KANSAS CITY -- Maybe we've had it wrong all this time, thinking the restrictor-plate "lottery" at Talladega Superspeedway is the wild card in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Charlotte Motor Speedway certainly staked its claim for that honor last weekend. Five of the twelve remaining Chase-eligible drivers finished 30th or worse Sunday, with wrecks or mechanical issues putting their NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship hopes very much in jeopardy.

That makes this Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway ultracritical, especially for those drivers who find themselves in a deep hole in terms of advancing in the Chase. For Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott, who are all on the outside looking in, and even Denny Hamlin on the bubble, winning is pretty much the only option if they want to make the cut when the Chase field is narrowed from 12 drivers to eight after next week's race at Talladega.

It's exactly the kind of drama NASCAR hoped for when it created the 16-driver elimination format for the Chase in 2014, and it makes a race like Kansas that might have faded into obscurity become vitally important.

"It drastically changes the dynamic," said Team Penske's Brad Keselowski, who came out of the opening race of the round of 12 in good shape, sitting fourth in the standings with a 25-point cushion over ninth.

"When I look at this format that we have, there's really two ways you can get in, and that's through consistency and winning. And when you look at the simple math, there are four cars that are going to be eliminated and there are five cars that are in really rough shape that aren't going to have the opportunity to be consistent and make their way in."

Keselowski didn't have the best of days at Charlotte, but his seventh-place finish was enough to keep him in the top half of the eight drivers who will advance. Barring a disaster at Kansas, he should be able to move on in the Chase through consistency.

"Easily," he remarked. "If we could run top-10 the next two races, I would say it's an easy transfer. If you're a car that has any kind of gap right now, you're just going to go and lay up at Kansas.

"Certainly there are some situations you can't avoid -- you blow a tire or things like what happened to Joey [Logano, at Charlotte]," he added. "Those aren't avoidable situations. You can break down, but the reality is, if you have a pretty good gap, you probably are going to take a log off the fire."

The DNF at Charlotte was a major turnaround from a year ago for Logano, who won all three races in the 12-to-eight cutoff round in 2015. Logano was then famously knocked out of the Chase a couple of weeks later when Matt Kenseth intentionally wrecked him at Martinsville in retaliation for the move Logano had made on Kenseth to win the Fall Kansas race.

Like the other drivers who are in the danger zone, Logano remains bullish about his chances of advancing. A two-time Kansas winner, the Penske Ford driver knows he can't dwell on the tire problems that ruined his race at Charlotte.

"It's part of racing, but we're not out," Logano said. "We're not gonna die. This team is resilient. We've proved it before, and we'll just have to go out and prove it again. We just have to have two flawless races. It's something we can make up."

Although a multicar wreck at Charlotte affected several Chase contenders, mechanical issues also played a big role. Martin Truex Jr. and Carl Edwards were lucky to finish 12th and 13th after respectively battling engine and clutch problems in their Toyotas.

They lie sixth and seventh on the Chase grid, about 20 points to the good.

Austin Dillon is another driver on the bubble in need of a strong finish in Kansas. Michael Reaves/Getty Images

"I'm not going to think about having a cushion," Edwards commented. "I know what this competition is about, and all these guys can go win the next two races."

With half of the 10 Chase races run on 1.5-mile intermediate speedways, perhaps it is appropriate that Charlotte might end up playing such a pivotal role in this year's championship. The same potential for drama exists this weekend at Kansas.

Among the drivers currently not in the top eight, Harvick probably has the best chance of recovering from a bad weekend at Charlotte. Engine and electrical problems relegated the 2014 Cup champion to a 38th-place finish.

Harvick has a previous win at Kansas, though, and nobody has come through in the clutch more frequently since the elimination-style Chase debuted in his championship season. Over the past three years, Harvick has won races three times when facing elimination: Phoenix 2014, Dover 2015 and New Hampshire earlier this year.

Logano is a two-time winner at Kansas, a venue where Hamlin has also visited Victory Lane. Hamlin looked in good shape at Charlotte until his engine blew late in the race.

"Unlucky, but in this format you can still win and advance, and some other guys had some tough days," Hamlin related. "I think each race you're going to have a handful of guys that are going to have issues; Kansas I don't think will be any different, and Talladega we know will be crazy.

"That's why we're not out of it by any means," he added. "We just have a little hole we have to dig out of."

While several drivers are in a relatively comfortable position in terms of advancing in the Chase, only one man doesn't have anything to worry about: Charlotte winner Jimmie Johnson.

But that doesn't mean JJ and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team are going to relax.

"I'm so glad I'm not one of the teams that had trouble at Charlotte because it's just so tough," Johnson said. "A victory is a huge boost, there's no way around it. We're definitely building momentum at the right time, though it happened maybe a little later than we would have liked.

"We're clearly in that round of eight, but ideally I want to keep the pressure on our team and have more exposure to race-winning pressure situations," he added. "It would be smart not to change anything because you have to be at ten-tenths for these last few races.

"I want more trophies this year."