Brickyard's history proves race has title implications

You gotta like the law of probabilities, especially when it comes to the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

In a nutshell, that means that, while Sam Hornish Jr. and J.J. Yeley have chances to win this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- and popular wins either of those would be -- it's much more likely that Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart or Jimmie Johnson will be in Victory Lane on Sunday afternoon.

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The betting man's cash might be on Busch this year -- for not only the race that cut its teeth as the Brickyard 400, but also the Sprint Cup championship. Because in the last 10 years, the winner of Indy's late-summer spectacle has won the championship six times. That includes twice in the four-year Chase for the Cup era, and four consecutive pre-Chase years, from 1998 to 2001.

Them's mighty strong odds, considering in eight of those 10 years, the Brickyard winner ended up in the top five in the championship.

In fact, in its 14-year history, Indianapolis' place in the Cup schedule has earned its marquee status by virtue of the fact that 12 of its 14 winners have finished in the top 10 of that year's standings; and nine of them have finished in the top three.

Busch's mode this season certainly fits that of Jeff Gordon (twice), Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte in that string of four in a row. After winning the Brickyard 400, none of them ever trailed again in their championship runs.

A side note for all you Chase haters: Those championships were all virtual snoozers. Like I said, they never trailed after the 20th race of the season and Jarrett's championship was the closest, a mere 201 points ahead of Labonte.

Thanks for waking me back up.

Busch has won early and often this season, on his way to seven Sprint Cup victories and a hefty 262-point lead in the standings, rivaled only at this moment by Jarrett's 274-point margin in 1999 over eventual third-place finisher Mark Martin.

Sure, there's a reset button for the Chase this year that'll be hit after Richmond, but mark this -- no one will win enough races between now and then to put a serious dent in Busch's current 70-point bonus haul that he'll carry into the Chase, and he'll win at least one more race between now and then.

Beyond that, who do the odds favor? Gordon's been the biggest beneficiary of Indy's largesse, both in terms of his four visits to Victory Lane and the two titles that followed them, in 1998 and 2001.

And after his last Brickyard win, in 2004, Gordon was a prime participant in what's been by far the greatest Chase yet. Following his Brickyard win, Gordon was involved in six lead swaps before champion Kurt Busch took the top spot for the last time, after Talladega.

Could it happen? Sure. At three tracks that carry similarities to Indy, Gordon was fair at Phoenix, not very good at Pocono and the best, for about three-quarters of the day, at New Hampshire.

Failing to win at Indianapolis wouldn't torpedo Gordon's title hopes, but he has to hope that he's competitive as the Chase opener -- again at New Hampshire -- looms closer.

For Stewart, his third Brickyard win in the last four years would be near perfection for the Indiana native. He's yet to win this season, as has been well-documented, but he's run more than well enough to do it.

His two previous Brickyard victories, particularly the one that spurred him to his last championship, in 2005, were almost immeasurable plusses for Stewart. And surrounded with the hubbub of his recent announcement that he's moving to Cup team ownership in 2009, a victory wouldn't ease that pressure but it would make it easier to either bear or ignore for at least a little while.

And what can you say about Johnson's chances for a record-tying third consecutive title?

Start with the fact that Johnson won the Brickyard 400 in his first championship season, 2006 -- even though it took a meteoric closing rush to gain the title.

Johnson has battled Busch and everyone else pretty gamely this season. With the exception of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., he's best come to grips with the new car in its first full season. He won at Phoenix, and he almost won in the last race, at Chicagoland.

So considering the credentials of this group, picking one of them to win this Sunday wouldn't be much of a stretch.

But when you take everything as a package deal: The ability to win a race on a tough-to-handle, high-speed flat track; consistency at a high level at those type tracks this season; and the history of what this venue, and this race have meant to the championship (and what a championship for this driver in 2008 would mean) ... look for Earnhardt in Victory Lane on Sunday.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.