Every week, Joe Gibbs walks up to one of his drivers and reminds them that they have the good end of racing in NASCAR's premier series -- they get to make all the money, get all the girls, and have all the fun. The car owners are the ones signing the checks, luring the sponsors, and stressing over payroll and personnel.

And yet, at this time of year, it all merges together. With a championship at stake, the car owners are right there with their drivers, their emotions rising and falling a little bit with every lap. The man behind the wheel will get the glory and the big check after Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But the owner gets that spot at the head table at the postseason awards ceremony, and a little something else.

“

It's the pride of winning it and getting a chance to say, hey, I got the ring.

”

-- JOE GIBBS

"I do think the most important thing is the pride," said Gibbs, who owns the No. 11 car of series leader Denny Hamlin, who will try to win his first Sprint Cup title this weekend. "This is why we do it. I think this is a reason why you wouldn't be in this sport as an owner if it was just a business deal. I think it's the pride of winning something, and I think that's the most important thing for everybody here in these organizations. It's the pride of winning it and getting a chance to say, hey, I got the ring."

The owners behind the three drivers remaining in this year's championship hunt are all NASCAR royalty, with a combined 18 championships at the sport's highest level. Gibbs owns three, two with Tony Stewart and one with Bobby Labonte. Richard Childress has six, all with Dale Earnhardt, the most recent coming in 1994. And Rick Hendrick holds nine, one with Terry Labonte, four with Jeff Gordon and four with Jimmie Johnson, who is trying to win his fifth consecutive crown.

Hamlin leads Johnson by 15 points and Childress driver Kevin Harvick by 46 entering the finale in South Florida. The margin between the top two drivers is the closest ever at this point in the history of the Chase -- as it stands now Hamlin can clinch on his own only by winning the race, or finishing second and leading the most laps. The only certainty this weekend is that some organization will add to what's already an impressive set of championship hardware.

"You've got three top organizations running for this championship, and that's what the Chase was all built around is to have this," Childress said. "This is a storybook Chase right here, and I think it's going to go down to the wire because you have three capable drivers, you have three capable organizations, and it's going to be fun. I'm as excited about this championship effort. I wish we were 46 ahead, or whatever we're behind. I wish we were ahead that much. But we'll take it just being able to have a mathematical chance of winning it."

There are common threads running between the three owners vying for this year's title, each a NASCAR stalwart with a history of turning out championship-contending cars. When Gibbs first considered starting a race team in 1991, one of the people he and former business partner Don Meredith met with was Jimmy Johnson -- Jimmy, not Jimmie -- then the general manager of Rick Hendrick's team. For Gibbs' debut season in 1992, he used engines leased from Hendrick Motorsports. Childress, who at the time had an in-his-prime Earnhardt and fielded clearly the most intimidating team in the sport, was someone the former football coach admired from afar.

"When I came down here, Rick was nice enough to let Jimmy Johnson ... that Jimmy Johnson that we all miss and we lost here a few years back, he assigned him to kind of work with us on being able to start a startup team," Gibbs said. "I think we only looked over with respect at Richard and everything that he had done. I was afraid to even talk to Earnhardt and Richard. But Rick was nice enough, he'd come to some football stuff and he was nice enough to assign Jimmy Johnson. I don't think we would have been able to do what we did as a startup team and get to where we are if Rick hadn't been willing to do that."

Hendrick founded his team under the banner of All-Star Racing in 1984, as the RCR empire was nearing its peak. Earnhardt won four races in the former Busch Series in vehicles owned by Robert Gee, a former ace fabricator and car builder at the Hendrick shop who also was Earnhardt's father-in-law. And all those years of seeing Childress and Earnhardt at the head table at the postseason banquet drove Hendrick to meet and eventually exceed the championship exploits of his friend and rival.

"I did look at Richard's organization extremely hard, because we led a lot of laps and we won a lot of races, but we'd get down to the end of the year and Richard won the championships," Hendrick said. "I think Richard showed us how you have to prepare and run for a championship. You've got to be there and you've got to race every race and every lap, and you've got to finish. So I did learn an awful lot and watched Richard from the day I started, and actually not only followed some of his standards, but he has helped me along the way. We've worked together many times on projects. He's been a great friend and a great competitor, just like Joe. But it's amazing how we do learn from each other, and I learned an awful lot from Richard early on."

All three teams have grown into storied organizations, and late Sunday afternoon one of them will win another championship. At this point, though, even a shelf full of trophies doesn't ease the nervousness.

"The drivers, I think, they have a great feel for it," Gibbs said. "You see great athletes in pro sports, the ones I've been around, they have [an] amazing ability to relax. Sometimes, obviously, you have some that get uptight about things. But I would have to say, just guessing from the demeanor of these three drivers -- I'm just guessing at the other two -- but our guys, they're kind of relaxed. But I think they'll probably get uptight here the closer we get to the weekend. But I think over here, I'd rate myself as definitely the most nervous."

Childress agreed. "I think I'll probably be like Joe," he said. "I may end up having to jump off the truck or something."

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