BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Jeff Gordon's greatest nemesis isn't a another driver or a racetrack, but a points system. For some reason, the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship has taken one of NASCAR's most successful, most marketable, and most personable drivers and transformed him into a snakebitten, firesuit-clad version of Greg Norman.

The thing thwarts him at every turn. In 2004, the year the revised playoff system was introduced, he finished third -- even though under the old structure he would have won, edging Jimmie Johnson by 47 points and eventual Chase champion Kurt Busch by a healthy 257. Last year he would have won the title by 353 points, capping one of the best seasons of his career with another crown. Instead, he started the final 10 races at a deficit after his big lead was wiped out by the system, and watched Johnson celebrate at the head table in New York. Had NASCAR not tweaked its championship system to try and generate better television ratings during football season, he'd almost certainly be chasing the mark of seven titles shared by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

Instead, like everyone else, he's chasing Kyle Busch. For all his accomplishments on and off the racetrack, Gordon has just never seemed comfortable in the Chase format, which essentially splits the season into two parts and forces drivers to be good in the first one and great in the second. Granted, had NASCAR stood pat with its old system five years ago, Busch's 222-point advantage might be seen insurmountable, siphoning interest and drama from the end of a 10-month-long sport.

Gordon understands all that, understands what's best for NASCAR in its entirety, gets the big picture as he always has. But he'll fully embrace this championship system under one condition.

"Only if I win it," he said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. "If I never win one, then obviously I'm going to feel like the old system suited us and my style better. The only issue that I have with it is, we build our sport on history, and you can't compare the history of the old points system to the new points system. You can't compare a champion, even myself, to any champion today. It's done differently."

For a driver like Gordon, from whom so much is expected every year, the Chase magnifies every imperfection. Under the old points system, he'd be just another driver pursuing Busch, someone in the midst of a career season. But the Chase turns NASCAR into a stock market where everyone's day trading. Who's up? Who's down? We've gone from viewing the season in its entirety to glimpsing little snapshots week by week. The results of one Sunday out of 36 take on an inflated importance. Twenty-ninth at Watkins Glen? Forty-second at Michigan? In a points system where every week is a lifetime, it feels like abject disaster. Sell! Sell! Sell!

No matter that for one reason or another Gordon and crew chief Steve Letarte have just been behind in coming to grips with the new car, the result of being able to rely on the old vehicle on so many intermediate tracks last year. Letarte, especially, takes the heat from a No. 24 fan base that's been spoiled by so much excellence throughout the years. Still, when viewed through the prism of Gordon's career, zero race wins since this past October and a suddenly shaky ninth-place position in points seem less than comforting.

But the driver has no doubts. "Everything's good. Stevie's strong, doing a great job. I have complete faith in him," Gordon said after practice for Saturday's Sharpe 500 on the half-mile track.

"Just like last week, we had trouble in the pits, but this week we had some great team-building moments to get the pit crew together, and you know what, I have complete faith in them. I've made mistakes, we've all made mistakes. It just hasn't been that great, stellar year for us. You can point fingers and try to say this is what's caused us to be behind, or that. You can say Jeff's made mistakes or Steve. I know where we lie, and I feel our team is very capable of being up there in the mix. I think it's funny how easily we forget how strong we were last year. For wherever reason, we just haven't been there. But nobody's working harder than we are internally to make it happen."

Besides, he's been here before -- worse than this, actually. The only time Gordon missed the Chase was in 2005, and with three events left in that regular season he was a whopping 142 points out of what then was the 10th and final playoff spot. That season also had its consequences, most notably the separation of Gordon and crew chief Robbie Loomis, with whom he won his most recent championship in 2001. Letarte ascended to the pit box for the first time late that season, and by last year Gordon was again one of the best in his sport.

Of course, that doesn't help him right now, as he hangs in Chase contention by his fingernails. Yet it says something about Gordon and the No. 24 team that they still have a theoretical chance to win the championship, even in the midst of what anyone would view as a mediocre campaign. The final three events of the regular season would seem to play to his strengths -- a pair of short tracks in Bristol and Richmond, and a big speedway in California where he finished third earlier this year and has won a record three times.

But then again, this is a different, recently resurfaced Bristol. And he hasn't won here since 2002. Or at California since 2004. Or at Richmond since 2000. Nothing is guaranteed.

"I think we can take a few more risks, because now we're racing a certain group of guys. We're racing 14, 13, 12, 11 in the points, so if those guys are taking bigger risks, it might push us into the corner having to take bigger risks," he said, before qualifying third for Saturday's race and posting the 16th-fastest speed in final practice. "But again, that's not our focus. Our focus is, make the car go fast, No. 1. No. 2 is to get out there and run our race, not focus on anybody else. If we do those parts right, we shouldn't have to take big risks. We shouldn't have to do things based on what the other guys are doing."

He hasn't allowed himself to think about what the fallout would be should he miss the Chase, what re-evaluations or personnel changes might have to be made. Those will all come later, if they're needed at all. Right now, the singular focus is once again on trying to beat this playoff system that always seems to get the best of him. Bristol, California and Richmond will determine whether he gets the chance.

"I think we're very capable, and our team should be in it," he said. "Even with the troubles we've had this year, I still think we've got a good enough team to be in it. We've got three weeks to show that."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.

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• Gordon qualifies third, recognizes Bristol differences