ESPN Sprint Cup

Give Denny Hamlin points for being a realist. Heck, he'd probably be grateful if NASCAR would give him about 250 points for being so realistic with six races left in the season, including Saturday night's Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

That way, Hamlin would be only 12 points behind leader Jeff Gordon, instead of trailing by 262 points. That, though, is where Hamlin sits even after a fourth-place finish at Talladega.

Ninth in points -- it's not his position as much as the distance between him and Gordon that's brought on the realism.

"For all realistic purposes, I would say we are out of it," Hamlin said. "We had a great run [at Talladega, finishing fourth] and didn't gain or lose on the leaders. We were on a pace [where] we were losing 100 points a race or whatever it was and stopped the bleeding, and now to try to get blood back in us, we've got to have days where the 24 [Gordon] and 48 [Jimmie Johnson] have days like we had two or three weeks ago.

"It's tough watching back on the race and seeing, you know, my deficit was 250 going in, and all race it was 120 behind or 130 behind. You know, those guys are just laying back there, and when they made their move, it made it hard on us to try to gain points. They played their strategy out and it worked to pretty much perfection."

It did indeed as Gordon won the race with Johnson finishing second. Unsure of what to expect as the Car of Tomorrow made its superspeedway debut, those two intentionally ran deep in the field until the laps were winding down. That made it look as if those chasing Gordon and Johnson were making a substantial dent in their respective points deficits when, in the end, that wasn't the case at all.

"And [our strategy] pretty much worked to exactly what we wanted to do," Hamlin said. "We stayed up front all day, and we kind of avoided the 'big one' like we planned on. So really, like I said, we stopped the bleeding, but we've still got to get some life back in us to get back in this Chase."

That will take some doing, as Gordon leads Johnson by nine points, with Clint Bowyer sitting in third, just 63 points behind Gordon. After that, the drop-off increases dramatically as Tony Stewart is 154 points back in fourth.

Stewart has a fairly comfortable 48-point advantage over Kevin Harvick, with Carl Edwards (205), Kurt Busch (215) and Kyle Busch (260) all between Hamlin and the lead. Martin Truex Jr., Matt Kenseth and Jeff Burton are all at least 300 points behind Gordon.

After three incident-filled weeks, Hamlin thinks it could be a case where the 31 drivers outside the Chase for the Nextel Cup may be turning up the wick each time out. And he thinks the fact the Chase field has grown from 10 drivers to 12 also has played a role.

"Even the guys in the Chase know that they are fighting 10 other guys or 11 other guys now instead of nine," Hamlin said. "So they are maybe trying to get a little more aggressive because they know in order to keep up with 24 and 48, it's not going to take just consistent top-10, top-15 runs. They know they are going to have to get top-5s and top-3s.

"So I think the pressure is on in that sense. And now I think -- I don't see the trend really changing that much, because now you've got a whole other group of guys, myself included, that feel like we've got to make something happen or else we are totally out of the Chase picture or championship picture.

"Us and probably the sixth and seventh on down, we are going to be more aggressive than what we normally would be, and someone like in Clint Bowyer or Jeff Gordon's spot, they need to take the conservative approach and get the best finish they can. We need to go out there and get wins."

At least Hamlin's faring better than Burton, who sits a whopping 336 points out of the lead. If you think Hamlin's realistic, Burton takes things an extra step.

Then again, it's hard to argue with Burton's perspective.

"Obviously, last weekend's finish wrapped up our championship hopes, but we will keep fighting," Burton said. "We'll continue to go to the last few races with the same approach we have had all year. We don't come to each track worrying about a championship -- we focus on each race.

"All that we can do as a team is our very best, and if we do that, the points will add up. We can't control the other teams or worry about what the other teams are doing. We have to focus on what we are doing and do a good job. If we do that, then we'll be able to battle back and move up in the standings."

In just his second full Cup campaign, Hamlin has set a more realistic goal for the rest of the season: He'd love nothing more than to climb into the top five in points by season's end.

If he can accomplish that, Hamlin will know he did everything possible to rally.

"A goal of my career is to be top-five in points every single year. I don't want to be outside of it," Hamlin said. "You know, right now, we're heading back on track to get that.

"So we know this weekend at Charlotte is going to be a huge stepping stone for us to get back in. We are only 60 [points] behind fifth right now. So if we can have a good, strong run this weekend, we know there's going to be attrition and we though there's going to be another three, four, five guys that are going to have bad days and it's just the way it's laid out and how tough Charlotte is.

"Yeah, it's important for us, especially this weekend, to get away unscathed."

Mark Ashenfelter is an associate editor at ESPN.