CONCORD, N.C. -- Denny Hamlin didn't just have an engine failure with 26 laps remaining Sunday in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
It was an engine failure that all of a sudden gave four other drivers a whole lot more hope of advancing out of the second (quarterfinal) round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
With four drivers sitting outside the top 30 and four drivers eventually being eliminated after the quarterfinal round, having five drivers finish outside the top 30 means that at least one driver who had trouble Sunday will advance.
Kevin Harvick fell out of the Sprint Cup race with 183 laps remaining because of an oil pump bearing coming apart and left the Cup garage at the time 27 points behind the driver eighth in the standings. As other Chase drivers had trouble through the event, he is now just eight points out of the transfer spot with two races left in the quarterfinal round.
"I went to sleep and woke up and had gained 25 points or whatever it was," Harvick said after completing the Xfinity race later in the day. "It definitely was a better situation than what it was when we first fell out. It's still not what you want, but it definitely could be a lot worse."
Harvick is 12th in the standings after his 38th-place finish thanks to that faulty oil pump bearing.
"We've had some crazy stuff go wrong this year and I guess you could just add that one to the list," Harvick said. "But we've been here before, so we know what we've got to do."
What he had to do got a whole lot easier after Hamlin's issue. Hamlin, who finished 30th and sits in eighth, has a three-point edge on Austin Dillon (32nd, crash) and Chase Elliott (33rd, crash) and six points on Joey Logano (36th, two crashes). Hamlin is 16 points behind seventh-place Martin Truex Jr., and if he didn't have a problem, all of those who did would likely have been at least 19 points from the current cutoff spot.
"You at least have a chance now because there for a while, it was looking like four and that wasn't very good odds," Harvick said. "The odds definitely got better. You at least have another option [other than winning].
"As crazy as this thing can be, anybody can have trouble, so it can even up pretty fast."
Four of the drivers -- Hamlin, Harvick, Logano and Elliott -- would not surprise anyone if they win one of the final two races of the round at Kansas and Talladega. Dillon hasn't run as much up front, but he also could be a threat at Talladega.
"We're going to quite possibly our best racetrack," said Logano, who swept the round last year. "I think Charlotte and Kansas are our two best racetracks, so I felt very confident going into this round and I had a very good car today.
"I'm looking forward to getting to Kansas and seeing what we've got and seeing if we can break through to get a win, but, if not, a solid points day. We can manage with what we've got, but we can't afford to make any mistakes with Talladega coming up."
While Elliott doesn't have a win, he has been knocking on the door. He led 103 laps at Charlotte.
"It's unfortunate for us," Elliott said after his crash. "But we just have to have more race cars like we had today and I think we will be fine. ... We can just try to have another car like we had today and not make any mistakes next week."
The driver who made the mistake Sunday was Truex. After Dillon took two fresh tires instead of four on a pit stop, Truex accidentally turned him on the ensuing restart. That crash collected Elliott and others.
"I flat-out ran Austin over," Truex said. "It was stupid. He got going pretty good and started to spin his tires a little and I tried to give him a shove to get him going thinking I was going to help him out.
"I guess I hit him way too hard. I thought I was square and we were good. ... I feel awful for him and [his crew chief] and his guys and all the other guys I tore up. I just misjudged it. Just a stupid move."
And there could be more stupid moves. There are two races left in the round.
"Each race you're going to have a handful that are going to have issues -- Kansas I don't think will be any different, and Talladega we know will be crazy," Hamlin said.
"That's why we're not out of it by any means. We just have a little hole we have to dig out of."
Xfinity Series: Koch the big surprise
In the Xfinity Series, Blake Koch was the big surprise as he finished 12th Sunday night at Charlotte to finish seventh in the first round. He had a two-point edge on Darrell Wallace Jr., who had a one-point edge on Ty Dillon for the final spot.
Opening-round winners Daniel Suarez and Elliott Sadler earned automatic bids to the semifinal round, while Justin Allgaier, Brendan Gaughan, Ryan Reed, Erik Jones, Koch and Wallace advanced on points. Dillon, Brennan Poole, Ryan Sieg and Brandon Jones failed to advance.
Koch, whose Kaulig Racing team started this season and moved during the year to a shop it bought on the Richard Childress Racing campus, had finishes of 11th,14th and 12th to advance.
"I thought it would take an average finish of 10th, but some people took themselves out of the Chase and we knew we couldn't do that," Koch said. "We have been making our cars better. ... We had a pretty good race car this weekend. We raced real hard and the car stayed together for 200 laps."
Erik Jones -- a favorite to win the Xfinity title -- was the only driver to go from outside the bubble to advancing. He finished fifth and ended up moving up four spots to sixth in the standings with a six-point cushion on the cutoff.
"I tried to keep my mind off it all week," Jones said. "I went golfing a couple of times ... and tried not to think about it. I played good, so that was a good omen for me."