"For us, we don’t control our own destiny unless we win," said Hamlin, who starts third Sunday, tied with Greg Biffle for 13th in points and just outside the 12-driver cut line. "I really don’t want to know. Honestly, this will be the hardest race I’ll definitely ever drive for 400 miles. I’m just going to be as aggressive as I can, not put myself in a bad position. This is the most important race of my career because it’s the most significant of my career at this point. We’ve got to get the job done, and I’m going to do my part to try to make sure we’re successful."

The pressure around Hamlin and others in the bottom half of the 16-driver Chase field is palpable heading into Sunday’s AAA 400 (2 p.m. ET, ESPN), the third race of the playoffs and the last chance for drivers to secure a berth in the Contender Round in the new-look Chase. The only certainty is that four drivers will be removed from title eligibility; the question is which four will make up the unfortunate quartet, potentially cracking under the weight of the stress.

The only two drivers safe from elimination are Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, who won immunity for the Contender Round with victories in the first two Chase events. Beyond the Penske pair, those in third through seventh are relatively comfortable, only needing to avoid disaster while keeping their rivals behind them.

From eighth on back, it’s a logjam with just 12 points separating nine drivers, from the eighth-place tie between Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth to 16th-place Aric Almirola. With so many possibilities and combinations, making in-race calculations will become more and more difficult for teams. Edwards, for one, would rather not fuss with the numbers.

"It’s simple with this many guys involved: You just have to go perform," said Edwards, just eight points ahead of 13th place in the standings; he’ll start 18th Sunday. "You have to just do your job. Every competitor’s goal is to not worry about the other guy, just to go be the very best you can be, and then you can walk away from the race and you can say, ‘Hey, that was it. That’s what I had.’ I hope we’re able to do that on Sunday."

Though the first run-through of the new Chase format is just two races old, the use of three three-race series of eliminations before the championship race has created a pressure cooker. As last week’s rough-and-tumble race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway showed, as the intensity grows, the margin for error shrinks.

Kasey Kahne said there’s a good chance the frenzied nature of New Hampshire could repeat itself at the Monster Mile. But Kahne — who enters Sunday’s race tied for 11th in points with Ryan Newman, just six points ahead of the 13th-place pair of Hamlin/Biffle — has faced similar pressure before, needing a Hail Mary-style victory in the next-to-last race of the regular season at Atlanta to clinch his spot in the Chase grid.

"I just want to race, and if we’re better than the rest, then we move on," Kahne said. "That’s what I hope happens, but that’s usually not what happens in the Cup Series, so we just have to be prepared and ready for everything. I just want to have a fast car and race. If we’re good enough to move on, we will."

Edwards has faced the grips of postseason stress before, coming up just short in a championship tiebreaker won by Tony Stewart at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2011. While a title can’t be won Sunday at Dover, it certainly can be lost — and Edwards welcomes the challenge.

"For me, I put that same type of pressure on myself every week," Edwards said Friday after Coors Light Pole Qualifying. "I really do. I got nervous before that qualifying run. I get wound up and anxious, and I kind of feel that way every time. But overall, I do understand the consequences of this race are higher than any of the other ones we’ve run this year, but that’s kind of fun. There aren’t many things that make me focus like that and get me excited, but everybody’s different so I don’t know how everybody in the garage responds to that stuff, but for me, I enjoy it.

"It’s not quite the gravity of the 2011 race at Homestead, but you realize that your championship could be determined here."

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