No one breaks away in Chase

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- The Chase is starting out more like a logjam.

As NASCAR’s top series arrives here for the third of 10 races in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, only 18 points separate the top five drivers among the 12 vying for the championship.

And the top three -- Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and defending title winner Jimmie Johnson -- are separated by a mere four points going into Sunday’s LifeLock 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Qualifying is scheduled today to set the 43-car field.

Even Carl Edwards, who won last weekend at Dover (Del.) International Speedway but was docked 25 points when his Ford Fusion was judged too low in a post-race inspection, remains only 28 points behind Gordon.

All of which makes it tough to choose a favorite this early in the Chase.

“If any of us can predict the top 10 positions in Sunday’s race, you’re a genius, let alone figuring out how the next eight weeks are going to be,” said Stewart, a two-time champion with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Stewart won last year’s race on the 1.5-mile Kansas oval with a fuel strategy that left his Chevrolet sputtering with an empty tank as he crossed the finish line.

Kansas Speedway, just west of Kansas City and the Missouri state line, is a relatively new track; this will be only its seventh year of hosting a Nextel Cup race.

Gordon won the first two in 2001 and 2002 for Hendrick Motorsports and remains the only two-time winner at the track.

Gordon, the four-time Cup champion, struggled last week at Dover, but gained two spots on the final lap to finish 11th. That last-ditch effort gained him six valuable points to keep him ahead in the Chase. “You have to make the most of the bad days and take advantage of the good days,” he said.

The local favorite Sunday will be Clint Bowyer, the second-year driver for Richard Childress Racing and a native of Emporia, Kan.

Bowyer arrives for his homecoming in the thick of the Chase. He’s fifth, only 18 points behind Gordon, after winning the first Chase race two weeks ago at New Hampshire -- his first victory in the Cup series.

“It’s very exciting . . . just to think about even having a shot at this championship our second year,” he said. “It’s a dream come true.”

Other drivers at the bottom of the Chase roster need a strong finish here to avoid having their seasons turn into nightmares.

Denny Hamlin, another second-year Cup driver with Gibbs who was picked by many to make a strong run for the title, has dropped to 12th in the playoff and 158 points behind Gordon.

Hamlin started with a 15th-place finish at New Hampshire. Then he was 38th at Dover after he hit the back of Kyle Petty’s Dodge and caused both to crash, prompting the veteran Petty to berate him in the garage on national television.

“A lot of guys had trouble” at Dover, Hamlin said, “and we’re going to bounce back from this. This is just one step of this 10-week Chase.”

Indeed, Childress teammates Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick, along with former champions Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch, have struggled early.

Busch might be the biggest surprise. He entered the Chase with momentum, having won at Pocono and Michigan in August.

But he finished 25th at New Hampshire for Penske Racing South. Then, with 14 laps left at Dover, his right tire went flat, sending him into the wall and triggering a multi-car crash on the front straightaway that left him with a 29th-place finish and 11th in the Chase.

“I’m pretty frustrated right now, because we had cars strong enough in both races to be up there with the [points] leaders,” Busch said.

He added: “We’ll be doing everything we can to win all of the remaining races. Then, as far as the points go, let the chips fall where they may.”

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james.peltz@latimes.com