Chasers should accept what's past is prologue

"We certainly want to put ourselves in position to win a championship, there is no question about that. ... Everybody keeps wanting to give somebody the trophy, you know what I mean, and it is only half way through. It is not done yet."
-- Jeff Burton

Good for Burton; he's not giving up the ghost. And, surely, neither is Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards or Clint Bowyer. But reality bites -- and when it comes to keeping pace in the Chase, no one does it better than Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus and the No. 48 team.

Johnson's sixth-place finish at Charlotte, his first top-10 at the track since May 27, 2007, is exactly the type run you expect of the No. 48 crew -- a solid, unspectacular finish that confounds the competition on its best day.

To that end, no driver is going to concede the championship to Johnson. Burton has a valid point -- there is a lot of racing left -- but does anyone foresee the No. 48 team having multiple off days? In the past 20 second-half Chase races, Johnson has eight wins, 14 top-five finishes and only two finishes outside the top 10.

Johnson's eight wins during the final five races during the Chase era would rank 10th among all drivers in the past four-plus seasons! (JJ actually leads the series with 32 victories in the 175 races since 2004.)

The list of most wins since 2004: Jeff Gordon, 17; Tony Stewart, 16; Greg Biffle, 13; Carl Edwards, 13; Kyle Busch, 12; Kurt Busch, 10; Dale Earnhardt Jr., 9; Kasey Kahne, 9; Matt Kenseth, 9 ... and Jimmie Johnson's 8 in just the 20 second-half Chase races.

Believe me, I'd love to see Burton amid a cloud of confetti under the lights at Homestead. It would be the culmination of his prognostication during Preseason Thunder 2006: "I honestly believe that you will see an increase in performance on the track."

"When I stepped into Childress," Burton said, "I knew I was stepping into something that needed a lot of work. You don't fire drivers, and you don't hire crew chiefs and you're not making changes in your company if everything is going well."

There is no question that Richard Childress Racing has raised the bar during the ensuing two-plus seasons. But even as one of the elite Cup Series teams, RCR is not in the Hendrick Motorsports stratosphere.

Consistency is the key for the drivers' pursuit of the top spot, but über consistency is the hallmark of Johnson & Co. during the Chase. I doubt many of the drivers are Shakespeare fans, but ol' Bill channeled Nostradamus when he put pen to paper: "what's past is prologue."

In other words, we've seen this act play out. (Continued)