Penske Racing, Hendrick Motorsports See Reversal of Fortunes from Dover

Joey Logano celebrates his first Kansas win (Photo: Google Images)

Penske Racing drivers Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have dominated the Chase for the Cup so far in 2014, winning the first two Chase races and the final regular season event at Richmond. However, Jeff Gordon asserted the dominance of his No. 24 team by beating Keselowski and winning at Dover last week.Lest we forget Hendrick Motorsports will still have a role to play in the season finale at Homestead.

Or will they?

After four drivers were eliminated last week, there are two more events before another four title contenders are eliminated from the playoffs. And after the Kansas race, the bottom four in the standings are Kasey Kahne, Keselowski, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Jimmie Johnson. In short, three Hendrick cars and one Penske car face elimination after only two rounds of the Chase.

 A combination of hectic restarts and tire problems caused problems for these four dominant drivers. After dominating the regular season finale at Richmond and winning the first Chase race at Chicago, Keselowski saw his hopes of winning a second Sprint Cup title take a serious hit when his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford blew a tire and smacked the wall on lap 161. However, the crew was able to repair the car enough to where their driver could get back out and salvage a 36th place finish.

Jimmie Johnson's car after his early wreck at Kansas (Photo: Google Images)

Three of the four Hendrick cars also saw their title hops take a hit Sunday. Earnhardt Jr experienced the worst luck of this troubled HMS trio, when he lost a tire while leading the race. His No. 88 car slammed the run four wall and was forced to limp to the garage on lap 123. He too would return and score a 39th place finish for his efforts. Six time champion Johnson will have to fight a little harder to win his record-tying seventh title this year after his day ended on the back of a tow truck. His Chevy made slight contact with Greg Biffle's Ford coming off turn two on lap 86. Johnson spun down towards the inside wall, collecting the No. 51 of Justin Allgaier who looped back into traffic, and  hit the right side of his car hard against tie inside retaining wall. While he would finish 40th, the No. 48 Lowe's crew got their driver back out to at least finish the event. Kahne, the third HMS car to have issues, got loose on the backstrech on a lap 237 restart and damage the rear of his car. But the No. 5 team only lost two laps in the process and Kahne would still bring the Farmer's Insurance Chevy home in 22nd place.

The Chase also overshadowed some good runs by other drivers who have been searching for speed for a while. Austin Dillon brought the famous No. 3 car home in eighth place on Sunday. This is just his fourth top ten of the season. Also, coupled with Chaser Ryan Newman finished a solid sixth and his teammate Paul Menard grabbed ninth on the day, this meant all three Richard Childress Racing cars finished in the top ten. Rookie phenom Kyle Larson's second place run, coupled with Logano's win and Chasers Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards landing third and fifth respectively, let's not forget who finished in between these two drivers. Martin Truex Jr brought the No. 78 Furniture Row Chevy home fourth at Kansas Speedway for his sixth top ten. This is also the New Jersey native's second top ten in a row after scoring seventh at Dover last week.

So now we head to Charlotte to race under the lights. This track has been very good to drivers like Keselowski and Johnson in the past, especially Johnson who's won a staggering eleven times at the track and scored a total of 26 top tens in 39 races in Concord. But in 2009, Jamie McMurray won the Bank of America 500 after not qualifying for NASCAR's playoffs. Could we see another non-Chaser play spoiler and steal a victory this weekend? After 500 laps around the Charlotte Motor Speedway this Saturday night we'll know for sure.