AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway was the kind of day that'll make a young crew chief an old man before his time; and in the case of veteran driver Mark Martin, already 50, just make him shrug.

Martin's crew chief, Alan Gustafson, who's on the verge of his best championship finish, let out a hearty laugh when presented with that scenario.

Post-Race Reactions

Mark Martin talks about his fourth-place finish at Phoenix.

• Watch

"Well, you know -- there's days it does and then there's days when you realize how fortunate we are to be in the positions we're in," Gustafson said. "And at the end of the day I know all these guys have fought their tails off and put 100 percent into what we've done here and we were just off a little bit and that's all it takes."

A decent day and a fourth-place finish weren't enough when Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson won and led the most laps. Martin and Gustafson came into the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500, the penultimate race of the sixth annual Chase, trailing Johnson by 73 points.

Going to next weekend's Ford 400 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Martin unofficially trails Johnson, who's trying to win a record fourth consecutive championship, by 108 points.

Johnson acknowledged there's the possibility he could lose. A NASCAR statistician pointed out that nine times in their head-to-head career of 266 races Martin's made up 108 points or more on Johnson in a race -- including last weekend at Texas and in 2005 at Homestead, where Johnson finished fifth in the Chase to Martin's fourth.

The following year Johnson won the first of three consecutive titles.

"That's a great position to be in," Johnson said of his advantage, with a qualifier. "We finished 38th last week so I can't put my guard down. Anything and everything that could go wrong last week did. Going into this next week we just need to show up and race smart and do our thing."

Sunday's race, with Johnson leading 238 of 312 laps and winning his third consecutive Phoenix fall race and fourth of the past five in the desert, in a way epitomized the frustration that's been in evidence through the entire Chase. Martin and Gustafson's No. 5 team has been very good -- but not quite good enough.

Johnson's outrun Martin in 21 of 35 races this season, but a much more definitive six out of nine in the Chase.

"There wasn't one thing that just stood out," Gustafson said of what they battled Sunday. "We had a good car and we were decent, and we were pretty good on short runs and pretty good on long runs [and] our pit stops were decent -- we just weren't spectacular, you know?"

And against the machine that Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and the rest of their team have become, "decent" isn't good enough.

"To win these things you've got to be just awesome," Gustafson said. "And I think we were just a little bit short. But we were still really solid. There was not one thing that stands out that we didn't have, we just needed to be a little better in all phases and we came up a little short.

"But it was still a good run and we're proud of the guys and Mark. It was a hard-fought day and we just came up a little short."

Martin was a little more emphatic, even though he failed to lead a lap at the track where he won in the spring, in dominant fashion equal to Johnson's on Sunday.

"The car was awesome on the long runs," Martin said. "I really thought with that last long green flag that we were going to get up there and make it a four-car race, but our car got tight and kind of fizzled out. We didn't do any [adjustments]. Really, what we did do, we took back out and kind of left the car [alone].

"It was a top-five car the whole race. It was really good on the long runs. We fought from behind, it seemed like, a little bit [Sunday]. It was a good effort by this whole team."

And now they go to Homestead, where in the three years since 2005 Johnson has scored finishes of ninth, seventh and 15th; while Martin's been 18th, ninth and DNS. Not surprisingly, Martin's already satisfied with his five-win, seven-pole season.

"I'm pretty proud of what we've done this season," Martin said. "That's really all I've got to say about it. I'm proud of what we've accomplished."

Gustafson, who's been a Hendrick employee his entire Cup career, reflected a little longer on the historic moment their organization is about to achieve, which appears to be a sweep of the top three spots in the championship. Four-time champion Jeff Gordon currently sits third, 169 points behind Johnson and 42 ahead of fourth place Kurt Busch.

"It's great and it's awesome for Rick [Hendrick], with everything he's done for me personally and for this team and this organization -- it makes me really, really happy for him," Gustafson said. "With everybody at the shop, it's such a family atmosphere. Kind of our way to pay them back is to go out and perform every Sunday."

But amidst the pride, if they indeed come up second -- an agony Martin's experienced four other times in his career -- Gustafson also has a gnawing feeling in his gut.

"I'll never be happy about [finishing second] -- obviously you've got to come to terms with that, regardless of what it is," Gustafson struggled to explain. "But -- I don't think accepting is the right word. But I can say I can sleep good at night knowing we fought as hard as we could fight."

Martin would agree.