Chase stable the same, but Hendrick dynamic different

What a difference a year makes. Least year, when Rick Hendrick put Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch in the Chase, things looked very promising for Hendrick Motorsports. They had one four-time champion, two demonstrably strong young stars and a veteran organization with the resources to crown any one of the three with a title. Ultimately, it was Johnson who prevailed with Hendrick's first Chase format championship.

Same story this year: Gordon, Johnson and Busch are all locked into in the Chase. Each of the three has a genuine shot at the crown. And the organization remains armed to the teeth with racing wherewithal. But this time around, there's something very different about the team dynamic heading into the Chase.

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It's not just that there are multiple championship-caliber teams from the same stable in the Chase, Jack Roush will forever hold that record with a remarkable five teams. This is different.

It's not so much that Jeff Gordon now has to deal with a defending champion in his midst, but that is indeed a factor. Knowing you have to compete against the likes of Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus for the championship, and having to sit across the table from the two in team meetings each week of the Chase has to give you pause. If not an ulcer.

But that's really not it, either.

It's the Kyle factor.

There are several elements to the Kyle factor. For starters, chemistry. Kyle Busch and Alan Gustafson are on their game this year -- even more so than last year. Like all championship contenders, they're a threat to win everywhere they race. On the track, Kyle has all the talent you can ask for. His poise/red mist management skills have greatly improved this season. The truth is, the guy has few chinks in his racing armor. He's clearly got the game to win it all.

He's got the equipment, too. Don't think for a moment that the No. 5 team will be short-changed when it comes to HMS resources and support. Despite his imminent departure, Rick Hendrick is happy to help crown the younger Busch as champion. It only makes sense: championships equal short-term and long-term revenue, and lots of it.

Plus, Is there a better way to initiate your business and racing relationship with Dale Earnhardt Jr. than to hand him the proverbial keys to a championship-winning race car?

There's also the in-your-face component. I'd be willing to bet that Kyle would like nothing more than to crack wise about taking the crown with him to Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota at that nice little sit down dinner they have each December at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Should he win it all, it would be the most compelling NASCAR Awards Ceremony ever.

Whether for their own selfish reasons, or for that of owner loyalty -- or both -- you know the 24 and 48 teams will do everything in their power to prevent any of that from happening. But for them, it's first things, first.

Each team will be minding its own business and focusing on getting their own houses in order. Nobody will stop anybody else from winning a championship without first being prepared to win it themselves. There's too much championship experience in those shops for that not to happen.

The genesis of all this heightened, intra-team drama, of course, was the announcement that Junior would be displacing Kyle at HMS for 2008. This may well end up being the first time when the silly season had a tangible effect on the outcome of that season's championship, which says a lot about the players involved.

I try not to get bogged down with a lot of NASCAR's off-track drama, and there has been an inordinate amount of it this season with fines, suspensions, car numbers and unidentified flammable goo. Ultimately though, it will be the on-track action that defines the 2007 season, and that's where the Kyle factor will have its greatest effect.

In a season that has as compelling an assortment of Chase subplots as you're likely to ever see, the goings-on at Hendrick Motorsports over these last ten races may well be best of all. Oh, to be a fly on the wall there.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.