LOUDON, N.H. (AP) – Greg Biffle believes if you aren’t in the Chase for the championship, you’re a nobody.

Put Biffle in that group. Add Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, too.

When the Chase begins Sunday at New Hampshire International Speedway, the top three finishers from last season won’t be in it. Stewart, Biffle and Edwards all have been relegated to the dreaded “nobody” status, that group of 33 drivers locked out of title contention who must find another motivation for the next 10 weeks.

Nobody cares where they run.

Nobody cares what they do.

The focus is on the 10-driver battle for the Nextel Cup championship, and nobody cares about any driver not in it.

“This morning I got up at 7:30 and every question has been about the Chase and none of it involves me, and that’s why I said that,” Biffle said Friday. “We race for wins, points and for next year – those are the three things we’re concentrating on.”

Chase drivers dominated qualifying, with Kevin Harvick winning the pole just ahead of Jeff Gordon.

But non-Chase drivers Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman were second and third, while Biffle was a decent eighth. Edwards was 19th and Stewart a distant 32nd.

Still, everything changes from here for the drivers not invited to NASCAR’s postseason.

The Chase format, in its third season, has allowed teams not racing for the title an early start on next season. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon both capitalized on their time outside the playoffs last season by changing crew chiefs for a 10-race headstart on this year.

The early start put them ahead of the old schedule – which usually called for teams to wait until December to make any major personnel changes – and helped both drivers make the Chase this season. Petty Enterprises is following the same pattern, announcing this week it was swapping crew chiefs for the final 10 races to give Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty a start on 2007 preparations.

But for Stewart, Biffle and Edwards, there are no major personnel changes to make. They are three solid race teams that had bad luck and bad breaks at the wrong time and now find themselves on the outside looking in.

“We’re now able to do all those things that we would not normally be able to do in a points situation when you can’t take those chances,” said Stewart, the defending Nextel Cup champion. “I guess the pressure is off. We have the flexibility now to take each race and strictly do what we’ve always wanted to do, and that’s just to try and win the race.

“Even though you try and win the race, a lot of times in a points situation, you can’t take chances doing that. It’s our goal each week to win. We weren’t able to always do that, but now, for sure, 100 percent, we can go out there and strictly do whatever it takes to win.”

That means bringing untested cars to the track and using aggressive setups. Gambling on pit stops and trying to stretch a tank of gas longer than they normally would.

But most importantly, it means good, hard racing from here on out.

“I hope he races like a demon,” said Greg Zipadelli, Stewart’s crew chief. “The rest of us will be working just as hard this week as we did the first 26 weeks. We’ve run better than 80 percent of the guys who are in the top 10, so our goal from here is to prove that we deserved to be in the Chase.”

That also requires walking a fine line, especially at New Hampshire on the opening week of the playoffs. This race has determined who won’t win the championship in each of its first two years.

Stewart, Ryan Newman and Jeremy Mayfield all were collateral damage in an intentional wreck between non-Chase drivers Robby Gordon and Biffle in 2004 and none recovered to make a run at the title.

And last season, defending champion Kurt Busch tangled with non-Chase driver Scott Riggs to put himself in a hole he never climbed out of.

“The important thing is to race hard, but to not screw things up for the other 10,” Edwards said. “Nobody wants to be that guy – the one who ruins another guy’s championship hopes.”