Chase exciting, but it's just getting started

The first elimination round culminates in Sunday’s AAA 400 at the notoriously tough Dover International Speedway. Four of the 16 drivers who have competed in the 16-driver Challenger Round will not advance to the three-race Contender Round — their postseason runs are caput.

But with 16th-ranked Aric Almirola only 10 points out of the 12th place cutoff, everything gets settled Sunday afternoon.

And with all the weighty conversation and heavy debate that went into formulating NASCAR’s new playoff system, having all 16 drivers still mathematically eligible had to be the perfect scenario, even if the sanctioning body dared not expect it out of the box.

“When that points system gets reset for the Chase and everybody is so close in points, you know that every week is going to be important, every point is going to be important,” said Almirola, who will steer the No. 43 Nathan’s Famous Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports on Sunday. “Throughout the year, the points get spread out and you kind of get those cushions, but when everything gets reset … one spot on the race track is a big deal.

“I’m glad for our sake we’re still in it.”

Not only has every Chase driver kept himself very much in contention to move to the next round, there are another half-dozen racers outside the Chase looking racey enough to win each week as rookie Kyle Larson has demonstrated with back-to-back top-five finishes.

At this point, no one can be counted out of the Chase or out of a race.

And that’s not lost among those atop the Chase standings or those on the bottom with heavy-duty work still to do this week.

First-place Brad Keselowski — with a win and a seventh-place finish in the opening Chase rounds — holds a 27-point edge over seventh-place Jeff Gordon. But there is a 13-point drop-off from Gordon to eighth-place Matt Kenseth and ninth-place Carl Edwards.

Tenth-place AJ Allmendinger is only one point behind them, and Kasey Kahne (11th) and Ryan Newman (12th) are a point behind Allmendinger.

Chasers Denny Hamlin and Greg Biffle sit only six points out of that 12th-place cutoff. Kurt Busch is eight points behind Newman and Almirola is 10 back.

“It was important to knock off top-fives in the first two races and have a huge cushion going into Dover and be able to race like we need to race there,” said Kevin Harvick, who is comfortably ranked third in the standings with a pair of top-five Chase efforts in the No. 4 Chevrolet. “There’s so much that can happen at Dover — you can be pitting under green and get two laps down with a caution and your day will be over with.”

Of course Almirola wavers tenuously on the other end of the spectrum. With four drivers to overtake in order to make the Chase, Almirola is more philosophic about what he must do Sunday at Dover, where he scored a NASCAR national series win in 2010 in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

Almirola said he doesn’t want crew chief Trent Owens constantly updating him with his competition’s whereabouts, saying that it would be too “distracting” with multiple drivers on the radar versus one. He’d rather just focus on his task at hand and is very optimistic about his chances despite being the underdog at this point.

“It’s not going to do me any good to try harder or anything like that, I try as hard as I possibly can every week,” Almirola said.

“There’s times when you realize, ‘hey, I need to be aggressive if I’m going to get some spots here and get a good finish,’ and I think the same will hold true at Dover.

“We’ll take necessary risk, but we’re not going to take crazy risks just to try and transfer to the next round if the reward is not there.”

It’s a similar mindset for Allmendinger, who, like Almirola, earned his place in the win-and-you’re-in Chase with a Cinderella regular-season victory. And both can continue to take great pride in their smaller teams — JTG Daugherty and RPM, respectively — holding their own with the mega-franchises such as Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing right through to this first elimination round.

“I got home last night and all of a sudden it started hitting me that we have ashot to advance,” said Allmendinger, who scored his and JTG Daugherty’s career first Sprint Cup Series win at Watkins Glen this summer.

“I don’t know that the outlook is different (now that) we can make it. If we did, it would be good publicity for our sponsors, who have supported our team for such a long time. We just have to focus on us. We know what is around us. We know it’s a lot of great teams. This is what we have to do to keep going. We have got to make no mistakes.”

And while the 10-race Chase features lots of wild-card venues, Dover is typically wild if not a pure toss-up.

Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson leads all drivers with nine wins at the Monster Mile, which is eight more than the three guys he’s chasing combined — Penske Racing teammates Keselowski and Logano and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Harvick.

Keselowski won this Chase race in 2012 and finished runner-up from the pole position in May. Logano has never won here but has posted three consecutive top-10s. He has a best of third-place twice, including in this race last year.

Harvick has never won at Dover, but has a runner-up finish in the summer of 2012.

So buckle up race fans. From top to bottom, a fascinating Chase so far looks to get even better.

MORE: