Kevin Harvick's pit crew will be working on Clint Bowyer's car for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series TUMS Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

Is Harvick just having a bad weekend, or is he beginning to feel the pressure of chasing a championship that seemed a realistic goal just a few weeks ago?

After leading the points standings for most of the season, Harvick is suddenly in a precarious situation in the Chase For The Sprint Cup. He sits third in the standings, 77 points behind Johnson and 36 behind Denny Hamlin with just five races remaining.

To make matters worse, this weekend’s race is at half-mile Martinsville Speedway, where Johnson and Hamlin have combined to win the last eight races and where Harvick typically struggles. Hamlin won the pole while Harvick starts 36th on a track where it is hard to pass and cars get lapped in a hurry.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Harvick and his RCR crew made what appears to be a desperate move this week, swapping pit crews with teammate Clint Bowyer.

Though Harvick has won three races and led the standings throughout the regular season, his crew has struggled on pit road, prompting ridicule and bitter tirades from Harvick.

Bowyer, meanwhile, barely made the Chase, but won the first Chase race and finished second two weeks later at California. But after the 150-point penalty NASCAR issued after Bowyer's car failed inspection after the New Hampshire victory, the No. 33 lost any hopes of a championship.

Asked about his pit crew Friday, Harvick said, "Those issues have been addressed and I believe everything will be fine this week. Richard [Childress] made some huge changes this week."

Teammate Jeff Burton, while supporting the moves, says it shows that Harvick’s team is in a difficult spot.

“I don’t want to say it is an act of desperation, but if something like that goes down at our team or any team, it is kind of a sign of, ‘OK, we’ve done everything else we know to do, this is all we got,’’’ Burton said. “I don’t want to say it is a sign of weakness, but it is a sign of saying we have no choice. That is not the position we want to be in.”

Harvick and his No. 29 team have gotten to this point by being one of the most consistent teams on the circuit, reeling off top-five and top-10 finishes while Johnson and Hamlin have been up and down.

But with Johnson and Hamlin both stepping up in the Chase, Harvick is left wondering if consistent runs will be enough. He has gotten off to a slow start in the Chase compared to the regular season, but believes the final five tracks on the schedule bode well for his team.

The question is: Can he do it with the same strategy he has employed all season?

"That's a good question ...” he says. “For us, it's do the same things that you do. ...

“I'm not saying that we don't have to win or we don't have to be better. We have to be better than we've ever been in the Chase before. We have to be as good as we have been all year and some of that comes with winning a race and finishing in the top five.”

Richard Childress (Left) and Kevin Harvick (Right) hope to add another NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship to their stats in 2010. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

What Harvick can’t do is force the action and try to do things his car and his team aren’t capable of, especially at Martinsville, where he will try to keep Johnson and Hamlin in his sights for the stretch run.

"Obviously those guys have got the results to back it up, but we've gone from the beginning of the Chase and overachieved on everything that we've done,” he says. “This has just been a good year for us and we're not going to do anything different.

“If we hit a home run this weekend, we hit a home run. If we don't, there is no reason to worry about trying to force anything. And we just keep plugging away.

“I feel like we need to win a race in the next five to make it happen, but when you start forcing things to happen, you'll wind up with a 35th and then you'll be done. To be in the game, you have to be close enough to be a part of the game. And we'll just keep racing."

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