This weekend’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is the second of 10 races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which makes it one of the more important races of the Sprint Cup season, especially for the 16 drivers now in contention for the championship.

But there are other storylines as well.

The four drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing — Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch — hold the top four positions in the Chase standings and enter the race having won three straight Cup races and eight of the past 10.

The only non-Gibbs driver to win during that stretch is former Alpharetta resident Joey Logano, who drove his No. 22 Ford from Team Penske to victories at Watkins Glen and Bristol.

Chevrolet drivers haven’t won a race since July at Daytona International Speedway, where Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the checkered flag.

That losing stretch has put off a celebration planned by the Bowtie brigade, which needs one more Cup victory to push its all time win count to 750.

Chevrolet drivers have won 18 of the 41 races run at New Hampshire but none since 2012, when Kasey Kahne took the victory in the track’s first of two races that year.

Among the Chevy drivers looking to win at New Hampshire is defending Cup champion Kevin Harvick, who enters the race 15th in the standings and needs a win at either New Hampshire or Dover International Speedway next week to advance from the Challenger Round of the Chase to the Contender Round.

The statistics aren’t exactly in his favor. He has just one career win at New Hampshire, back in 2006, although he has finished third in the past two races there. He’s never won at Dover.

Newman at Loudon: Chase contender Ryan Newman, who surged from 14th place to fourth in the closing laps last week at Chicagoland Speedway to move from 12th to eighth in the points standings, has a history of success at New Hampshire, though not as much recently as earlier in his career.

He has three wins there, but only one top-five finish in the past eight races.

“Loudon is flat and requires a lot of finesse,” he said. “You have to qualify well there. It’s difficult to pass, especially when you are dealing with 15 people who do not want to let you go. So if you are that 16th qualifier of the Chase contenders, you have a lot of work to do. Qualifying in front of a lot of different people is important and having good pit stops.

“At Loudon, we are only looking at three or four opportunities to come down pit road. Because of that, you have to be buttoned up before you even get started.”

Etc.: Ryan Preece, one of the more successful young drivers on the short tracks in the Northeast, will make his Sprint Cup debut this weekend aboard the No. 98 Chevrolet of Premium Motorsports with support from Tommy Baldwin Racing. Baldwin, like Preece, spent his early years racing in on the Whelen Modified Tour, where Preece, 24, is the current points leader and has four race victories. … Clint Bowyer and his No. 15 team at Michael Waltrip Racing, lame ducks during the Chase as MWR is set to shut down at the end of the season, already were facing an uphill Chase battle before the Bowyer and the team were hit with a 25-point penalty following the Chase opener at Chicagoland. A statement from NASCAR indicates the penalty was imposed because the team was found to have tampered with the car's track bar. Crew chief Billy Scott also was suspended for three races. An expedited appeal is in process. …

GoFAS Racing team owner Archie St. Hilaire announced this week that Jeffrey Earnhardt and Bobby Labonte will share driving duties in his No. 32 Ford on the Sprint Cup circuit next season. Earnhardt is the grandson of the late Dale Earnhardt and the son of former NASCAR driver Kerry Earnhardt.