Momentum a hit-or-miss thing heading into Chase

What effect does momentum have on the Chase? Is there a correlation between a driver's finishes leading up to the Chase and the 10 races that follow? Using Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch as the best examples, momentum may be less important than a combination of smart decisions and good fortune.

In Johnson's case, momentum did play a factor in 2007 and 2009, when he won the two races leading up to the Chase. In 2007, he held off teammate Jeff Gordon to capture the championship. Last season, he and Carl Edwards each won three races in the Chase, but Edwards set off a chain-reaction crash at Talladega and followed that with a 33rd-place finish at Lowe's, forcing him to futilely play catch-up the rest of the year.

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But in the other three Chases held since the format was introduced in 2004, the driver with the highest point total in the races before the Chase has had limited success in NASCAR's "postseason."

In 2004, Mark Martin and Elliott Sadler had the best three-race point totals before the Chase field was set. Martin wound up fourth to eventual champion Kurt Busch, and Sadler finished ninth, done in by five consecutive finishes of 23rd or worse, starting at Martinsville. In 2005, Roush teammates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle had the momentum coming away from Richmond, but Kenseth crashed at Dover and Biffle was involved in a multi-car wreck at Talladega the following week.

However, the 2006 and 2008 seasons illustrate how fleeting momentum can be. In 2006, Busch was coming off a second-place finish at Richmond and had the best three-race total of the Chase contenders, only to record finishes of 38th at New Hampshire and 40th at Dover, dooming his title hopes.

Last season was a case deja vu for Busch. He won at Watkins Glen, posted back-to-back second-place efforts at Michigan and Bristol and ran well at California and Richmond, only to have a broken swaybar at New Hampshire and engine issues at Dover. Faced with an almost insurmountable deficit, even a stretch of four top-10s in five races couldn't pull Busch any higher than 10th in the final standings.

On the other hand, Johnson's 2006 season was the antithesis. After his win at the Brickyard, Johnson saw his 124-point lead on Kenseth turn into a deficit by the time the points were reset after Richmond. In between, Johnson was anything but stellar, finishing outside of the top 10 at Michigan and California, then a 23rd at Richmond after multiple accidents.

Johnson had the worst three-race total of any of the 10 Chase participants, and things appeared to be more of the same the next weekend when he started off with a 39th-place finish at New Hampshire. However, the No. 48 team righted the ship with five consecutive finishes of first or second to overtake Kenseth for the first of his three consecutive titles.

Could 2009 be a repeat performance for Johnson, who has just one top-10 finish since his win at Indianapolis? Another driver who seems to have lost his momentum -- at least for the time being -- is Tony Stewart, who had scored 18 top-10 finishes in his first 22 races, only to struggle since winning at Watkins Glen more than a month ago.

Conversely, drivers like Denny Hamlin, Brian Vickers and Martin would be happy to avoid Kyle Busch's fate from last season. With a streak of six consecutive top-10 finishes, including dominating wins at Pocono and Richmond, Hamlin has the most momentum of any driver in the 12-car field. Martin is coming off finishes of second, fifth and fourth in his last three races, which tops all drivers in that span. And since the circuit last visited Loudon, Vickers hasn't finished worse than 12th.

Time will tell if the driver holding the championship trophy at Homestead was able to sustain his momentum throughout the Chase, or just happened to choose the right time and the right place to put together the most consistent 10-race stretch among the contenders.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.