HAMPTON, Ga. -- Tony Stewart called it the longest week of his life. Carl Edwards called it the most stressful race he'd ever been involved in. Kevin Harvick said everything about it is miserable.

It's life on the Chase bubble, a wearying, angst-ridden existence that can consume those drivers pursuing the final few available spots in NASCAR's year-end playoff. Making the Chase can dominate waking thoughts, can make sleep difficult, can wind crewmen as tight as a guitar string. Teams on the brink can only prepare, prepare a little more, and then watch, wait, and worry.

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The whole position is miserable, because you are waiting for something to go wrong. You are waiting for things to happen, and most of the things that happen are out of your control. You don't sleep, you don't think about anything but trying to get into the Chase, and it is just no fun.

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-- KEVIN HARVICK

"The whole position is miserable, because you are waiting for something to go wrong," said Harvick, who is the Cup Series points leader now, but sat squarely on the Chase fence in 2004 and 2005. "You are waiting for things to happen, and most of the things that happen are out of your control. You don't sleep, you don't think about anything but trying to get into the Chase, and it is just no fun."

This season it's Clint Bowyer on the brink, the Richard Childress Racing driver holding a 100-point lead on Jamie McMurray with Mark Martin one point further behind. But at some point and time, virtually all the top drivers in NASCAR have been there, sitting on that unenviable hot seat with the final races of the regular season winding down. And none of them would trade places.

"It's not a fun position to be in," said Jeff Gordon, who fell off the Chase bubble in 2005. "Every week, you're just focused on each position, each point. There's just a tremendous amount of stress. To me, there's as much stress right now for the guys trying to make the Chase as there is for the guys at the end of the season when it comes down to a couple of guys trying to win the championship. It's really that intense. It's that important to be in the Chase. When you're that close to it, especially if you've been in it before or if the expectations are that you should be in it, that kind of intensity and pressure is tough to deal with."

Tony Stewart can relate. In 2006, the season after his second championship, Stewart went into the final regular-season event in eighth place. Back then, only the top-10 drivers made the Chase. Stewart wound up 11th.

"It will be the longest eight days these guys will have in their entire career, these next eight days. It's not a fun position to be in, for sure," Stewart said. "... Honestly, it was just a matter of taking it a day at a time. You'll run [Sunday] night, and whatever the scenario is, you've got five or six days to worry about what you've got to do, that's probably the hardest part, the waiting to get back to the race track to actually do it."

Bowyer, though, has something most of his predecessors on the Chase bubble didn't enjoy -- a fairly healthy lead on the competition. Although there's no finishing position at Atlanta that would guarantee Bowyer a Chase spot, his 100-point cushion raises the distinct possibility that all 12 playoff berths could be virtually assured before the Cup circuit motors into Richmond for the traditional regular-season finale next week. If Bowyer gains at least 62 points on the competition, all he'll have to do is roll off the starting grid at Richmond next Saturday night.

That means the biggest race for the Chase bubble boys may be here at Atlanta, where a strong performance by Bowyer could render Richmond an afterthought. For his part, Bowyer seems anything but stressed.

"Just make sure I don't screw up, first of all," he joked. "That's the biggest thing, don't beat yourself. I've been in this situation before. Lot of pressure. Anybody could buckle under that pressure. You've just got to go out there and have as much fun as you possibly can, and as a driver, you are a little bit of a quarterback there, make sure you keep it upbeat and have fun with it no matter what. That was something that was important that I had on my mind, that Richard [Childress] met with us about even before Bristol happened. Just make sure you keep everybody upbeat ... and you'll be fine."

Positivity? With the last Chase spot on the line? That's likely as much a function of the sizeable point gap between 12th and 13th as it is Bowyer's easy-going demeanor. Because other drivers who have been there have experienced something very different. "My first year in 2005, I went to Richmond and that was probably the most stressful race I've ever had in my life," Edwards said. "I didn't like that at all, so I'm glad I'm not in that position."

The stress is for real. "It's pretty much there all the time," said Kyle Busch, who missed the Chase last year. "You're trying to figure out how you can make yourself better at the race track, how you can talk to your crew chief better about knowing how to go faster at the race track, or communicating better, or all that stuff. It weighs on you. You always want to try to finish the best you can, and the communication is the starting point to having a good-handling race car. From there, you've got to have no mistakes. You've just got to come through and complete the day."

Bowyer's doing his best to stay cool and confident, something surely helped by his top-five speed in Saturday's final practice at Atlanta. Last week, he hosted a golf tournament. This week, he's trying to avoid reading stories in the media. He just wants to not think about it too much. But of course, he hasn't started the race at Atlanta -- much less Richmond -- yet.

"Really, you can't put too much pressure on yourself and on your race team," he said. "We've got to go out and do the best we can. At the end of the day, that's all you can do. You can freak out about it, you can worry about it, and everything else, but if you do that, it's going to going to hurt you. You have to go out there and make sure everybody's having fun -- pick on them, lean on your buddies, the guys you bring to the race track. Those are your only friends in this sport, the guys who come with you. Make sure you're having fun with them and enjoy this time, and not dwell on it and be worried sick about it."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

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