In theory, it would be hard to imagine a better Chase than the one Jeff Gordon had this year.

The only problem was that Jimmie Johnson had a better one.

Gordon won twice and posted an average finish of 5.1 in the 10 Chase races, but Johnson won races six through nine to take control of the championship and salted it away with a seventh-place finish in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The result left Gordon ambivalent. It would be difficult to second-guess a strategy that produced such a high average finish and probably would win the title nine times out of 10. But Gordon's teammate and protege at Hendrick Motorsports redefined the battlefield in this year's Chase -- and did so by taking the risks necessary to claim the reward.

Gordon and his crew chief, Steve Letarte, took a more conservative approach. Because there's a free flow of information within the Hendrick organization, Gordon knew the setups Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus were using, and vice-versa.

"We'd laugh about it every week," Gordon said. "They'd give their setup, we'd tell them what our setup is, and we'd laugh at them. Jimmie's a tremendous driver, and Chad is a tremendous crew chief, because he convinces Jimmie into driving things that he could never convince me into doing. If I was going to change anything, that's what I would change, that we would probably push the limit a little bit more."

But Gordon and Letarte stuck to the safer course, believing that Johnson's risk-taking eventually would be his undoing. In theory, it was a sound strategy. In fact, it didn't work.

"Honestly, in the future, I don't know if we would approach it or do it a whole lot different than what we did, because I think a 5.1 average can win a lot of championships with the Chase format," Gordon said. "But you know what? Those guys took risks, they stepped up, they ran hard and it paid off for them.

"For us, we did everything that we set out to do. I really truly believed that that would prevail. It just didn't. It came up a little bit short. I think that maybe the only thing that we could have done different is that, when those guys did their back-to-back wins -- the first two -- we could have probably started taking some more chances.

"And I purely mean in how we were setting up the cars. Me allowing the team, pushing the team, and allowing Steve to push me to take more risks in the setup, to make the cars a little bit freer and to make them to where we're maybe on the edge a little bit more -- to make sure we're one of the fastest cars out there. There's risk that goes along with that, so you've got to be careful. I really thought the risk that Jimmie and Chad and those guys were taking was going to bite them, but it didn't."

The difference in approach wasn't the only striking distinction between the two drivers as they battled for the championship. There was a marked contrast in the way Gordon and Johnson talked about themselves. Gordon often gave the impression that he was contemplating the end of his career; Johnson insisted there were many championships ahead of him.

Gordon is 36 years old. Johnson is 32. But that four-year spread in age contains a night-and-day difference in perspective.

"I started really young," Gordon said. "Jimmie's a perfect example of a guy who came in in his late 20s. He's mature, he's a great driver and he's able to handle the pressures and everything else that comes along with it and have success and, basically from day one and still to this day, continue to be strong.

"Now, is his career going to be as long as a guy like Kyle Busch or even me, who came in at 21? We'll see. But I really think our owners should be hiring guys and looking in the mid-20s, because I think that they come to be a championship-caliber driver much sooner."