Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup

This year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup™ got its first four competitors on Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway. Sunday’s AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway promises to deliver more drivers into NASCAR’s post-season, which begins Sept. 16 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Points leader Greg Biffle, five-time champion Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. are in while former champion Matt Kenseth has clinched at least a Wild Card entry.

Four more drivers – Kenseth, Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer and Brad Keselowski – control their own destinies heading for Atlanta. The remaining members of the top 10 – Bristol winner Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and reigning champion Tony Stewart – also can clinch a berth on Sunday but would need help.

The top 10, however, is not secure by any stretch of the imagination. Kasey Kahne, the current leading Wild Card holder, is just 11 points behind 10th-place Stewart.

Atlanta becomes "must win" territory for several drivers, including 12th-place Carl Edwards, a three-time winner at the track, and Wild Card hopeful Jeff Gordon, whose 2011 AdvoCare 500 victory was his fifth at the Hampton, Ga., track.

Last weekend’s competition at Bristol Motor Speedway left a number of drivers with bruised feelings, among them NASCAR Nationwide Series championship rivals Elliott Sadler and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The pair is separated by 19 points with 10 races remaining.

Danica Patrick reaches a milestone when she competes in both Nationwide and Sprint Cup events. Atlanta is the final track on which she hasn’t appeared in NASCAR competition.

Timothy Peters boosted his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship edge by leading all 200 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway but second-place James Buescher has been the master of the intermediate tracks in 2012, winning three times on 1.5-mile layouts.

Brothers Kyle and Kurt Busch will compete against each other for the first time in the series. Kyle will drive his own KBM No. 18 Toyota while his older sibling will be at the controls of Atlanta-area resident Billy Ballew’s No. 51 Chevrolet. Kyle Busch has not competed in the series since Nov. 4, 2011, at Texas Motor Speedway. Kyle Busch, Todd Bodine and Ron Hornaday Jr. are former Atlanta winners entered in Friday’s Jeff Foxworthy’s Grit Chips 200.