Could Johnson be the greatest we've ever seen? (cont'd)

Take any favoritism or bias out of the equation and look at this from a cold, logical point of view. First, there's Johnson's relative youth. At 34 years old, he'll be the second-youngest driver to reach four titles. Petty was 35 -- not a bad parallel, actually -- and Earnhardt 39. Gordon was 30, and after his fourth title in 2001 heard the same "seven championships" talk that Johnson is hearing now, to the point where even the mention of it still ruffles him a little bit. But eight years ago, the sport was completely different. The championship was determined over a full season, the car was so pliable that crew chiefs could make huge strides in a relatively short time, there were a dozen teams capable of winning races, and it was much, much harder to stay on top than it is today.

Johnson has the benefit of timing. His rise coincided perfectly with the implementation of the Chase, which not only resets the points after 26 races -- although this year we'd have a closer race under the old system, with Johnson leading Tony Stewart by 13 -- but also features a 10-race playoff dominated by some of Johnson's best tracks. As it stands now, a Chase with Dover, Charlotte, California, Martinsville and Phoenix allows Johnson to bring a howitzer to a knife fight. He'll continue to enjoy that advantage unless NASCAR makes changes to the latter third of the Sprint Cup schedule, something that won't occur until 2011 at the earliest, if it happens at all.

Team chemistry

Drivers don't win on their own and crew chief Chad Knaus -- whose proficiency with the current vehicle speaks for itself -- is to share the credit for Johnson's success.

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Then there's the vehicle itself. By design, the current Sprint Cup car is encapsulated in a much more rigid technological box than its predecessor, a fact that not only makes it harder to cheat, but also may be slowing the sport's cyclical nature, and theoretically make it easier to stay on top. With the old car, there was a clear pattern: one team would hit on something and nose out front, then everyone would catch up, then another organization would take the lead. It wouldn't be uncommon for four or five teams -- say a DEI, a Hendrick, a Gibbs, a Robert Yates Racing, an RCR, a Penske, even a Bill Davis Racing -- to enjoy periods of prolonged success within a span of a few years.

Now, the limitations of the current car appear to be making it more difficult for everyone else to catch the leaders, which in this case are Hendrick and the No. 48 team. After some initial stumbles, crew chief Chad Knaus found a firm handle on the new car, and hasn't let it go. Would things be different with the old vehicle?

"It may have been a little bit easier to get an advantage in the old car, so with that being the case, I could make a case for yes, it could potentially be a little bit easier to run somebody down in the old car," said Alan Gustafson, crew chief for Mark Martin, currently 108 points behind Johnson. "I don't think it makes a ton of difference. This car does have a little tighter box to where it's tougher to get an advantage. Obviously Chad and Jimmie have a great relationship and they're a great team and they really work well together, and that makes it tough. To beat them, you have to have some advantage over them. Maybe the old car would give us a better opportunity to do that, but if so it would be very slight."

But in a sport where tenths of a second make a huge difference, a slight advantage can go a long way. The teams chasing Johnson don't have that advantage anymore. And many of them don't have enough sponsorship money, either, given the effect the recession has had on the companies that back NASCAR entries. Heading to Homestead, nine teams have won Sprint Cup races this year, a number that includes Michael Waltrip Racing's victory in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 and Phoenix Racing's victory at Talladega. Again, let's look back to Gordon's last championship season of 2001, when a dozen outfits found their way to Victory Lane, smaller programs like Wood Brothers, Andy Petree Racing, Bill Davis Racing, and PPI Motorsports among them.

Those days are gone. The sponsorship shortage has completely gutted NASCAR's middle class, forcing a number of programs to be shuttered, merged, or contracted. The pool of organizations legitimately capable of winning races is shallower than it was eight years ago. How does this affect Johnson? Simple -- there are fewer teams out there that have a hope of beating him. A decade ago, Bill Davis and Robert Yates fielded cars that were championship contenders. Five years ago, DEI had three cars that could win races, and Evernham Motorsports had two. Now even RCR, as storied a program as there is in NASCAR, struggles to stay on its feet. The car is tougher to get a handle on, sponsorship money is tougher to come by, and it's that much tougher to catch Johnson as a result. (Continued)