Experience plays a major role for top-two in points (cont'd)

That's called experience, and it should work everywhere from Martinsville to Homestead.

If the veteran Jeff Burton can get through Martinsville -- where he's won only one Cup race in 28 career starts -- and still be within sniffing distance of Johnson, he might have a realistic chance to score his first NASCAR national championship; and his experience is playing a great role.

"I think the biggest thing [experience] brings to me is the perspective of what we're trying to do here and a calmness that I've never had in my life," Burton, 41, said. "The age that I am to me is a great thing. I love the age that I am. I couldn't have the things in my life that I love so much if I'm not the age that I am and I couldn't have the experience without having been through the things I've been through and the only way to do that is to be the age that I am.

"To me, I look at my age as a benefit because I'm able to draw experiences. I'm able to watch other people's experiences and learn from them. I view it as an advantage, not as a disadvantage because I have a pool of information that's larger than a lot that I can use so to me that's actually an advantage."

As much as some people believe that age is just a number, Burton said it does have its plusses and minuses.

"At some point it does become a disadvantage -- there's no getting around that," Burton said. "I truly believe that at 41 I'm a better driver than at 25. Now, was I a good enough driver at 25? That's for someone else to decide -- but I believe that I'm better at 41 than I was at 25.

"Am I going to be better at 70 than I was at 41? Probably not, but physically our sport allows someone -- if you take care of yourself and you're committed -- you can be successful in this sport well into your 40s. I have no concerns if I'm emotionally able to put the effort into it. I have no concerns about being in my mid-40s being able to be competitive -- none whatsoever.

"I speak from experience in watching people that I respect. I watched my father compete in tennis. I've watched Mark Martin. I've watched people that I know are willing to put forth the effort and the people that I see that are willing to put forth the effort that they can still be successful."

As age increases, Burton did say, experience becomes not only a blessing, but a challenge.

"I don't think that something swoops down from the sky and says, 'you're 47, no longer for you.' I don't think it works like that -- I think it's individual. I think it boils down to physical, emotional -- most of it being emotional -- the dedication that you're willing to put into it.

"You've got to remember if you're 48 years old, you've probably been doing this for 40 years. There's hardly any racecar drivers that didn't start -- most drivers started when they were five, six, seven, eight, nine years old. If you're 50 years old you've been doing it for 40 years.

"Bringing the intensity level every day, I think that's what becomes difficult. Willing to put the effort in not just on the track on a Sunday but on a track somewhere on a Tuesday when it's 100 degrees somewhere, putting that effort in -- that's where it becomes harder, I think."

Greg Biffle, 38, says being "the old guy" is a relatively new experience for him, and that experience is a bigger issue than age.

"You take somebody like Clint Bowyer, probably, that has less years in Nationwide and Sprint Cup -- those guys could still make mistakes or do some things," Biffle said. "I'm just using him as an example because he's just a couple years into this series, but I raced the Truck Series for three years and the Nationwide Series for two and you see a lot of things over that period of time and you learn a lot of things about what you don't want to do and how you get yourself into trouble and how to stay out of trouble, so I think that kind of experience is just real valuable."