Kansas City, KS (My Sportsbook) - Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Sunday, October 4. Race: Price Chopper 400. Site: Kansas Speedway. Track: 1.5-mile oval. Start Time: 2:16 p.m. (et). Laps: 267. Miles: 400. Defending Winner: Jimmie Johnson. Television: ABC. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)/SIRIUS XM Satellite.

After winning the first Chase race at New Hampshire and finishing second at Dover, Mark Martin holds a slim 10-point lead over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, as the Sprint Cup Series heads to Kansas.

Martin started the Chase in the top seed by virtue of his four victories during the regular season. He padded his lead to 35 points after New Hampshire, but Johnson reduced the deficit after he won at Dover.

With eight races remaining in the season, 189 points separate Martin from 12th-place Kasey Kahne.

"I still say that there's 12 in it, and 12 can win," Martin said. "It might be a challenge for a couple of the teams that are toward the back right now, but you just don't have any concept, I guess, of how much racing eight races is. It's a lot of racing. A lot of things can happen."

Martin began his first season with Hendrick this year with perhaps his biggest aspiration of winning a Sprint Cup Series championship. The 50-year-old driver has yet to win a series title, but has finished runner-up four times, most recently to champion Tony Stewart in 2002. He has one victory at Kansas, which came in 2005 when he drove for Roush Fenway Racing.

Johnson is the defending race winner at Kansas. Johnson held off Carl Edwards in a thrilling last-lap battle in last year's 400-mile race there.

"I think Carl and I showed last year that you can run all around the race track and put on a good show, and I think we'll put on a good show when we go back," Johnson said.

Edwards dove underneath Johnson to take the lead on the final lap, but Edwards then ran wide up the track and made slight contact with the wall, allowing Johnson to make the winning move.

"Last year was such an amazing race," Edwards said. "I thought we were going to get it. It was so close."

Edwards led the series with nine victories in 2008, but has yet to win so far this year. The Columbia, MO native is hoping his winless streak will come to an end this weekend at his home track.

"If I can win at Kansas, that would be the biggest win on the schedule for me," said Edwards, who is currently 11th in points (-153).

Edwards won a Truck Series race at Kansas in 2004.

Juan Pablo Montoya continues to be a strong championship contender. Montoya, in his first Chase, finished third at New Hampshire and fourth at Dover. He trails Martin by 65 points. The Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing driver has finished 20th and 28th in his first two races at Kansas.

Kurt Busch, the inaugural Chase champion in 2004, moved up one spot to fourth in points (-75) after finishing fifth at Dover. If Busch intends to stay close in the points battle, he'll need to improve his track record at Kansas, where he has posted only one top-10 finish in the last seven races there.

Tony Stewart ended the regular season as the points leader. But finishes of ninth and 14th in the last two races have put Stewart 106 points behind. He won at Kansas in 2006, but has finished 39th and 40th in the last two races there.

Jeff Gordon, currently eighth in points (-122), is the only driver with multiple victories at Kansas. Gordon won the inaugural race there in 2001, the same year he captured his fourth series title. He won at Kansas again the following year.

"We haven't had the best start especially compared to our [Hendrick] teammates," Gordon said. "But this last week in Dover was certainly a good performance. We didn't get the finish we were hoping for, but I feel in Kansas, we are very capable of getting that win that we need to really move ourselves up to where we need to be to battle for this championship."

Gordon has one victory so far this season, which came in April at Texas, a track equal in size to Kansas (1.5 miles).

Forty-five teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Price Chopper 400.