NEW YORK -- The table was right next to a speaker. There might have been a pole obstructing their view of the stage. To make it worse, it felt like they were attending not an awards banquet, but the latest edition of what seemed an annual Dale Earnhardt appreciation dinner.

That's when Jeff Gordon leaned over, grabbed Rick Hendrick by the arm, and spoke a few words into his car owner's ear. "You're not going to have to sit down here next year," he said.

And they didn't. The next time NASCAR's year-end gala visited the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, it was Gordon and company up on stage at the head table, all eyes and all focus on them.

"I think it's always bigger motivation to be the guy sitting out in the audience looking at the head table going, 'I want to be right there,'" Gordon said. "You see them receiving all the awards, the checks, the pride of them being up there representing their team and their sponsors and the sport. There's not a better way to motivate yourself and your team than to see that."

Watching on television, the NASCAR awards banquet can sometimes seem like a slow parade of bad comedy, halting speeches and gear heads looking uncomfortable in tuxedos. But to the drivers in attendance, it's the ultimate dangling carrot, another reason to do better next year. Three-time champion Jimmie Johnson and his team will be seated up on the stage Friday night. Nine other drivers will sit in the audience and seethe. Who knew a dinner could serve as such a powerful motivational tool.

"That is the biggest motivational tool, without a doubt," Johnson said. "Sitting out on the floor is a great honor. But especially in '04, when we were eight points away from being on the stage, it was so close, and you want those seats. The entire week when you get up here, and especially Friday night, it's all about that champion. All the great things you did during the season, you might get a blip when your clip comes up, and that's it. It's all about that guy [on stage], and I want to be that guy. So it's very much a motivational tool for the race teams."

For the drivers, team owners and crew chiefs who don't win the title, it's not just the formal wear making them look uncomfortable. Yes, Johnson has been everywhere this week, from television programs to thumping nightclubs to the New York Stock Exchange. At nearly every stop, there are video screens showing his image, or clips of his season, or pictures of his No. 48 car. Friday night will be more of the same, a crescendo of Jimmie-mania three years in the making.

And all his competitors will have to sit there and watch it.

"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."