The Cup Series moves into week two of the ten week Race to the Chase, this week tackling the high-banks of Daytona. The 2.5-mile Superspeedway is somewhat of a crap shoot and has the potential to shake things up not only amongst the top-12, but for those racing hard to get in.

After a 14th-place finish last week in New Hampshire, Kevin Harvick jumped back into the top-12, bumping Matt Kenseth from that spot. Kenseth - who finished 18th in Loudon - is only fifteen points out of 12th, and knows this weekend's race at Daytona will have lasting effects.

"Daytona has been very frustrating over the past couple of years," Kenseth explained. "We've had good cars, but it seems like something always happens to take us out of contention." The Roush Fenway Racing driver has struggled a bit on the larger tracks so far this year. Kenseth scored a 36th-place finish in the Daytona 500 and was a disappointing 41st at Talladega.

"Restrictor-plate racing, for me, is maddening," the 2003 Cup Series champion added. "You have to make the right decisions, but a lot of it is luck. You have to depend on other cars to help you get to the front. If I have a good car and I'm riding second or third on the last lap and I pull out of line, I might win it, but I might finish sixth, or 10th, or worse. You're really at the mercy of the cars behind you, and for whatever reason, I haven't been able to make it work at the end and win one of these things. No one would like to change that more than me this weekend."

To Richard Childress Racing's Kevin Harvick, the Race to the Chase is a side thought. For the Bakersfield, Calif. Native, winning races and running up front is the primary goal. "It doesn't really matter," says Harvick of the Chase. "I don't look [at the standings], you just go and you race as fast as you can and you try to get your car going as fast as you can. If you do that part right and you finish races then you'll be in the right spot."

One driver that was in the right spot last week in Loudon was Martin Truex Jr. Going into the 301-mile event, the Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver was 17th in the standings, 107 points out of 12th-spot. After a much needed 4th-place finish in New Hampshire, Truex Jr. moved up three spots in the standings to 14th, now only 71 points from 12th.

"We've only got nine more races before the Chase starts, so we really need nothing but top-10 finishes before Richmond (the final race before the 2008 NASCAR Chase for the Cup begins)," Truex Jr. pointed out. "We've been fortunate this year because when we've had bad weeks, a lot of the guys around us in points have too. Now we're getting down to crunch time so we can't keep relying on the guys around us to mess up. We need to make our own luck."

Another driver close to the top-12 cut-off, but on the other side, is that of Kasey Kahne - who is currently 10th. In a bit of a comeback year, Kahne has steadily worked his way into contention thanks to wins at Lowe's and Pocono. Only fifteen points ahead of Harvick in the standings, Kahne understands that luck at Daytona is almost as important as skill.

"You have to make the right decisions," Kahne explained, "but a lot of it is luck. You have to depend on other cars to help you get to the front. You're really at the mercy of the cars behind you, and for whatever reason, I haven't been able to make it work at the end and win one of these things. There are so many things out of your control when it comes to plate racing, so you better hit all the marks on everything you can control, or you can really dig yourself a hole."

In a bit of a hole is the situation Harvick's teammate Clint Bowyer finds himself in right now. Since his win at Richmond in May, Bowyer has fallen from 4th in the standings back to 11th and is only five points ahead of his RCR teammate. The driver of the No. 07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet has run well at Daytona in the past, with three top-10s in only five starts. This weekend, Bowyer hopes to continue that streak and gain a bit of a cushion over Harvick.

"Daytona has been a good track for us, at least when we're not upside down and on fire," Bowyer said. "We always seem to race well at Daytona. We don't qualify the best but we always seem to race good. It's not all about speed and drafting. You have to handle at Daytona as opposed to a place like Talladega where handling is virtually out the window since they repaved it. I enjoy Daytona and I can't wait to get down there."

The Race to the Chase is getting tighter and tighter as the final cut-off race in Richmond approaches. Currently, five drivers outside the top-12 (Kenseth, Truex Jr., Ryan Newman, Brian Vickers and David Ragan) have a legitimate shot at making the Chase. For last week's winner Kurt Busch, it seems the victory was too little, too late as the Penske Racing driver is still 222 points behind Harvick in 12th.

However, on the other side of the coin things are not in place just yet. As mentioned above, Bowyer is only five points ahead of twelfth, while Kahne is just fifteen. Depending on how the next nine races go, drivers as high as Jeff Gordon in sixth - while it is a long-shot - have the potential to fall.

That has Denny Hamlin and his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team playing a bit of defense. "We've got to get our consistency back," says Hamlin. "We've got to work on getting back to the basics and making sure we salvage good days even when we don't run that well. We need to finish in the top-15 every week -- that's the main goal. We're going to have to be on our game because there are a lot of guys 13th and 14th that are looking at it like "We need to finish top-five every week." We're kind of on the defensive and we just need to just maintain right now."

Things should definitely be exciting under the lights in Daytona this weekend - they always are. Patience, finding the right drafting partner and avoiding the ever-treacherous 'Big One' are the keys to success at Daytona. The point standings have the potential to be shaken up in a big way after 400 miles, so be sure to check back to HardcoreRaceFans.com for all of the latest news and updates regarding the Race to the Chase.