TALLADEGA, Ala. — Joe Gibbs never had a problem finishing off a championship as coach of the Washington Redskins. Coach Gibbs was 3-for-3 in Super Bowls, so when all three of his Sprint Cup teams made this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, the odds had to look pretty good.

After all, Gibbs had the most dominating driver of the season in points leader Kyle Busch, winner of eight races. He had two-time champion Tony Stewart, who wanted to make his swan song with the organization something to remember. And Gibbs had Denny Hamlin, an aggressive driver who came in with two years of Chase experience and is capable of putting together a strong streak of races at any time.

Gibbs also had the full support of Toyota, which came into the Chase determined to prove it belonged with NASCAR’s old guard.

However, something horrible happened along the way — a collection of bad luck, poor decisions and equipment failures that has all three Gibbs teams out of contention. What happened?

“I think about it about once every hour every day,” Busch said this past week. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know.”

Busch doesn’t sugarcoat the disastrous three races that have taken him from Chase leader to dead last, 311 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. Neither does he try to make sponsors and bosses happy by saying it’s not over until it’s over. For this emotional driver, it’s over.

“Realistically, the amount of points is way too much to overcome,” Busch said. “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try on the race track and not do everything I can in my power to work my way back up. My mindset from the beginning was to go out and try to get wins. That hasn’t changed.”

Busch was unfortunate in the first two races, when an equipment failure and a wreck took him out. However, at Kansas a week ago his team was just plain bad, which may have been the most disappointing of the three weeks.

“They didn’t find anything wrong with the car, nothing,” Busch said. “I have no idea why we ran so poorly.”

At least he has some excuses. Stewart has himself to blame for some of his problems. The volatile driver cost himself a possible top-10 finish at Kansas by letting his anger again get the best of him. After getting held up three times on pit road by Brian Vickers, Stewart retaliated against Vickers on the track.

The contact, though, cost Stewart more than Vickers, forcing him to pit and sending him seven laps down at race’s end. As a result, he’s 11th in the standings, 255 points back.

His Talladega weekend didn’t get off to a flying start, either, as he was caught up in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s practice wreck Friday. Though he won’t have to go to a backup car, the incident had Stewart already in a negative frame of mind.

“I chalk this up to our whole season,” he said. “Our season has been like this every week this year. This team just can’t get a break, and that’s the hard part. We’ve just had one of those weird years where we can’t get anything to go our way.”

At least Hamlin isn’t ready to give up, though at 243 points out of first, his title chances are slim. His problems have come from a lack of consistency. In the last 11 races he has four top-five finishes and three others of11th or better. However, three of his other finishes have been 38th, 39th and 40th.

“We just need to avoid those bad finishes, but I definitely think we’re still a part of this thing,” Hamlin said. “There’s a long way to go.”

Hamlin is a big believer in odds, as in the odds of the Gibbs bad luck and the leaders’ good luck continuing. He wouldn’t be surprised if things turned around.

“You can’t count anybody out in the top 12 after three races,” Hamlin said, “because all the bad luck Kyle has had or myself has had over the last couple of weeks, the other guys are prone to it also.”

Busch, though far from optimistic, does have a plan to get back in the hunt.

“About the only thing we can do is win every race form here on out,” he said, “and have the other guys wreck every week.”

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