NASCAR New Hampshire 2014 recap: Chase continues to create intrigue

It was an ending that in many ways felt all too familiar, as for the third consecutive week a Team Penske driver was doing the obligatory victory donuts down the front stretch.

Only this time, it wasn’t Brad Keselowski, who won the past two events, but teammate Joey Logano celebrating victory Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. In a wildly unpredictable Race 2 of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Logano survived a slate of late cautions and subsequent restarts to secure a hard-earned win.

The victory was Logano’s fourth of the season and assures his advancement to the second Chase round, where he will be joined by Keselowski, who punched his ticket a week ago after winning the playoff opener at Chicagoland Speedway.

“Our goal coming into the race is to get to the next round,” Logano said. “We have to get to the next round to win the championship. That’s our ultimate goal, to win the championship. We had to get through this day the best we could.”

Logano and Keselowski will represent Penske in the Contender Round, which begins in two weeks at Kansas Speedway. And because of their respective triumphs, they will each enjoy a relatively stress-free Sept. 28 visit to Dover International Speedway, where the opening Chase bracket will conclude.

Who will join Logano and Keselowski in the second round is a riddle with no discernible answer. Barring something catastrophic, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. can feel somewhat secure about moving on.

“It was important for us to get off to a good start to make sure we weren’t scrambling after week one,” said Harvick, who finished third Sunday. “That stuff seems to pile on. I think that a lot of that’s what happens. Towards the end of the race today, that’s what happened.”

Then again, what happened at New Hampshire gives credence that in the playoffs nothing goes as expected. Case in point, Sunday’s race produced a season-high 15 caution flags which saw eight of 16 Chasers involved in an incident of some consequence.

Although a few were able to overcome their troubles (Earnhardt, loose wheel, finished ninth), others (Denny Hamlin, crash, finished 37th) were not. The carnage sets up an intriguing Dover where nine drivers competing for five spots are separated by a mere 12 points.

“We went from looking pretty and probably going to coast our way to the next round to a long shot, at best,” Hamlin said. “It’s frustrating, but what can you do about it. Really can’t do anything about it honestly. You just have to suck it up and move on and try to do the best you can next week.

“It’s disappointing because obviously on performance we’re good enough to move on, but can’t have any mistakes in this three-race deal and unfortunately we have a pretty bad one.”

With the pressure to advance intensified, Dover has transformed into the kind of event NASCAR anticipated when it modified its playoff format. The emphasis is not just on winning and advancing, but surviving and persevering.

“We can only control what we can control and today we did that and did a good job and finished sixth,” said Aric Almirola, 16th in the standings and 10 points below the cutline. “We’ll do the same thing at Dover and we’ll see what happens.”