RICHMOND, Va. -- Overshooting the first turn at Watkins Glen. Sliding up into Matt Kenseth at Michigan. Banging off Jeremy Mayfield at California. For Jeff Gordon, whose mini-slump at the end of the Nextel Cup regular season cost him the series points lead, they're all nothing more than incidental preliminaries.

The Chase arrives next week at New Hampshire International Speedway. And with it, the four-time champion believes, will return the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports team that led the championship standings for 21 of 26 race weekends, until a 317-point margin was wiped out in one night at Richmond International Raceway.

Johnson rolling

After back-to-back wins at California and Richmond, Jimmie Johnson is hitting his stride as the Chase starts.

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"We're probably going to be pretty irritable to be around if you're anybody but our race team, because we're going to really be focused on communicating, on making sure we do everything possible we can," Gordon said late Saturday night after a fourth-place finish at the .75-mile track. "I think it's just a mental and physical focus you have to have for these next 10 races. I just think there are certain guys, certain teams that elevate their games a notch when it's time to do it. And I think Jimmie [Johnson's] has obviously shown they're capable of doing that. I think that's the kind of race team we have this year, and I think we're going to show that."

Johnson's series-leading sixth victory of the season, recorded Saturday in the Chevy Rock and Roll 400, gives the reigning Nextel Cup champion a 20-point lead on his Hendrick teammate entering next Sunday's playoff opener on the 1-mile flat track in Loudon, N.H. Gordon clinched his Chase berth before any other driver, and then suffered through a run of sub-par finishes that led many to wonder if his team, so dominant through so much of the year, was peaking at the wrong time. Saturday's result was his first top-five finish since Pocono, more than a month ago.

"It was important for us to not have another bad race," Gordon said. "I'm pretty excited that we pulled a top-five out, that we led the amount of laps that we did. Even though we did lose 10 more points, our pit stops were spot-on. [Crew chief] Steve [Letarte] and I, I thought, communicated really well. For the most part, we were making the car better all the way up to that last adjustment."

Through all of his travails of the past month -- losing the race at Watkins Glen by overrunning a turn, and placing 19th or lower at Michigan, Bristol and California -- Gordon has consistently said that when playoff time arrives, his team will return to form.

"Even though we're behind Jimmie going into next week's race, we really are a championship-caliber team," said Gordon, who as Johnson's listed car owner, ironically leads the series owner standings by 20 points over his own vehicle. "I'm extremely excited about the chance we have to get this thing done."

While Gordon continues to rack up top-10 finishes -- he now has 21, three more than any other driver -- his last victory was in the first Pocono race in June. Is it possible to simply flip the switch? Some of his competitors in the Chase believe so.

"You see it in sports. You see teams step up," said Jeff Burton. "We saw it last year with the Indianapolis Colts. Their defense was struggling, and they go into the playoffs, and it was like an unbelievable defense. There is a way to do it. I think it's a timing issue. Every team is working hard, every team is putting a lot of effort in. I think it's just being right at the right time. I don't know how to ask more out of my guys, I don't know how to ask more out of myself. If all the things that we've learned come together at the right time, then we could have a chance."

Added Carl Edwards: "It's not try harder, it's just try smarter. You have 10 weeks. It's like my spotter Bobby Hudson says, 'there's a pot of gold right at the end of this rainbow right here, you just have to go get it.' Whatever you do, you can't get in a car wreck driving to McDonald's in the middle of the week. You can't get sick. You can't have something on pit road. You can't have an engine failure. All those things can stop you from a championship. All you can do is try to contain all those things and minimize risk."

Kenseth, whose championship under the old points system was built on numbing consistency, doesn't necessarily agree.

"I know people talk about it and it makes a good story and all that, but I've never showed up for one of these races and not tried as hard as I could to win it," he said. "And I sure hope my team hasn't shown up and never tried as hard as they could. I don't buy that. Man, this is the Nextel Cup Series. This is the most competitive form of stock-car racing there is anywhere. It's a big deal to win these races and run up front. I try as hard as I can to do that every week."

Perhaps the change of location has something to do with it. Only seven days, several hundred miles, and several degrees in temperature separate Richmond, where the regular season ends, from Loudon, where the postseason begins. But to drivers, the difference in mentality is enormous.

"It's a huge change in mentality," Edwards said. "If we're leading the race at Loudon and a valve spring breaks, I'll be in the motor home crying. This [Richmond race] is way different. All we had to do tonight was come here and win a race. We didn't win, and everything else is all the same. At Loudon, that's not the case. The difference between 13th and 10th could mean a championship. So it's every last position, every last point."

Coming to Richmond, only the 12th and final Chase spot was truly in doubt. Most of the other drivers in the championship round have had weeks to prepare for the last 10-race stretch, a fact Burton believes assists in a change of mentality.

"I've come at it from two different points of view," he said. "Last year we came to Richmond and it was real stressful. We were one of many people who had to race their way in. It was very close. It was a huge relief when we got in, and then it was like, we immediately go into the championship. This week, we have had three weeks or so to get ourselves in championship mode, so that's a difference. I don't think there's any question you'll see the intensity level pick up, because you saw so many people already locked in this year. I think you'll see the intensity level pick up, and the races are going to be pretty phenomenal."