Give us Gordon, Stewart and the Cup on the line

From purely a spectator's perspective, here's how you want it to go down. Tony Stewart continues his typical late-summer charge, narrowing the gap on points leader Jeff Gordon as the Nextel Cup tour moves toward the Chase. They enter the postseason seeded first and second, and then the only two multiple champions racing on NASCAR's top circuit go one-on-one in a duel that doesn't end until the sun goes down on a late November day in Homestead, Fla.

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Why not? Gordon and Stewart have battled countless times on the track and occasionally feuded off it, their competitive passions spilling from the asphalt and into the garage area. They're universally respected as two of the best drivers in the world. Between them, they've hoisted NASCAR's championship trophy six times. But they've never had to go through the other guy to get it.

That's what we want to see out of this season, one where Gordon is clearly the driver to beat -- he already has as many top-10 finishes as he did in all of last year -- and Stewart has shown every sign that he's about to drop the hammer. This isn't about rooting against Denny Hamlin or Dale Earnhardt Jr. This doesn't mean that Jimmie Johnson or Matt Kenseth aren't capable of winning the championship. This is about the genuine theatre of seeing the two most decorated drivers of their era tangle with the sport's biggest prize at stake.

They've never been at their absolute bests in the same series at the same time. When Stewart won his second championship in 2005, Gordon didn't even make the Chase. When Stewart won his first title three years earlier, under the old format, Gordon wasn't a factor -- he was a hefty 239 points behind and out of it after the season's penultimate race at Phoenix.

Stewart finished second when Gordon won his most recent championship in 2001, but was never really a threat. The Hendrick Motorsports driver's margin was so large that he had the title clinched before the final event of the year. In his previous three championship campaigns, Gordon didn't even compete against Stewart, who was winning the U.S. Auto Club's triple crown in 1995, winning the Indy Racing League title in 1997, and driving on the Busch circuit for Joe Gibbs Racing in 1998.

It seems ludicrous to think that two drivers with so much in common could go through their entire careers without enduring the sort of heads-up match that Dale Earnhardt, Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace waged so often with one another. They're linked by so many factors, from their age (both 36 as of Saturday), to their Indiana upbringings (Stewart a native, Gordon a transplant), to their racing backgrounds (both started as sprint-car champs) and their excellence on the track.

Of course Gordon has never been fined and penalized by NASCAR for cursing on national television, as Stewart was Tuesday, an event that reinforces the stereotypes -- which aren't always accurate, by the way -- of the sport's clean-cut straight arrow and scruffy rebel. There's also a little bit of personal history, a handful of run-ins like their garage shouting match in Watkins Glen in 2000 and their sniping over contact at Dover two years ago, just enough to liven up a relationship between two guys who otherwise seem to get along.

The pressure of a close championship race could change that. But this isn't about hoping Stewart will go all Cole Trickle on us and punt Gordon into the wall on the cool-down lap, as he did after the two made contact at Bristol in 2001. This isn't about some twisted desire to see conflict. This is about wanting to see the two best drivers in NASCAR -- if championships are your litmus test, then that's what they are -- race each other for the Nextel Cup.

Gordon is having such a strong season that he can finish as low as 37th in each of the next six races and still clinch a berth in the Chase. Even after back-to-back victories, Stewart is still well back of the leader, 452 points behind in fifth. But sometime late on the night of Sept. 8, all that will change. The margins will all but disappear. And just maybe, the Chase will redeem itself by giving us the championship battle we've always wanted to see.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.