As Johnson looks ahead, history bodes in his favor

With five races remaining in the 2009 season, should the engravers begin to etch Jimmie Johnson's name on the Sprint Cup trophy for a fourth consecutive year? Johnson himself might be the first one to say "not so fast," particularly since he's erased similiar deficits twice. However, taking into consideration every season since Bob Latford's points system was instituted in 1975, the odds are definitely in his favor.

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But if past performance is taken into account, it's going to take a Jimmie Johnson-like streak for someone to catch Jimmie Johnson.

In 2006, Johnson was coming off a second-place run at Charlotte but was still seventh in the standings, 146 points behind Jeff Burton, with five races to go. Amazingly, he not only vaulted everyone in his path, but he wound up 56 points ahead of runner-up Matt Kenseth and 247 in front of Burton by season's end.

Not only did Johnson go on a tear, winning at Martinsville and then recording three consecutive second-place finishes, but the stars aligned in his favor as the other six drivers in contention tripped and fell along the way.

Martinsville doomed the chances of Burton (42nd) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (22nd). Kenseth finished outside the top 10 at Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix. Kevin Harvick was done in by a 31st at Atlanta. Mark Martin had four consecutive finishes of 22nd or worse. And Denny Hamlin strung together five consecutive top-10 finishes but couldn't keep up Johnson's torrid points pace.

The following year, Johnson trailed Jeff Gordon by 68 points with five races remaining, and even though Gordon didn't finish worse than 10th in any of the remaining events, Johnson successfully defended his crown by 77 points by the time the checkered flag fell at Homestead.

But even though Johnson has dug himself out of deep holes twice to win championships, the only other driver since 1975 to rally back from a deficit of more than 100 points with five races remaining is Alan Kulwicki in 1992. After finishing fifth at Martinsville, Kulwicki was third, 191 points behind Bill Elliott and trailed second-place Davey Allison by 79.

Somewhat like Johnson in 2006, Kulwicki made up the difference with a little help from his competition. While Kulwicki was finishing second at Charlotte and fourth at Phoenix, Elliott ran into misfortune three weeks in a row -- 30th at Martinsville, 26th at North Wilkesboro and 30th at Charlotte.

In fact, Elliott's 30th-place finish at Phoenix -- a day-long battle with mechanical issues -- dropped him to third in the standings heading into the season-finale at Atlanta. Allison had also struggled during that same stretch, finishing 10th or worse four races in a row before taking the points lead with his win at Phoenix.

And we all know how things turned out at Atlanta; that story's been told many times.

One of the goals of the Chase format was to make sure the final few races of the season were considered significant, and based on the results so far, no one has clinched the title before Homestead. But it's somewhat of a fallacy to believe that the old system was seriously flawed. Many people will point to Kenseth's runaway championship in 2003, when he beat Kevin Harvick by 267 points, as a major impetus for the Chase.

But of the 29 seasons between 1975 and 2003, first and second were separated by less than 100 points with five races remaining on 14 occasions. And in five others, the difference was less than 150. So Latford's system did what it intended to do more than half the time.

Surprisingly, there haven't been as many lopsided title runs as you might imagine. With five races remaining in the 1978 campaign, Cale Yarborough had a 408-point advantage over Benny Parsons. Nine years later, Dale Earnhardt led Elliott by 568 points with five events left. And using conventional scoring, Gordon would have had a 498-point cushion over Johnson at this point in 2007.

Gordon's an interesting case study. In each of his four Cup championship seasons, he had leads of no less than 135 points with five races left, and pretty much laid waste to the opposition in 2001, leading runner-up Ricky Rudd by 395 points after Talladega.

Thanks to the Chase format, which resets the points after 26 races, there's one mark that's pretty much guaranteed never to be broken. With five races remaining in the 1975 season, Richard Petty led Benny Parsons by 878 points. He would go on to win the title by 722 points over Dave Marcis.