Jimmie Johnson blazed through the final 10 races of 2003 with seven top-five finishes. Credit: Autostock

Chase Line: Loudon

NASCAR.COM's Ryan Smithson gets inside the numbers of the Chase for the Nextel Cup every Wednesday.

Basically, you have to average from 150 to 160 points per race, but major leeway is available if the driver can lead a lap in each event.

Kurt Busch

The lowest anyone has averaged since 1999 and would have won the title came in 2001, when Sterling Marlin averaged a 10th-place finish down the stretch. That would have beaten Jeff Gordon.

A sixth-place finish every week in 2004 is virtually guaranteed to win the title, and an eighth-place finish is reasonably safe.

In 2003 and 2002, respectively, Jimmie Johnson and Busch were the two best drivers over the 10 races, and each averaged a seventh-place finish over that span.

Jeremy Mayfield is in, Kasey Kahne is out -- and with that, we have statistical balance.

Race Line: Loudon Matt Kenseth 10- 1  Ryan Newman 8-1  Mark Martin 12-1  Jeremy Mayfield 15-1  Elliott Sadler 20-1  Dale Earnhardt Jr. 8-1   Kurt Busch 10-1  Tony Stewart 10-1   Jimmie Johnson 7-1  Jeff Gordon 7-1

Mayfield's win at Richmond means that every driver in the Top 10 has a victory -- something that wouldn't have happened had anyone else made the Chase.

It is highly unlikely that even NASCAR itself thought the points system would work this well, but it's not unusual for the top 10 drivers to all have a win after the 26th race, because it happened in 2003 as well.

In 2002, two drivers were in the top 10 after Richmond without a victory (Rusty Wallace, Ryan Newman).

The Top 10 drivers in 2004 have combined to score a staggering 93 percent of the wins this season, because the only other drivers with a victory are Rusty Wallace and Greg Biffle.

It probably won't be as prolific in seasons to come, but at least in 2004, making the Chase was directly attached to winning races.

Since 1999, the highest a driver has been able to place in the standings after 26 races without a victory is sixth.

Jeff Gordon

It's scary, actually. Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson head into the Chase on identical terms.

Other than Gordon's obvious Bud Pole advantage (6 to 1), the two share a nearly equal starting record (Gordon averages a ninth-place start, Johnson a 10th). And both have qualified out of the top 30 just once all year.

Gordon has four DNFs and Johnson has five, leading to an identical rate of 92 percent laps completed for the both of them.

Clearly, the stats show that these two are each other's primary competition, since both of them are in the top three in wins, top-fives and top-10s.

One big difference between Gordon and Johnson is that Johnson is not as streaky.

Gordon's fourth-place finish at RIR was his first top-five in more than a month. Conversely, Johnson has not gone a month without a top-five all season, and already, Gordon has went through two months without a solid run.

One of Gordon's top-five droughts came at the start of the season, when he took seven races to get a top-five finish.

We already know that Johnson has avoided long bad stretches in 2004, but so has Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Ryan Newman

It took second-degree burns to throw Earnhardt Jr. off his game, and even then, the longest Earnhardt Jr. has been shut out of the top five is four races.

Tony Stewart went seven races without a top-five earlier this year. Matt Kenseth has twice gone six races without a top-five, including the last six races.

Elliott Sadler's top-five drought streak is only five. Kurt Busch has twice gone seven races (including the last seven) without a top-five.

Not surprisingly, the top-five drought streaks got longer the further down the standings you went -- as Mark Martin, Jeremy Mayfield and Ryan Newman all went nine races without a top-five at some point of the season.

Jeremy Mayfield

Although the new points system has generated a lot of interest, history has not shown to be contusive to rallies in the Cup Series.

In NASCAR, if a team were capable of reeling off the string of top runs it takes to win a title, they usually would have done so before October. The additional points handicap further extenuates the difficulty of this feat.

Since 1980, only one man has even come close to winning the title after being as far back as 10th with 10 races to go.

Kurt Busch would have done it in 2002. And he was 12th after 26 races!

Busch had 12 top-five finishes in 2002, and half of those came in the final 10 races. He had only one finish worse than 12th, and none worse than 31st.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.