TALLADEGA, Ala. - It’s kind of an imperfect statistic.

This is NASCAR’s sixth Chase. Three times - in 2004, ‘05 and ‘06 - the point leader entering the Talladega Superspeedway race has failed to win the title.

The leader leaving Talladega has won the championship three times. Kurt Busch didn’t lead entering Talladega in 2004 but left Talladega in front and went on to win the championship.

The statistic is imperfect because Talladega is occupying the seventh spot in the Chase for the first time. In 2004-08, the plate track was fourth out of the 10 races included in the Chase.

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LEFT OUT– Every Chase race has been won by a Chase driver since Sept. 30, 2007, when Greg Biffle, who didn’t qualify for the championship that year, won at Kansas Speedway.

Until 2008, at least one outsider won during the Chase every year. The last year Tony Stewart failed to qualify for the Chase, 2006, he won three of the 10 Chase races. In 2005, when Stewart won the Chase, he didn’t win any of individual races in it.

The leading "outsiders" this year include five-time Talladega winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and the winner of the spring race here, Brad Keselowski.

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NOT JUNIOR, ACTUALLY–The active leader in Talladega victories isn’t Earnhardt Jr., who’s won at this sprawling layout five times. It’s Jeff Gordon, who’s won six Talladega races, including both in 2007.

"The one advantage we have right now is that we’re far enough back to where we really don’t have a whole lot to lose," he said. "It’s sort of their (Jimmie Johnson, his teammate) championship to lose, and we’re going to race them hard."

Gordon trails one Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Johnson, by 150 points and another, Mark Martin, by 32.

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SPECIALIZED–Denny Hamlin, the Martinsville winner, has never won at a track where carburetor restrictor plates are used, but Hamlin has the best "driver rating" (110.8) in the three previous races at Talladega and Daytona.

Martin and Gordon have taken their lumps in those three races. Martin’s average finish in the three previous plate races is 32.3. Gordon is 26.0.

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BEEN A WHILE–Hamlin is the first driver from Virginia since the late Joe Weatherly, in 1961, to win at Richmond and Martinsville in the same season.

Good thing The King is from Level Cross, N.C. Richard Petty won at the two tracks in the same year in 1967, ‘68, ‘70, ‘71, ‘72 and ‘73.

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