CONCORD, N.C. -- When it came right down to it Saturday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Spanky Spangler had a better night than either Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart.

Considering Spangler was the driver of a recreational vehicle in a stunt gone wrong during festivities prior to the Bank of America 500, that's really saying something. Spangler ended up being fine, by the way. According to CMS spokesman Adrian Parker, Spangler arrived in the track's infield care center after wrecking his stunt RV and told the attending physician, "It's OK, doc. I'm a daredevil."

Spangler is a two-man show with his son, Bryan. The Chase was a five-man show heading into Saturday's race -- but after what transpired during the race to Gordon and Stewart, it's arguably down to three now. The three left standing with just five races left are four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick.

“

It was just a comedy of errors.

”

-- DARIAN GRUBB

Gordon began the night with high hopes after claiming the pole in qualifying. It went well enough for the first 160 laps or so, with him leading seven laps and running in the top 10 throughout. But then disaster struck, and he temporarily lost all power in his No. 24 Chevrolet.

It turned out all he had to do was switch to a backup battery without even pitting (some cars elect to put in a backup and some don't). But before Gordon figured out what had happened and that he could restore power with a flip of the switch, teammate Johnson, who was leading at the time, had put him a lap down. He never really recovered -- he later was penalized for speeding on pit road as well -- and eventually finished 23rd.

"It was not a lot of fun. We had about everything go wrong that could go wrong," said Gordon, who entered the night 85 points behind Chase points leader Johnson and ended it 156 out.

Stewart, who had won the previous week in California to briefly jump back into the championship picture, appeared to fall out of Chase contention for good as he battled his own series of problems throughout Saturday night. Unlike Gordon or even the ill-fated Spangler, there never seemed to be a hint of hope. Stewart started 29th and finished 21st, only once rising as high as 10th and then only for a few laps. He spent most of the night riding around between 17th and 22nd and fell 177 points off the Chase pace being set by Johnson.

"It was just a comedy of errors," said Darian Grubb, Stewart's crew chief.

More on what happened

Gordon seemed dumbfounded by what caused his downfall. Despite failing to win a race yet this season, his team had prided itself on avoiding the kinds of costly mistakes and poor luck that befuddled them Saturday night.

"We lost a little bit of track position and then we had the battery issue which took me a little while to figure out," Gordon said. "I've never had that happen before. I've had them stumble, but I've never had them just shut off. So it took me a few seconds to figure that out. (Continued)