The six crew chiefs who guide the remaining Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers competing for spots in the championship round will have it a little easy Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway.

They will have it easy in the sense they won't have to worry about performing any mid-race calculations on points. They will know what they have to do simply by looking at the track: It's all about whether their drivers are in front or behind their Chase counterparts.

With two spots available and four of the drivers within two points of each other, only a win can guarantee any of them a spot to join Jimmie Johnson (Martinsville winner) and Carl Edwards (Texas winner) among the four championship finalists who'll race for the Cup title the following Sunday at Homestead.

Joey Logano and Kyle Busch currently are tied for those two spots, while Matt Kenseth is a point behind and Denny Hamlin is two points back. Kevin Harvick sits 18 behind and Kurt Busch is 34 back. A win automatically will earn any of these drivers a bid to the championship round, with the remaining spot (or two if none of them win) being awarded based on points.

"It's going to be entertaining," said Logano, who could clinch a spot if he finishes second and leads a lap. "It's going to be probably the closest Phoenix race we've ever seen as far as points. It's going to be a fun one for sure."

Hamlin predicted Sunday night that a second-place finish should get him to the next round. But there's no guarantee. If Harvick wins -- and Harvick has won six of the past eight Phoenix races -- and Logano or Kyle Busch finishes third, it could come down to whether any of the drivers leads a lap (one bonus point) or the most laps (another bonus point).

At least the crew chiefs and drivers should know the scenarios as they race late in the event. They know they will need to battle the other Chase drivers for position. And for Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch, Kenseth and Hamlin, that means battling teammates.

"You've got to just do everything you can," Hamlin said. "It will be just like Martinsville or even at Texas. We all raced each other hard but clean, and we're going to go out there and try to get every point we can."

Here's the outlook for the drivers going into the penultimate race:

Joey Logano (third)

Points: 1 point ahead of fifth

Clinch if finishes: second and leads a lap

Outlook: Logano has a career-best third at Phoenix (he has won two Xfinity races there), but his biggest challenge is that Phoenix was not a good track for him in March, where he started ninth and finished 18th. The best thing going for Logano is his second-place finish Sunday at Texas puts him atop the tiebreaker board. The tiebreaker is best finish, and if still tied, the next-best finish. If drivers end up with the same three finishes, whoever got the best finish earliest in the round earns the spot. The drivers currently rank: Logano (2nd/9th), Hamlin (3rd/9th), Kenseth (4th/7th), Kyle Busch (5th/5th), Harvick (20th/6th), and Kurt Busch (22nd/20th).

Kyle Busch (fourth)

Points: 1 point ahead of fifth

Clinch if finishes: second and leads the most laps

Outlook: Busch has back-to-back fourth-place finishes at Phoenix. That might be good enough to advance, but that's far from a guarantee. He has put himself in position with a pair of fifth-place finishes in this round. The defending Cup champion knows when to step it up. It's time.

Matt Kenseth (fifth)

Points: 1 point behind fourth

Clinch if finishes: first

Outlook: Kenseth has just one top-5 finish (third in 2014) in his past 16 races at Phoenix. He won at Phoenix in November 2002. He knows he needs to gain just one point, and maybe two, on his Chase rivals to advance. It might be the hardest one or two points he has ever had to gain in his career.

Denny Hamlin (sixth)

Points: 2 points behind fourth

Clinch if finishes: first

Outlook: Hamlin said he thinks it will take a second-place finish to advance out of Phoenix. He was third there in March, so that makes him confident he can do it. He has finished top-2 twice at Phoenix -- both races in 2012, winning in March and finishing second in November.

Kevin Harvick (seventh)

Points: 18 points behind fourth

Clinch if finishes: first

Outlook: The winner of five of the past six and six of the past eight races at Phoenix, Harvick goes there as the driver to beat. He has led 1,064 laps in the past six races on the 1-mile oval, so he knows he can win at the track. But one hiccup and hopes of his second title will vanish.

Kurt Busch (eighth)

Points: 34 points behind fifth

Clinch if finishes: first

Outlook: Busch has five top-10s in his past six races at Phoenix. But even a second-place finish likely wouldn't be good enough for him to advance. The last time Busch won at Phoenix was in April 2005. He hasn't led a lap in his past eight Phoenix starts and has led a lap in only three of his past 16 Cup races this season. That's not a sign he advances to the next round.