Can all the ups and downs, the stops and starts, the good fortune and the bad breaks of 26 Nextel Cup races that led us to where we are be reduced to a key moment for each driver who made the Chase for the Nextel Cup? Let’s see:

Setting the tone

For Matt Kenseth, who goes into Sunday’s Chase-opening Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway with the lead, back-to-back August wins at Michigan and Bristol were big momentum builders.

Kenseth’s season, though, could have gone very bad very early. When he got turned by Tony Stewart in the Daytona 500 and slid all the way back across the track, Kenseth very easily could have been hurt.

Despite the contentious nature of his day at Daytona, Kenseth finished a decent 15th and moved on from there to win the next race at California and then finish second at Las Vegas.

Talladega (extra) nights

Wins in the Daytona 500 and Allstate 400 at the Brickyard were big Sundays for the No. 48 Chevrolet team, but a Monday at Talladega was important, too.

Jimmie Johnson’s victory in the Aaron’s 499, which was pushed back a day because of rain, gave him a bit of vindication at a track where he’d been blamed for his roles in starting a couple of big wrecks in previous races there.

First is best

Kevin Harvick was 23rd in the points after finishing 39th in the season’s fourth race at Atlanta, but then had five finishes of seventh or better to move up into Chase contention.

Things got squirrelly again after that, though, and when Harvick finished 24th on the road course at Infineon Raceway, he was 10th in the standings, just trying to hang on.

He finished no worse than ninth over the next six races, however, capping that streak by passing Tony Stewart with just more than three laps to go to win at Watkins Glen.

Stewart had passed Harvick a few laps earlier, and Harvick could have settled for “a good points day” with a runner-up finish. Instead, he dug in and fought back to get the win.

Loud success

At Daytona in February, Tony Stewart criticized fellow drivers for racing dangerously. One driver he was clearly unhappy with was Kyle Busch.

But in July at Daytona, when it came time for Busch to decide which car to draft with the race on the line, Busch went with Stewart’s car and wound up finishing second because of it.

“I knew he was a strong car, and if I wanted a shot at finishing up front, he was the car to go with,” Busch said.

Home cooking

Virginia native Denny Hamlin was pumped up after finishing second to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the May race at Richmond. “This is by far the biggest race of my career,” the rookie said afterward. “I can’t tell you how I feel. I’ll be riding this wave for months to come.”

Hamlin, it turns out, is a psychic. Since that night, he hasn’t finished worse than 17th.

Upside at Indianapolis

Sometimes, it’s best to do nothing.

With 16 laps left in the Allstate 400 at Indianapolis, Dale Earnhardt Jr. decided not to pit under a caution. Instead of running about 30th, that move left him second for the final restart. He passed Kyle Busch, who used the same strategy, for the lead briefly before Jimmie Johnson took control of the race.

Still, Earnhardt Jr. held on to finish sixth and halt a points free fall that had included 43rd-place finishes in his previous two races. The move got the No. 8 Chevrolet back into the top 10 in points, and he stayed there.

Half a pound to go

Mark Martin’s No. 6 Ford was sliding back in the middle portions of Saturday’s race at Richmond, and his team had already tried a lot of adjustments to loosen the car up. Nothing, however, seemed to be working.

Martin, for some reason, decided to recommend a half-pound change in the air pressure in one of his tires. “That one change shouldn’t have fixed it, but it worked,” Martin said after rallying to finish fifth in the race and make the Chase. “It’s like it was meant to be.”

Good from the word go

Jeff Burton says his No. 31 Chevrolet team made the Chase because of all of the changes and hard work done at Richard Childress Racing to improve from last year.

The fundamental nature of the team’s improvement is reflected in the fact that Burton says the turning point for him this season came before the season even started.

“We tested some late in 2005, and I knew we’d done a better job of building a platform we could build upon,” Burton said. “We were just faster, and that’s what we had been lacking.”

Get ’em while you’re hot

Jeff Gordon’s team had struggled at tracks like Michigan and California in recent years, but he finished 13th or better in the four races there this year. His best finish was at Michigan in August, where he ran second to Matt Kenseth.

Those points, along with the ones he scored in fifth-place finishes at Bristol and California the following two weeks, proved important when he struggled to a 31st-place finish Saturday night at Richmond. Without the cushion he’d brought into the 26th race, Gordon would have been in big trouble.

Calling your shot

Kasey Kahne was 90 points out of the top 10 going into the race two weeks ago at California. He knew that he needed maximum points to try to fight his way back into the Chase, but knowing and doing are two different things.

Kahne and his Evernham Motorsports team, though, won the Sony HD 500 and led the most laps. That’s worth 190 points, and you can’t do any better.

It followed that up with a third-place run at Richmond that pushed Tony Stewart out of the top 10, but it was California that put Kahne in position to make that count.