HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Alan Gustafson stood in the garage area at Homestead-Miami Speedway, as fireworks burst overhead and the roar of a burnout emanated from the frontstretch. Jimmie Johnson was celebrating his fourth consecutive Cup Series championship, and Mark Martin's crew chief was ruing the fact that he couldn't make it harder for him to win it.

"We weren't very good [Sunday]," Gustafson said. "Regardless of this race, we weren't very good. We tried as hard as we could, and track position was important. Our car was so far off that we had to adjust it and lost all our track position and had to battle back from that. It didn't happen [Sunday].

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Mark Martin comments on the season, and the enjoyment he receives from competing.

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"In the [Chase], I don't feel like we put together our best 10 races. They were just a little more solid than us. If we can come back next year and put together our best 10, I think we can do it. But it's going to take our best 10 races. The encouraging thing is, I feel like we have the ability to do it. But it's not going to be easy."

On Sunday they fell 141 points short, as Johnson clinched his latest title by easily the largest final margin of his four-year run. Martin entered the race 108 points behind, and needing something extraordinary to happen -- especially given that Johnson could finish as low as 25th, and secure the title regardless of whatever his Hendrick Motorsports teammate and closest pursuer did.

"We had to be able to put the pressure on them," Gustafson said, "and we didn't do that."

The end result was never in question. Martin ran up front early, but fell back as day turned to dusk, and lost ground as his No. 5 team tried to adjust his car. He never mounted the kind of charge he needed to try and unseat Johnson, and the champion was able to avoid trouble like the third-lap crash that befell him two weeks ago at Texas. Johnson led 28 laps and finished fifth -- six spots ahead of Martin, who came in 12th.

"Our car didn't work well [Sunday]," Martin said. "It didn't work well, and we really struggled with it. And as the sun went down, we went to the back. We came in and pitted and tried to do some work on it to try to improve it, and it didn't really improve it a whole lot, so then we were stuck with sorry track position on top of not having a great race car. We just fought and fought and fought, and actually the last adjustment perked it up, and we drove from 21st to 10th, and then right at the end a couple of the guys got the high line going and got me back.

"It was a great run, that last run. I mean, it wasn't good enough. I mean, if we'd have been with that all day, then we were a top-six car maybe, like that, but we would have needed to be like that the whole race and not just the last run. We've got our work cut out for us to make our cars better for here. It didn't work well."

Gustafson wasn't precisely sure what had happened with the car. Martin had been third-fastest in final practice for Sunday's season-ending event.

"You never expect that," he said. "You never go into a race thinking you're going to be junk. You do the best you can, and sometimes it doesn't happen for you. We'll have to go back and figure out why."

Martin wound up as series runner-up for the fifth time in his otherwise illustrious career. But there was no public heartache for the 50-year-old, only pride that his team -- which had been buried in points after engine failures in two of the first four races this season -- had been the only one able to push Johnson to the final day.

"There's no frustration, man," he said. "I know you [in the media] would love it. I know y'all would love it, but there's no frustration. There's none. I'm very proud of what we accomplished. I'm very proud of what we accomplished, and on top of all that, I had more fun than anybody. So what else can you say, man? I had a blast.

"It's been an honor and a privilege, and I didn't leave nothing. I never left anything anywhere. We got beat, and we got beat under any scenario that might have happened. I didn't leave anything out there. My race team dug as hard as they could dig, and we accomplished more than anybody else in the garage this year except for the 48. That ought to be enough to make you proud."