RELATED: Jones talks about wreck at Kentucky
DOVER, Del. -- The XFINITY Series rewrote history books last weekend when it kicked off the series' inaugural 12-driver Chase at Kentucky Speedway.
Points leader Elliott Sadler used a late pass to win in the Bluegrass State and simultaneously punch his ticket to the next round of the Chase. This Saturday's race at Dover International Speedway (3 p.m. NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) marks the second of three races in the opening round of the playoffs.
May's Dover winner Erik Jones -- who dropped from first to ninth in the Chase standings after a late wreck at Kentucky -- hopes he's not one of those unlucky four.
"It's been fun so far," Jones said of the format. "Obviously, only one race in, not the finish we wanted but had a really fast car and had one that could've won the race, but ended up being our own biggest enemy in that one.
"Hopefully we can get it back on track here at Dover -- another really good race track for us."
For these 12 championship contenders, the "win-and-you're-in" format lends itself to Victory Lane remaining the goal. Spectators saw championship hopes glimmer in the eyes of the Chasers last week, as aggression heated up on track.
But with only two races to make up positions on the Chase Grid, it's a balance between staying out of trouble on track but not getting eliminated, either.
"You've got to control what you can control and at Kentucky I didn't do a very good job of that. ... I put myself in a situation to make a mistake and ended up doing that and taking ourselves out," Jones said. "If we're caught up in something and it's something out of our control, that's nothing we can do about that.
"We still need to put ourselves in a good position and one where we're running up front and hopefully in the mix for a win. If we can do that, I think we'll be just fine."
Sadler enters Saturday's race at the Monster Mile atop the Chase Grid, followed by Daniel Suarez, Brendan Gaughan, Ryan Reed, Darrell Wallace Jr., Justin Allgaier, Brennan Poole, Blake Koch, Jones, Ryan Sieg, Brandon Jones and Ty Dillon, who was also caught up in a late-race wreck at Kentucky.