RELATED: See all the 2016 winners
BRISTOL, Tenn. -- The reign of Kyle Busch may have momentarily subsided now that the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion went 0-for-2 this past weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, but Joe Gibbs Racing teams still wound up in Victory Lane twice.
Carl Edwards, Busch's Sprint Cup teammate, scored the win for JGR in Sunday's Food City 500. Erik Jones earned the victory a day earlier for the organization, capturing the XFINITY Series race.
So JGR teams haven't been beaten in a few weeks now, mid-March actually. And the organization doesn't appear to be headed for any sort of letdown.
All four Sprint Cup teams ran well at Bristol -- with drivers Busch and teammate Matt Kenseth rallying on separate occasions after tire issues occured. Denny Hamlin ran in the top five, or nearly so, for the first 200 laps before a similar incident struck the No. 11 team.
But Bristol, about as unique of a track as one will find on the NASCAR schedule, won't come around again for another four months. The "in-between" is littered with Dover and Charlotte, Pocono and Indy, Daytona and Loudon and many more ... as well as this weekend's stop at Richmond International Raceway.
RELATED: Recap all of Busch's Cup wins | See all of Edwards' Cup wins
It's a track where all four JGR drivers have excelled. Busch is a four-time winner on the .75-mile layout and Kenseth beat 'em all the last time the series visited RIR last fall.
But advantages come and go quickly in NASCAR, and nowhere do they disappear as quickly as at the Sprint Cup level.
Before Busch went on his mini-tear, folks were talking about Jimmie Johnson and how the six-time series champion already had two wins this season and boy it sure looked like this new lower downforce package played right into his hands.
Things change. Advantages come and go.
Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski don't drive for JGR and yet they’ve managed to win this season. And chances are they'll win again. No one will be caught off guard if Joey Logano, Kurt Busch or Martin Truex winds up in the winners' circle. It would be more surprising, in fact, if that doesn't happen.
RELATED: See the Chase Grid picture
The bigger question isn't can anyone beat Joe Gibbs Racing today. Instead, it's how much does having a win change what a team does between victory and the start of the Chase?
For some, it probably does change things somewhat. That win-and-you're-in mentality gives crew chiefs and engineers and even drivers the freedom to make changes and take chances without the concern of how it could affect them in the points standings.
It does not mean that after a win, teams will virtually disappear until the Chase. But it opens up the playbook considerably.
The need to win might not be as urgent, but the desire to doesn't change.