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TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Anything can happen at Talladega, and anything can happen in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
The specter of the gigantic 2.66-mile superspeedway and the reality of it being an elimination race in the Contender Round intersect here Sunday in the Alabama foothills.
Entering the CampingWorld.com 500 (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) Joey Logano is safe, having won twice already in this three-race round to earn an automatic advancement. No one else can be overly confident of advancing to the eight-driver Eliminator Round, though.
Second-place Denny Hamlin, for example, is a mere 12 points ahead of eighth-place Martin Truex Jr., hardly a comfortably margin.
In fact, close proximity is the story throughout the Chase Grid.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (11th place, 31 points behind Truex) and Matt Kenseth (12th place, 35 points behind Truex) almost certainly must win, but every other driver -- again, with the exception of Logano -- will likely have plenty of jangled nerves Sunday.
Here's quick look at where things stand on the Chase Grid:
REASONABLY COMFORTABLE
• Denny Hamlin (second place, 12 points above cutoff)
SMALLER SEPARATION
• Kurt Busch (third place, seven points above cutoff and 13 points above ninth-place Kyle Busch): "Only plus-13? That is unbelievable. I would have hoped we could have been 25. That is how tight it is. This competition, you can't get a spot on anybody and you can't give up a spot. Plus-13 is not very exciting -- wow, you kind of deflated my bubble there."
• Carl Edwards (fourth place, six points above cutoff): "It is the most unpredictable track on the circuit, with basically ours and 10 other guys' championship hopes on the line. It's going to be very interesting to see how the race plays out. My guess is that it will be really chaotic, unpredictable at best."
BUBBLE BOYS
• Kevin Harvick (fifth place, one point above cutoff): "I've just made the decision over the last several years that you go there and you try to position yourself at the front of the pack and you just let it happen. Otherwise, it's just a complete mental drain on yourself and the team. That's the strategy. That's what we’re going to do."
• Jeff Gordon (sixth place, one point above cutoff) | Read Gordon's commentary here
• Brad Keselowski (seventh place, one point above cutoff) | Read Keselowski's commentary here
• Martin Truex Jr. (eighth place): "We're going to race our own race, that's all you can do. You can't predict when or where the 'Big One' will happen."
BELOW THE LINE
• Kyle Busch (ninth place, six points behind the cutoff line): "Last year we were the top point-total scorer of the first two rounds and we were seeded the highest without a win, and we went to Talladega and we sure learned how to throw that away. … For us, if we can do the same thing again, then we'll do the same thing again. I think what we can do a better job of -- instead of being one of the only guys to race at the back of the pack and get ourselves caught up in something that none of the other Chasers were involved in -- is race with all the rest of the Chasers."
• Ryan Newman (10th place, eight points behind the cutoff line): "I think we have a better opportunity of winning here than some of the other tracks. They say anyone can win Talladega. That certainly gives us the better odds I'd say than some other tracks.”