ESPN Sprint Cup

Who's really competing to make the Chase? Of the 43 drivers who line up every week, less than half of them are true playoff contenders.

After five Sprint Cup races, maybe 20 drivers -- and that's stretching it -- have any realistic shot of making the Chase in September.

It doesn't matter how many points behind a driver is this early in the season. Anything can happen in 21 races as far as making up points.

The main factor is how many drivers have the equipment, the team and the skills to compete for one of the top 12 spots in the standings.

When you break it down, 16 drivers have a good chance of making the 10-race playoff -- the top 12 drivers after five races and the next four in the rankings -- Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards.

Those four all made the Chase last season. Edwards would rank eighth in the standings if he had the 100 points NASCAR docked him from the infraction at Las Vegas.

Only the most avid Hendrick Motorsports haters truly believe Johnson and Gordon will end up outside the top 12. Just won't happen.

Along with his back-to-back championships, Johnson hasn't finished lower than fifth in his entire career. The only time Gordon finished lower than 11th was his rookie year of 1993, when he was 14th.

Hamlin is the one of these four who appears to have the toughest road ahead. He caught a bad break at Bristol with a fuel line problem, but Hamlin hasn't had a top-5 finish in his past 11 races, dating back to last season. He finished outside the top 15 in six of those events.

Hamlin remains a bigger Chase hopeful than four drivers who rank behind him. Brian Vickers, Bobby Labonte, Juan Pablo Montoya and Elliott Sadler make up the rest of the top 20 after five events.

If this were the NCAA tournament, these guys would be No. 12 seeds trying to make the Final Four. By the way, two 12-seeds (Villanova and Western Kentucky) are in the Sweet 16, so there is hope.

But these four guys are long shots at best to make the Chase. There are just too many good drivers ahead of them. Vickers is the biggest surprise of the top 20, a big beneficiary of Toyota's improvement this season.

Outside those top 20 drivers, is there anyone who could make a run and end up in the Chase? Not a one, unless Mark Martin suddenly decides to race full-time again.

Along with the guys trying to get in the top 12, some of the drivers in the comfort zone will fall out. Johnson, Gordon and Edwards are coming, which means at least 25 percent of the current top 12 won't make the playoff.

Few people thought Kasey Kahne would rank sixth after five races considering the miserable season he had in 2007. He's doing it with consistency, finishing ninth or better in four of the five events.

Martin Truex Jr. is the bubble boy for now, but will need to improve to keep ahead of the men behind him. Ryan Newman started the season with the ultimate prize, but has dropped seven positions since his Daytona 500 victory.

It boils down to this: At least four drivers who fail to make the top 12 went into the 2008 season believing they would make it.

When NASCAR increased the Chase field from 10 to 12 drivers, some people thought it would water things down and allow undeserving teams a spot in the playoff.

That hasn't happened. A 12-car playoff field still is a much lower percentage of playoff qualifiers than most major professional sports leagues.

The NBA and NHL each have 16 of 30 teams make the playoffs. The NFL has 12 of 32, or 37.5 percent.

Only baseball has a lower playoff percentage, but just barely. Major League Baseball has eight of 30 teams in the playoffs for 26.7 percent. Sprint Cup has 12 of 43 cars that start a race in the playoff, or 27.9 percent.

More competitors are in the playoff hunt longer in the stick-and-ball leagues. With less than one-fifth of the regular season in the books, most of the Cup drivers can forget about making the Chase.

Force lauds late Hofmann
NHRA Funny Car drivers Al Hofmann and John Force were bitter rivals for many years, but Force had only good things to say about Hofmann after hearing of Hoffman's death.

Hofmann suffered a fatal heart attack on Friday at his home in Florida. He was 60. Hoffman was the runner-up to Force in the 1995 Funny Car standings.

"Al may not have won the NHRA title, but in my opinion he was still a champion," Force said. "He fought me to the wire every year, on the track and off. I remember the gut-wrenching feeling of just having to look at him knowing how bad he wanted to win.

"He pulled no punches. He would fight with you or he would just tell you to go to hell. As mad as he made me at times, I loved the guy because he came up just like me, fighting every day just to feed himself and buy race car parts."

Healthy Nationwide showing
NASCAR officials often say they can't limit the number of Cup drivers in the Nationwide Series because races would have short fields without 43 cars.

The stand-alone Nationwide race at Nashville last weekend had only six Cup regulars, but still had 45 cars show up for the event. Maybe more race shops would consider competing in the series each week if they knew fewer Cup drivers were taking up space.

Oh, Fernando
One race into the F1 season and Fernando Alonso already is lobbying for Felipe Massa's spot at Ferrari.

Alonso told Spanish publication Diario AS that his Renault isn't competitive and Massa's on-track error at Australia made it logical for people to start rumors about it.

"I always want to be in the best car in the field." Alonso said.

Terry Blount covers motorsports for ESPN.com. He can be reached at terry@blountspeak.com.