Gordon's erased lead could spark change for Chase (cont'd)

Johnson took advantage, winning the final two regular-season races, and entering the Chase as the leader. Under the old system, he'd be in fifth, with Gordon, Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards all in front of him.

"I look at say like the NFL. We're trying to compare playoffs to other sports, and it's great that we have a playoff, I definitely think it's more exciting. But usually the team that has the best record is seeded No. 1 and has home-field advantage. I think it's kind of odd that in our series, the person that does that in the regular season actually has a disadvantage," said Gordon, making his 500th career start Sunday.

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"But I don't know how you fix that. If you gave that guy bonus points, and say that guy next year wins six, eight races and the [regular-season] points, he could have a 50-, 60-point or more lead going into the Chase. That's not what [NASCAR] wants. So I don't know. It's easy to say it's not fair when you're in the position of being No. 1. I've been on the flip side of it and felt there was an advantage. In my opinion, we can still win this thing not being No. 1 going in."

Even Johnson, the prime beneficiary of the system this year, seems to agree. But like Gordon, he's not quite sure what to do about it.

"I think that's been something that's been brought up each year, and I do feel that there should be some reward for the regular season," he said. "I don't know what that may be. If you look at other sports and there's a championship won for whatever division it may be, what are those things? I guess they have home-turf advantage depending on the sport, so I don't know what a fair advantage would be moving into that. But I think it would be good for our sport to have a regular-season champion and a postseries champion."

Yet Kurt Busch wonders: what's the point? Even in an expanded 12-man field, all the Chase drivers are separated by 60 points -- the difference between first and 11th on the racetrack. And no driver in Nextel Cup has won more than eight events in a full season since 1998, when Gordon won 13.

"No matter if you were the best team in the regular season, in all the other sports when you go into the playoffs everything starts at zero again. It's even for everybody," Busch said. "I don't think it would make a difference if Gordon was leading right now by 20, or if Jimmie Johnson is leading by 20. If we're all separated by 60, which we are, I think it's pretty much zero. Sixty is about zero in our sport, where you could gain 60 points in a heartbeat. If you gave the regular-season series leader a 100-point edge that might be worth credit, but to be 20 points ahead of a guy or 30, that's not going to make a difference."