With only Sunday's race at Auto Club Speedway and next week's event at Richmond left on the regular-season schedule, Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer are trying to hold onto the final two spots in the 12-man Chase, while David Ragan and Kasey Kahne are hoping to catch them.
Heading into the Pepsi 500, 11th-place Hamlin is only 21 points behind Matt Kenseth in 10th, but he's also just 57 points ahead of 13th-place Ragan.
Bowyer is in an even more precarious position, 45 points behind Hamlin and just 12 in front of Ragan and 66 ahead of 14th-place Kahne.
Bowyer, who made the Chase for the first time and finished third in the points last year, said this weekend is no time to be doing anything different. But there is a real feeling of urgency.
"Obviously, it's time to pull out anything you can possibly come up with," the Richard Childress Racing driver said. "We have to run good here."
That may not be so easy, either, on a track where Bowyer has finished 19th and 20th in his last two starts after finishes of third and sixth in the two before that.
"This is the type of track we have been struggling with this year," he said. "We know going into Richmond, we should be OK there. But it sure would be nice to gain a little bit of leeway coming out of California."
Ragan, in only his second full season in Cup at the age of 22, figures he has nothing to lose in a year when he has already produced better results than anyone expected.
"I feel like if we just go out and not make many mistakes -- kind of like our whole year -- if we don't hurt ourselves, I think we'll be fine when they drop the checkered flag on Sunday," the young Roush Fenway Racing driver said.
"The guys like Bowyer and Kahne and Denny Hamlin and those guys are going to be fast and it's going to be the same thing for them," Ragan added. "They can't have many mistakes. I think the car in the next two weeks that clicks off two top-five finishes, or two top-10 finishes, (is) going to be in the Chase and someone's going to have that bad race or a tough-luck deal, getting caught in the pits on a green flag stop or something kind of freakish like that, and find themselves on the outside."
Kahne, who has slipped from eighth to 14th with a pair of 40th-place finishes the last two weeks, believes things could turn back the other way just as quickly.
"If they have some races where they are a little slower and we're good, then we'll probably make the Chase," Kahne said of his rivals for a berth in the Chase. "It's going to be interesting. I'm up for it."
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HOPEFUL CARPENTIER: Cup rookie Patrick Carpentier knew he was on the bubble when Gillett Evernham Motorsports dragged its feet on resigning him for 2009. But, when Reed Sorenson was named last week as GEM's third driver for next season, joining Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler, it left the Canadian driver in limbo.
"I knew that was a possibility," Carpentier said. "(NASCAR) is a sport that is sponsor dependent. I know (GEM) has been working hard to find sponsorship and I'm amazed that (they) found all the sponsorship this year. Mr. Gillett is paying for some of it out of his pocket. I don't expect them to do that every year.
"For sure it's a shock to learn someone else is taking your spot. But they are still working to get that fourth car out there -- a lot of teams want to go to four cars and this is one of them."
If it doesn't work out, Carpentier, who has made 19 of 24 races this season and is 37th in the points, said there are other opportunities for him.
"There are a lot of cars that haven't decided (on a driver) yet," the former open-wheel star said. "Ganassi and Penske and a few other teams. ... Yates and a few guys want to add some cars or change. So we'll see what it is. There are a lot of (drivers) out there knocking on doors."
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RACY GUY: Ken Schrader has driven in only six Cup races this season, but that doesn't mean the longtime NASCAR star has been idle.
Schrader tends to race somewhere every chance he gets, and this holiday weekend is no exception.
After taking part in Sunday evening's Pepsi 500 on the 2-mile, high-banked oval here in the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Chevrolet, Schrader will fly overnight to DuQuoin, Ill., to compete in Monday's Southern Illinois 100 ARCA RE/MAX Series event on the 1-mile dirt oval at DuQuoin State Fairgrounds.
Schrader has done the long-range double a few times before, although he didn't race at Fontana last year. And he said he couldn't get it done this year without some help from longtime friend and competitor Tony Stewart, who has also helped him out in the past.
"Tony has been awful good to me," he said. "After the race, I'll get on a helicopter with Tony and fly to the airport. We'll get on his plane and he'll drop me off at the Carbondale, Ill., airport, I'll hop in the rental car, grab a shower at the hotel and then meet the boys in the lobby because I think practice is at 9 a.m.
"It's been fun every year because, after we get out the cars, Tony and I usually talk all the way to Illinois, which isn't that long of a flight, it's three-and-a-half hours or something. But, when you're going through those time zones -- you get on the plane at 11 p.m. in Fontana and you're all pumped up and then it's 5 a.m. in Illinois when you land. It's kind of like 'Oh shoot, this could be a long day."'
Oh, by the way, Schrader has won the DuQuoin race the last two years.
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