Can you believe there are only twelve races left until the Chase? I know, it's like we just got started! Golly, time sure does fly when you're having fun. Anyway, for the next three months we're going to do a weekly roundup of contenders and pretenders, who's movin' up and who's bottoming out.

The field as it stands: With the updated standings after Pocono, Tony Stewart is running the show now, followed by Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton, David Reutimann, and Denny Hamlin.

Movin' on up: Carl Edwards' strong run at Pocono propelled him up five spots to the sixth position. Edwards, above, still hasn't won yet this year, but as he observed last year, there's no need to stack up wins until Chase time, long as you're in the dance. Credit also to Ryan Newman (fourth place), who's about twenty spots higher than anyone would have expected, and David Reutimann (11th place), who benefitted from Hamlin's problems but also stands far above where we predicted.

On the bubble: Mark Martin sits exactly one point behind Hamlin for that twelfth and final Chase spot. Kasey Kahne and Juan Pablo Montoya are less than a hundred points away. Beyond that, it gets ugly, with names like Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. all several hundred points out of contention.

Bottoming out: Hamlin was the big loser this week, dropping five spots and very nearly out of the Chase after problems on the second lap of the race. Kyle Busch dropped three spots thanks to a barely-average Pocono run, but nobody expects him to stay down there for long.

Outlook: You've got at least six viable championship contenders right now (Stewart, Gordon, Johnson, Edwards and the Busch boys) and several more that could put together a strong run at the right time. The door isn't quite shut on anybody south of Montoya, but it'd take an Indiana Jones-style dive-and-roll for Earnhardt, Harvick, Truex or anyone else to get into the Chase at this point.