He served his time as a bridesmaid, coming oh-so-close several years in a row, to the point where folks wondered if he could ever close the deal. He broke through not a little at a time but all at once, unleashing a head-spinning and somewhat unforeseen era of dominance that catapulted him to the highest levels of his sport. He closed each of his championship campaigns with a devastating finishing kick, distancing himself from the field with such authority that his fellow competitors were left awestruck in his wake.

And his name was not Jimmie Johnson. Oh, sure, the two-time defending Cup Series champion displays all those traits, to the point where he's on the cusp of capturing NASCAR's biggest prize for a third consecutive year. He is a machine built for the Chase, those final 10 races where a driver has to be able to flip the switch and go, that time of year when winning leaves opponents not only beaten but demoralized. He is the perfect driver with the perfect team at the perfect point in history, playing the system perfectly.

But he didn't have to go through Cale Yarborough to do it. How fitting it is that Yarborough, that bulldog of a man from South Carolina cotton country, whose 30-year-old mark of three consecutive championships is now only weeks away from being equaled, just might have been the one person best suited to beat Johnson at his own game.

"The only thing I can say," said Yarborough, now 69 and retired to his 4,000-acre plantation in Sardis, S.C., "is Jimmie better be glad I'm not racing with him today."

They seem such diametric opposites, one a rough-and-tumble former Golden Gloves boxer and Clemson football recruit, the other a savvy dirt biker and career climber who exudes California cool. Yarborough was a central figure in the most famous fight in NASCAR history, his infield donnybrook with Bobby and Donnie Allison after the 1979 Daytona 500. Johnson's biggest scrape came when he was flung from the top of a moving golf cart. Yet as a youth Johnson idolized Yarborough to such an extent that when he saw his first Hardee's on a cross-country road trip, he ran inside looking for Cale. The hamburger chain sponsored Yarborough's Chevrolet at the time, and Johnson thought he had stumbled luckily upon the race shop.

Even today, they don't know one another all that well. They've met casually, but Johnson is champion of an always-on-the-go race circuit, and Yarborough, aside from checking in on his Florence, S.C., automobile dealership a couple of mornings each week, basically keeps to himself. But there's clearly a connection there, one that goes beyond perhaps being the only two men to three-peat on NASCAR's premier circuit. In their respective eras, few have been better at closing the deal. Johnson and Yarborough didn't just win championships, they slammed the door on any and all challengers with convincing performances down the stretch. They may hail from different generations and different coasts, but Johnson and Yarborough are of a similar mind when it comes to locking down titles. They make sure the competition doesn't have a chance.

"I've watched Jimmie," Yarborough said. "He's the kind of driver that likes to run up front. That's the way I drove. I can see a lot of Jimmie in me."

If only history and circumstance had conspired to give us these two men racing head-to-head in this playoff system. Then you'd have a show. By now, Johnson's feats are well known. Two years ago he pulled himself out of a 156-point hole by finishing second or better in five consecutive events. Last year he won four consecutive Chase races to seize control, and a repeat was academic by the time the series reached the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. This year he's at it again, winning this past weekend at Martinsville Speedway for his second victory and sixth top-nine finish in as many Chase starts. He heads to Atlanta with a 149-point lead -- in his first two championship campaigns, he was still behind at this point -- and in complete command.

“

I would have loved to have won that fourth one, but I felt like I needed to spend more time with my family. That was more important than a fourth championship.

”

CALE YARBOROUGH

But Yarborough, given his history, might very well have been able to match his younger counterpart punch for punch. Like Johnson, he too was stung by a string of near misses, finishing second to Benny Parsons by 67 points in 1973 (even though he won three more races) and then as runner-up to Richard Petty in 1974. Yet Yarborough could be held back for only so long. Beginning in 1976 he won three consecutive championships in Junior Johnson's iconic No. 11 car, in a manner that to Jimmie Johnson must seem strangely familiar -- he put his boot on the neck of the competition and never let up. Yarborough saved his best for last, pulling away at the tail end of each season to win his crowns by an overwhelming 195, 386 and 474 points, respectively.

He may have raced under the old year-long points system, but like Johnson, he was tailor-made for the Chase. In 1976, Yarborough won five times in the season's final 10 races, four of them consecutively, and in the process turned what had been a tight race with Parsons into a runaway. In the year's final eight events, he finished worse than fifth only once, a stretch that allowed him to clinch his long-awaited first championship well before the final week of the regular season. Does any of that sound familiar?

How about this: In 1977, Yarborough led Petty by only 50 points entering the final 10 races. He won two, never finished lower than fifth, and won his second championship by almost 400 points. Or how about 1978, when Yarborough won a Johnson-like five times in the final 10 races, placed second two more times, and completely dominated the rest of the field? There's a younger driver in the cockpit these days, and the car number has changed from 11 to 48, but Chase or no Chase, NASCAR's next three-time defending champion is winning his titles in almost the exact same manner as the last one did.

And what about this theory that the two feats can't be compared because of the differences in the two points systems? That's poppycock, says Cale. "You know, even though the points system has changed, to be the champion you still got to do better than anybody else has done," Yarborough said. "That's the bottom line."

But after this season, those parallel paths running from Sardis to El Cajon, Calif., and through every Cup Series track in between, will at last diverge. Barring an unlikely collapse in the final four races of this year, and barring an unforeseen shakeup on his No. 48 team, Johnson will almost certainly enter 2009 as a favorite to do something no driver in NASCAR's top series has ever done -- win four championships in a row. Yarborough, by contrast, didn't really give himself the chance. He was still potent in 1979, still driving for Junior Johnson, still capable of winning four races and finishing inside the top five in final points.

His heart, though, might not have been as into it as it once was. Sure, there was the big fight at Daytona to open that season, which did more to bring NASCAR into living rooms nationwide than any of Yarborough's three titles ever did, and unfortunately came to identify a driver who should be better known as simply one of the best ever behind the wheel. But Yarborough had other reasons. He turned 40 in 1979, and it was time to start throttling back. Within two years, he would be competing only part-time.

"I had decided that I was going to cut back on my schedule and spend more time with my family," he said. "That's what I did, and have never regretted it. I would have loved to have won that fourth one, but I felt like I needed to spend more time with my family. That was more important than a fourth championship."

So now that task is left to Johnson and Johnson alone, who if he achieves it may hold that record for as long as Yarborough held his. But one accomplishment at a time. It's been three decades now since Yarborough received what was then called the Winston Cup for a third consecutive season, hugging that boxy, wooden trophy at an Ontario Motor Speedway that isn't around anymore. In less than a month Johnson will almost certainly receive his third sterling silver Sprint Cup, holding it aloft on a temporary stage in the cosmopolitan environs of South Florida. Oh, what a spectacle it would be to see these two drivers, each in their prime and in a playoff system suited ideally for them, gunning to break the tie.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.