Chase bubble: Hendrick in trouble after Kansas

With his win in the Hollywood Casino 400 — his fifth of the season, tied with teammate Brad Keselowski for most in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series — Joey Logano has advanced to the Eliminator 8, which will begin in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 26 (1:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). With top-12 finishes, Kyle Busch (+19), Carl Edwards (+16), Ryan Newman (+16, Edwards holds the tiebreaker because of his fifth-place finish to Newman’s sixth-place finish at Kansas), Denny Hamlin (+14) and Kevin Harvick (+10) are in good shape but will seek wins in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC) or the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway (Oct. 19, 2 p.m. ET, ESPN).

Matt Kenseth and Gordon (+8) are tied, but Kenseth breaks the tie by finishing 13th to Gordon’s 14th-place result. The four-time champion led a lap and was running up front early when Jamie McMurray got loose and ran into Gordon’s left rear, sending the No. 24 car into the wall and costing the team precious track position.

Tire issues sent Kahne (-8) and Earnhardt Jr. (-25) into the wall and dropped them to 22nd and 39th respectively in the running order and ninth and 11th in the standings. Johnson (-27) finished 40th and sits last in the Chase Grid after Greg Biffle made contact with him and sent him into the inside wall on the backstretch.

Keselowski (-22) suffered a tire failure and finished 36th, which places him 10th in the Chase Grid as he returns to Charlotte, where he is the defending race winner of the only night race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The 2012 champion has 15.7 average finish at Charlotte with two top-fives and three top-10 finishes to go with the win in 10 starts.

Of the drivers on the bubble, Johnson has the best average finish at Charlotte (11.2), which is second only to Logano among active drivers. Johnson holds the track record with seven wins and also has 13 top-five finishes and 17 top 10s in 26 career starts.

Kahne is next-best on the bubble with an 11.5 average finish. He’s got four wins, nine top-fives and 12 top-10s in 21 career starts at Charlotte.

Gordon has a 15.8 average finish and five victories to go with 16 top-fives and 23 top-10s in 43 career starts at Charlotte.

Earnhardt Jr. meanwhile has no wins, five top-fives, 11 top-10s and an average finish of 19.4 in 29 career starts at Charlotte.

If the eighth position comes down to a tiebreaker, only the three races in the Contender Round matter. Wins and finishes in the regular season won’t, so these drivers will need to run up front to challenge for the win. If they can’t win, they’ll need to have more second-place finishes, third-place finishes, etc. than their competitors in order to break the tie and advance. If two drivers have the exact same finishes, the tie-breaker then goes to the driver who scored the best finish first.

Probably means nothing, but only one of bottom four Chase drivers after Chicago opener advanced to next round. #NASCAR

— Kenny Bruce (@kennybruce) October 5, 2014

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