Johnson, Gordon switch spots in quest to be best (cont'd)

And still, Johnson has gone faster than everyone else, including not just Gordon and the rest of the cars in the Hendrick fold, but everyone else in the entire Nextel Cup garage. That's why he is poised to become the first back-to-back champion since -- again -- Gordon in 1997 and 1998.

Back then Johnson was just getting started driving in the Busch Series. When he moved to the Cup level after Gordon sold team owner Rick Hendrick on Johnson's potential, Johnson seemed to hang onto every word, every piece of advice about driving or setups or even where or what to eat that Gordon might give him.

My, oh, my how times have changed. Now it's Gordon who said he's trying to check out what Johnson is doing so he can go faster, although both sides candidly admit that what works for one isn't necessarily going to work for the other -- no matter how much information is freely shared.

"The setup side probably doesn't cross over as much as maybe when we first got started," Johnson said. "When I came in, we rode through the first year, and Chad had some ideas and wanted to move the cars in a different direction, but we would have been foolish to do anything different. So we patterned ourselves after the 24 car.

"Once we got comfortable and kind of figured out what I needed, we started going down a little different road. But that road is dictated by our driving styles."

Those styles are not as similar as it might seem to the naked eye, Gordon added.

"He just uses the brakes a lot different getting into the corner, and when and how he gets on the throttle," Gordon said. "And they set the car up much different. Every time he's blistering fast, I've said, 'Put that setup in for me.' And then I'm absolutely terrible."

Knaus said that setups are moving targets that change swiftly according to a number of variables -- including which track is in play, the weather and, at least for this year, whether a current car or the Car of Tomorrow was being used.

"People have to realize that drivers change their styles on a weekly basis," he said. "It wasn't too long ago that, say, let's go to a place like Phoenix, for instance. You would run a 1,400-pound right-front spring. Now you run a 300-pound right-front spring. Jeff has had to switch from the old feel to this feel. And I think if you look at the past history, it took him a little bit to adapt to that. But he does that. That's what Jeff Gordon does.

"That's why he runs as competitive as he does year in and year out, because he is capable of changing. There are a lot of drivers out there that can't. They can't seem to grasp the concept that what worked last week, what worked last year, doesn't work now. But Jeff is definitely one of the drivers that does get it and does understand it and he will do whatever he has to do to be fast, I can promise you that -- whether that is adapting Jeff Gordon's driving style or whether that's adapting something that [Hendrick teammate] Casey Mears has, he's open to all of it."

In an interesting twist, that's yet another aspect of racing that Johnson appears to have learned from Gordon. Over the years, he has taken in whatever knowledge he can from not only Gordon, but from anyone with something that he figures might help him down the road -- or when he makes his next fast lap on any given track.

"There are different techniques you can do in the car -- the way you use the brakes, how hard you turn the car and what you look for in those instances that I just know how," Johnson said. "Even when Kyle Busch is running strong, I know what Kyle does and how I should change my style [to adapt to it]. I try to do it and it doesn't always work.

"But I look at [Gordon's] data and at Martinsville, Phoenix, Loudon, places like that where Jeff has a little different style or a different setup, and I've tried to go in that direction mentally. I've had some success with it."

He's had lots of success with it. Combined with his own obvious God-given talents, the pupil appears to have surpassed the master at this particular juncture in both of their careers.

Not that the master is giving up heading into this final race and on into next season. Gordon is only 36 years old and appears to have plenty of highly productive racing years remaining.

It's just that now he may be looking to Johnson more than Johnson looks to him to gain on some of the little things that can provide that all-important edge between finishing first in a race or season, and settling for a respectable second.

"We've got to find those ingredients that work for me," Gordon said. "Hey, maybe this is as good as it gets for us. It's hard to say."