By all accounts, Jimmie Johnson could’ve taken the Kansas race off, having won at Charlotte. He didn’t, and continues to show why he’s one of the best ever with a fourth-place finish.
Any questions? When Harvick needs to win, he wins. Considering ‘El Toro’ is the bull to beat at Phoenix (next round), you may as well already pencil him into the Championship 4.
Busch may have had a chance to battle Kevin Harvick for the win, but was busy battling his teammate, Carl Edwards, for position behind him. He was none too pleased.
The polesitter at Kansas faded late, but expect him to lead more laps at Talladega where his 512 laps led are the most among Chase drivers.
Truex’s recent luck seemed to run dry at Kansas — and it nearly made his gas tank do the same, as his crew failed to give him ample fuel on a pit stop. Mistakes like that become more costly as rounds progress.
Edwards once again came up just short of winning at his home track, but his second-place finish will go a long way toward helping him advance.
Logano isn’t quite in must-win mode, but it certainly doesn’t hurt his Chase chances that he comes into Talladega as the defending race winner. Of course, he may still have to figure out how to beat Kevin Harvick.
After starting from the rear, Busch put together an above average day and has a good shot to advance, still. His 16.3 average finish at Talladega ranks third among Chase drivers with more than one start.
Dillon currently loses the tiebreaker with Joey Logano for the eighth and final Chase spot, but any magic that ‘3’ car has left in it at Talladega would go a long way.
Keselowski is in a difficult points position and needs to win at Talladega to advance — but we’ve seen him do it before, in 2014. Don’t count him out yet.
After running off nine straight top-10 finishes (including two wins), Hamlin has finishes of 15th, 9th, 30th and 15th. That isn’t going to cut it.
Elliott is just saving his first win for when he needs it most — in a do-or-die situation at Talladega after he had an up and then very down day at Kansas.
MORE: Elliott falters from lead
There’s still hope that we’ll see some sizzle — and maybe one more win — from Stewart as he closes out his career, but the No. 14 team isn’t quite sniffing Victory Lane right now.
A late run-in with the wall derailed Larson’s day and all of a sudden it seems hard to fathom that the No. 42 team will compete for wins again this season.
McMurray is a relatively recent winner of the fall Talladega race (2013), but it’d be a stretch to see this under-performing team land in Victory Lane.
Buescher has yet to finish in the top 15 in any Chase race, and you shouldn’t expect that to change the rest of the way. That said, Talladega might be the one place it could happen.