FORT WORTH, Texas -- Just when you thought a truly entertaining Sprint Cup season had opened a whole new chapter of intrigue -- forget it.

There's nothing to the seemingly budding fender-bending outbreak between four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson and his teammate and listed car owner Jeff Gordon.

Darn it, because on Monday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway this one looked like it had potential.

But then again, these are two of the best drivers in the sport, they're entering a stretch of races in which both drivers have previously won and there's one big difference: Johnson already has won three times this season and, after wrecking Monday, Gordon hasn't won in 37 races.

Short term, that amounts to a potentially extreme frustration quotient. Johnson said as much.

"I think we're both pretty frustrated with how we've been racing each other," Johnson said in his post-race media briefing, after he'd had an appropriate cool-off period. "There was some things [Monday] I wasn't real pleased with, so when I had a chance to express myself, I kinda did. We'll get it all sorted out. We don't need to drag it out and make too much out of it.

But look at the broader dynamics: This matches Gordon, the man who truly made Hendrick Motorsports famous by winning four championships and nearly 60 races between 1994 and 2001; and his protégé Johnson, who has won four more titles and 50 races since then.

In the latter period, Gordon's won 24 times, sure; but he's only finished second or third in the championship three times in the past eight years -- so you can only imagine what he's thinking.

Fans -- and the media -- have imaginations, particularly in a forum in which drivers snarl at drivers, drivers snarl at crew chiefs and crew chiefs and owners alternately coddle and urge their drivers with a well-placed vocal whip. Johnson said as much.

"We all know from scanning during the race, there are a lot of colorful things said on that race track about teammates and other drivers and all that kind of stuff," Johnson said. "So to have the word 'disappointed' used from Jeff and myself -- I don't think it's a very big deal."

So when Gordon allegedly snarled at his teammate over his in-car radio after a particularly "spirited" bit of body-rubbing racing for position between the two, what's the public to think? (Continued)