It was a fairly notable accomplishment, a Virginia-born driver securing a high starting position on a Virginia racetrack. Jeff Burton slid out of his racecar after qualifying fifth at Richmond International Raceway in the late summer of 2004, waited for the usual cluster of reporters to come over to him -- and waited, and waited, and waited. That was when it hit him, as squarely as a collision with the outside wall.

He had been rendered insignificant by the Chase.

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I think some guys in the Chase expect special consideration. I don't think that's right. I think just because you're in the Chase doesn't change the fact that the guys not in the Chase, he has as much right to the racetrack as you do.

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JEFF BURTON

"I parked my car after the qualifying lap, and not one person from the media was standing there," remembered Burton, who missed the Chase in 2004 and '05. "And I was like, we just did pretty good, you know what I mean? Nobody seemed to care. That's just how it is. If you're not in the Chase, people just don't pay you a whole lot of attention. You have to do something dramatic to bring that attention in."

One byproduct of NASCAR's five-year-old playoff is that it creates an unfortunate caste system, one that separates the 12 drivers vying for the championship from everybody else. The top 12 have NASCAR-mandated interview sessions every week. Reporters dissect and fans fret over their championship chances. Television broadcasts naturally place more focus on teams with title aspirations, giving the sponsors of those organizations more air time in the process. The other 31 drivers in the starting field become minor players in a drama that completely revolves around who will be left clutching the Sprint Cup trophy on Nov. 16 outside Miami.

The majority of teams that are excluded from the title hunt almost feel as if they're competing in a vacuum. "You feel left out," said Burton, who's experienced it from both sides. When the Chase was first implemented five years ago, there were fears that teams that didn't qualify would lose sponsorship, or be forced to settle for deals that would be contingent upon playoff berths. While the worst-case scenarios haven't materialized, it's clear that many non-Chase teams have a more difficult time securing sponsorship, and that the bulk of media attention is slanted toward teams with championship hopes.

Some would like to see that change.

"That's one thing that I think we could work on to help our sport and sponsors for all the teams -- besides the 12 guys who are running for the Chase each week, let's pick three guys each week randomly and cover those guys throughout the field and target them as much as the guys in the Chase," said Robbie Loomis, vice president at Petty Enterprises. "For me personally, the job is the same. We're trying to improve the product for the 43 and 45 cars and get the Petty Enterprise cars to Victory Lane. I measure our success each week. It doesn't matter if it's a Chase race or an all-star race on Saturday night, I look at what lap time is No. 1 and how far we are off to that lap time. It doesn't matter who's up there or what organization they're from, we've got to get to that lap time, and that's what should be No. 1."

For the teams outside the Chase, the work goes on. There are always lap times to improve, owner-point positions to gain, drivers to hire or lineups to restructure. Petty Enterprises is no different; his team may exist in the shadows this time of year, but Loomis and team management still must make decisions that will affect their organization for seasons to come. Chief among them is putting together a second car to go with Bobby Labonte in the organization's flagship No. 43.

"There's no secret that we've been working our way through it since we took on our new partners with Boston Ventures and David Zucker, the new CEO," said Loomis, referring to the private equity firm that bought majority ownership in Petty last July. "We're still navigating our way through our direction. It's obvious that we want to bring in a young guy with Bobby Labonte's experience and try to build from there. We're excited about this past weekend. We're working a lot with Chad McCumbee, and will probably take some looks at Chad this season for sure in another five races. We're excited about where we're going in the future with that."

The team also has to find a role for Kyle Petty, who's piloted the No. 45 only three times since Memorial Day weekend, and is scheduled to return for this Sunday's event at Dover International Speedway. Petty Enterprises is considering the prospect of three cars for next season: one for Labonte, one for a younger driver (presumably McCumbee, who finished 42nd after crashing at New Hampshire), and one on a limited schedule for Petty -- although that plan is completely dependent upon sponsorship.

"We've had a lot of discussion on that in staff meetings each week," Loomis said. "Dave Zucker, our CEO, is trying to put a lot of things together on the sponsorship front, and that's one of the avenues that we've talked about. If we could run a third car on a limited schedule, even if it is a minimum of five to seven races, it does help us prepare and get a little bit of information in our circle and also prepare an easier transition when we go to three cars in 2010 when everyone gets this economy rolling again."

The work and the hope and the effort always go on, regardless of the time of the year, regardless of whether a team is racing for first, 13th or 35th. Teams outside the Chase can take a few more chances, and in some cases -- like that of Jamie McMurray, whose pit crew was raided to help Chase-bound teammates Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle -- can serve as something of a research program for others with a title on the line. But inside the Chase or out, Burton said every organization already has one eye on 2009.

"We are always working on next year. We're always working on the next week," he said. "When people say we're working on next year, who isn't? You're always building on what you're doing. What you do next week has a great deal to do with what you did this week. That is the nature of our business. You can gamble a little bit more, maybe. You can do things a little bit more unorthodox, maybe. But as for the fact it's just building blocks, you're always trying to put one block on top of the other to get better. So we're always looking to be better in the future. But, you know, it is tough when you're not in the Chase."

The separation between Chase and non-Chase is evident even on the racetrack, where there's an inherent tension between drivers racing for a championship and those who aren't. Because of everything they have at stake, Chase drivers want more space, more courtesy, more consideration. Non-Chase drivers don't want to be seen as second-class citizens. It can make for a dicey afternoon at 150 mph.

"You're racing people for the championship, and that's a tough spot to be in," Burton said. "I think some guys in the Chase expect special consideration. I don't think that's right. I think just because you're in the Chase doesn't change the fact that the guys not in the Chase, he has as much right to the racetrack as you do. But people start looking for extra consideration, and extra help. We heard that from Tony [Stewart] ... two years ago when he won all those races. He felt like at times he was in the way. He felt like he was interrupting the flow of the Chase. That's a difficult position for those guys to be in, too."