It's not just a banquet, but also a motivational tool (cont'd)

"It's painful. It's painful," said car owner Richard Childress, who won six titles with Earnhardt. "When you look back, you're really p---ed off. It gets you fired up and makes me as an owner and makes all of our drivers want it worse than ever. I remember Dale and I, we had won it two in a row and lost it, won it two in a row and lost it, and each time we would just get so p---ed because we wanted to win. If sitting there watching that banquet don't get you fired up, I don't know what will. But those guys that won it, with what Hendrick and Jimmie Johnson, it's phenomenal. It's good for the sport. But it gives us something to shoot for. It sets a benchmark for everybody else, and what we've got to do to beat him."

The difference between sitting on the floor and sitting on stage is measured in much more than distance. "It's fun at first," Johnson said, remembering years when he didn't win. "And then it's like, all right, I want to get out of here. When's my speech over? Things like that. But when you're up on stage, you just want everything to go slow and enjoy it all, soak it all in."

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Competitors who don't win can be antsy. Ready to get out. Or ruing the fact that they had to show up at all. "If I finish second, I don't want to go at all. If it wasn't for Mr. Hendrick, I wouldn't go," said Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief. He's not alone.

"Honestly," two-time champion Tony Stewart said, "I sit there during the banquet and try to figure out how much longer I have to wear the tux."

But for Stewart, the experience isn't all bad. "Obviously on Friday night, you're envious of the people up on the stage. That's where you set your goals, and that'd where you want to be," he said. "I've been up there twice, and I know what it feels like. When I watch Jimmie and Chad and Rick and their organization sitting at their head table, it reminds you of the years you did have good years, and you look forward to having that feeling again."

Because after all, sitting at the head table at the Waldorf-Astoria, in a ballroom draped in holiday bunting, remains one of the ultimate goals in the sport.

"People say, why are you still in this? There are two big reasons," Childress said. "One is the people who work for RCR. Two is, we want to be back on that stage in New York."