive in going for the victory and that should add to the excitement mix.

Meanwhile, despite their slight points advantage coming in, Newman, Biffle and Montoya will have to guard against racing too conservatively -- because that tends to be like going into the prevent defense too early in a football game. It almost always backfires. Plus if any of those guys want to get into the Chase and have any chance of winning it, they could use the 10 bonus points that will come with a race victory.

The bottom line is that there should be great battles not only for the victory this Sunday, but there will be several individual races within the race that will greatly impact how the standings look heading into Richmond.

Bring it on, boys. It should be good stuff.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.