CHARLOTTE, N.C. --- If the first round of the Chase for the Championship is any indication, NASCAR is in for a doozy of a title race.

That practice of riding around for a few hundred miles in cruise control before turning it up at the end of the race? There's clearly no time for that now.

The contenders went all-out from the drop of the green flag Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where they were racing three-wide early and gambling on pit strategy to pick up every position. The result was an entertaining race that saw Chase drivers take the top four spots and 10 of the top 15.

"I think everyone panics," said second-place finisher Denny Hamlin. "When you see at the beginning of the race the top 10, and they're all Chase guys, you're like, 'Man, I've got to fight for every position I can.' Every hole that you see on the race track, you immediately go for.

"Everyone is just jumping at every opportunity that they can, and that's why you see the three wide. Everyone is just trying to make up all the spots they can, and a lot of it has to do with the excitement of the start of the Chase."

It made for a great opening race, which was won by sentimental favorite Mark Martin in a three-lap sprint to the finish. He used pit strategy to take the lead, then schooled Juan Pablo Montoya with a veteran move that took the former Formula One driver by surprise. Montoya never expected Martin to pull in front of him on the second of the last three laps and slow his momentum all the way to what Montoya considered a stop.

It was clean, intense racing and it gave NASCAR the buzz it needs in a season of sponsor struggles and ratings challenges. A grueling 36-race schedule makes it difficult for the sport to sustain any momentum for long stretches of the season, and it counts on its Chase to liven things up.

The Chase has been hit-or-miss since its 2004 inception, with bursts of excitement leading into the first few races that typically peter out as just a handful of drivers stay in championship contention. But a wide-open field has created renewed hope for the sixth edition of the Chase, and NASCAR needs to figure a way to find nine more repeats of New Hampshire.

Double-file restarts, implemented earlier this season after they successfully spiced up the All-Star race, have helped tremendously. It put Montoya next to Martin on that final restart, with hard-charging Hamlin right behind them.

It puts the leaders at the front of the pack every time, turning up the heat on every driver to grab as many positions as possible during what's become a harried few laps of racing.

Martin, who rarely makes mistakes, was impressed with the intensity and driver skill.

"It's really tough, because on restarts these things really slip around," Martin said. "And when you have as much at stake as we have, you know, it pushes you to slip over the edge."