LONG POND, Pa. -- It isn't like it was a secret before the weekend, but after their performances in the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500, make no mistake: It might be darn near impossible to keep Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart down the rest of this season.

And if it comes down to Johnson and Stewart for this year's Sprint Cup championship, how could you imagine a better show than that at Texas, Phoenix and Homestead?

“

For us to come back ... it shows to me what my team is capable of.

”

JIMMIE JOHNSON

What this champion duo did on Monday at Pocono Raceway was rhyme and verse of what makes championship teams, and championship seasons.

Stewart was a piece of work earlier in the weekend, part comedian and part skewer as he harangued a reporter for asking what Stewart deemed were less-than-brilliant questions; a picture of supreme confidence -- and why not, as he'd won here two months before; and then an image of abject despair after he wrecked his primary car in practice for the second consecutive Pocono race.

Johnson was just Johnson: witty, focused and accommodating -- and dominating in Saturday's two pre-race practices, where his No. 48 Chevrolet, the three-time defending Cup champion ensemble, was bad-fastest in both sessions.

But Monday was a different story. Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet rolled off pit road from his rain-induced pole position and barely advanced beyond the start-and-park cars in the race's opening laps. He pitted thinking he had a flat tire -- using the promise of a competition caution as his hope to get the accompanying free pass -- and fell to 41st, and a lap down (watch video).

Johnson's early scenario was almost exactly the opposite. He started second, took the lead for the first 22 laps and was either first or second for virtually the whole first half of the race.

But then a tough-to-diagnose engine problem began to plague Johnson as he spiraled down the standings. He fell as low as 36th, where he languished for more than 50 laps. He lost and regained three laps, and his crew tried to figure out what was wrong, going so far as to change the car's carburetor before finally hitting on the solution of swapping out some spark plugs (watch video).

And what's the point? Lesser men and lesser teams would have found ways to turn Monday's events into a spike, at the very least, in the foot and major disruption in momentum and, potentially, chemistry in this critical run to the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

For Stewart and Johnson, who came into and left Pocono first and second in the standings, respectively, points are irrelevant at this stage of the season. Wins, and their concurrent 10 bonus points, are much more critical.

But looking at the big picture, what Stewart did by rebounding back into the top 10 by the halfway point in the race, falling back to 20th at one point with less than 40 laps to go and then finishing 10th, marked exactly what he'd said Friday that his team needed to do.

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Stewart said his team needed to do exactly what it had been doing, and to minimize failures, miscues and disruptions. Call Monday a home run on every count. Stewart's crew chief, Darian Grubb, already a trained engineer, might be a candidate for a PhD in psychology.

"We never give up [and] we made the best of a bad situation that I put us in on Saturday morning," Stewart said. "Darian never gets wound up and it keeps me from getting wound up. He just helps you through it. It's easy to get down, but he's just calm and keeps you pumped up -- you realize you've got a long day and you'll get it better as the day goes."

Stewart's won championships in his more mercurial days, so despite being 21 races into his first season as an owner/driver, his 197-point lead in the championship proves his best days may still be in front of him; not only this season, when the series approaches what's typically Stewart's best stretch, but for years.

And for Johnson, Monday simply showed that, as many insiders suspect, his team, led by ace crew chief Chad Knaus, is just sharpening all its knives and getting ready for a real back-alley brawl in the upcoming sixth annual Chase and no one is better equipped to come out the other end bloody as hell, but still standing.

"I'm just so proud of the fight this race team has," Johnson said after the race. "For us to come back from three laps down and get back on the lead lap and salvage a 13th-place finish means a lot to me. I think we're going in the right direction and it shows to me what my team is capable of -- and I know what I'm capable of going into the Chase."

Maybe the only consolation to his competition is that Johnson, though they're rare, is still capable of making mistakes.

"For a while there I thought we'd get a top-10 but I pounded the wall off [Turn] 2 and tore up the right side of the car and lost a couple of spots," Johnson said. "We're all a little bit bummed out because we thought it should have been a top-10. I hit the wall with about five [laps] to go. I hurt the car pretty bad at that point."

So get that. Considering all he and his team had gone through, Johnson actually fell back to a 13th place finish. Sorry, but that's just plain scary if I'm a competitor.

"There's just a lot of fight in this race team," Johnson said. "I'm very proud of them. When we leave here and the dust settles, there's a lot to be proud of. What I was hoping to see from the No. 48 team is coming around right now. This is what we need going into the Chase."

The competition -- other than Stewart and Grubb, who already seem to have it figured out -- better hope that it's catching.

Wins: Thru Pocono (Aug.)

	2008	2009
Cup Series	7	3
Nationwide	6	6
Truck Series	2	2

Kyle Busch Victory Watch

Busch's season is about to hit its most telling point. A year ago, he won the Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen on his way to his 2008 record total of 21 wins (8 Cup, 10 Nationwide, 3 Truck) across NASCAR's three national tours.

But Watkins Glen also was about where Busch's competitiveness in Cup went into the tank, so what 2009 will bring is a big question. The neat thing is Busch currently is riding a streak of nine consecutive first or second places in the Nationwide Series -- another tied record for which he really seems to have no use.

This weekend he's got two shots at the same venue, Watkins Glen International, and he remains halfway there with 11 wins down and 11 to go. His 2008 win total at this point was 15, so it'll be interesting to see if his new attitude, which kind of back-slipped to surly at Iowa, prevails, no matter what.

For Busch, getting back into Chase contention is his most important consideration, and he fell to 101 points out after Pocono. That's bad, because with five races to go, that's a significant deficit to the cars that are mostly running their best right now. Just ask Brian Vickers, who needed to make up 20 points a race beginning with Pocono. He finished sixth and made up only 16, and that ain't gonna get it done.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.