Would third title elevate Stewart to fourth all time?

Petty. Earnhardt. Gordon.

Stewart?

Maybe, should Tony Stewart go on to win his third championship in NASCAR's premier series. Ranking the greatest drivers ever is far from a simple or exact thing -- most of them have competed in different eras, with different rules, in different cars, and under different point systems, variables that allow plenty of room for argument. It's never easy or really fair to compare drivers who didn't compete against one another at the peak of their careers, yet we can't help but do it anyway.

So an off weekend, with the Nationwide cars racing in Canada and Sprint Cup drivers lounging on various Caribbean beaches, seems the perfect time to ask the question: would a third title, for a team he basically rebuilt, rank Stewart among the greatest of all time?

First, let's address the top three. Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon, as the only men to each have at least four championships on NASCAR's premier circuit, are generally regarded as the sport's holy trinity. As always, there's an argument to be made.

David Pearson has 105 career race wins, second only to Petty's 200. He also has three titles, but he ran a number of part-time seasons for the Wood Brothers, and might very well have more championships had he competed in the full schedule. But he didn't, and so the exclusive membership of the Four or More Club remains. Of course, that's not to say someone else won't get in -- Stewart in upcoming years, or Jimmie Johnson this season. But that's another topic for another time.

Which brings us to the five drivers who currently own three championships: Johnson, Pearson, Lee Petty, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. Each of these men stand out for a different reason -- Yarborough and Johnson as the only drivers to win three titles consecutively, Lee Petty as patriarch of the Petty Enterprises team that would become the most successful in NASCAR history, Pearson with all those aforementioned race wins, and the unabashed Waltrip as one of the sport's first genuine media stars.

If you're ranking drivers, and you believe that championships are truly the barometer by which greatness is measured, then one of these guys has to be No. 4.

Then there's Stewart, who has two NASCAR championships under two different point systems to go along with a title in the IndyCar Series. He's been the class of the Sprint Cup field all season, with three race wins (one off the circuit lead shared by Kyle Busch and Mark Martin), to go with a series-best 13 top-fives, 18 top-10s and average finish of 8.7.

Despite a rough outing last Saturday night at Bristol, Stewart still holds a sizeable 220-point lead in the standings heading to Atlanta next week. He's shown few weaknesses, despite running for a team that was a train wreck before he took it over prior to this season.

Still, a third title for Stewart this year is far from guaranteed. Johnson, who plays the Chase better than anyone, lurks in second. Stewart will lose virtually all of his points advantage -- and conceivably could start at a deficit if he doesn't win one or both of the final two regular-season races -- when the playoff begins Sept. 20 at New Hampshire. As has been mentioned in this space before, only once in the Chase era has the regular-season leader finished the job and won the title. Of course, that one time was when Stewart did it in 2005.

But at this stage, he's taking nothing for granted. "It's way too early for that," he said of championship talk. "There's so much that can happen still. I feel like we're in good shape to be a contender for it, but I'm not sure I feel like we're a dominant contender yet. It's hard because there are so many good teams.

The Chase has taught us that it's dangerous to make assumptions. This time last year everyone was anointing Kyle Busch. Two years ago, Gordon's drive for five seemed an inevitability. Three years ago, Jeff Burton seemed so untouchable people were calling him "the Iceman." None of them won the championship.

So as bulletproof as Stewart seems right now, we're compelled to mention that everything could change in an instant once the playoff begins. He's having a tremendous season. To this point, he's been better than anyone. And he could still wind up in 12th place.

And yet, what if he pulls it off? Where would a third championship, this one at an organization that was so bad it could barely make races before Stewart took it over, rank him in the pantheon of all-time greats? He's already done something no one really thought was possible in this era, becoming the first owner/driver to win races since Ricky Rudd last did it 11 years ago -- a millennia in the constantly changing world that is NASCAR.

Stewart has a real chance to become the first owner/driver to win a Cup championship since Alan Kulwicki did it in 1992. This kind of stuff isn't supposed to happen anymore, and yet it's happening with a team that didn't have a driver ranked higher than 31st in the standings last year.

Of course, he has help. Stewart is getting engines and chassis from Hendrick Motorsports, which has won the past three championships with Johnson. To some, that discounts what Stewart has done. He's not doing it completely on his own, as owner/drivers did in the old days, they argue. His operation is really just a "satellite" team.

And yet, this same organization had Hendrick help last year, and often had a tough time getting past Friday. Ryan Newman, Stewart's teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing, is in Hendrick equipment, too. He's having a good season, but nothing like the one his boss is enjoying. Dale Earnhardt Jr. also is in a Hendrick car, and he's mired in 21st place.

So to minimize Stewart's accomplishments of this season because of the Hendrick connection is myopic. Stewart still had to hire people like crew chief Darian Grubb and competition director Bobby Hutchens. Stewart still had to lure sponsors like Old Spice and Office Depot. Stewart still has to drive the car.

Given all that, given that Stewart walked away from a sure thing at Joe Gibbs Racing to do it his way with his people at his organization, you could make a pretty good argument for him in that No. 4 spot should the No. 14 car give the driver championship No. 3.

Oh, you can hear the arguments now. But Pearson won 105 races, 69 more than Stewart has now! But Johnson and Yarborough won their titles consecutively! But Lee Petty not only ran a team like Stewart does, he worked on the cars! But Waltrip's 84 race wins are good enough to tie him for third all time! And don't some notable two-time champions like Ned Jarrett and Terry Labonte and Joe Weatherly merit some consideration in here somewhere?

Bring them on. But should Stewart finish the deal and win his third championship this November, and then accept both the drivers' and the owners' trophies at the banquet in Las Vegas, he may leave them all in his rearview mirror -- just as he's done to the rest of the Sprint Cup field this year.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.