Johnson trying to keep rolling all the way to a title

The abilities to beat Kyle Busch and handle the pressures of the Chase makes Jimmie Johnson a favorite to win the title. AP

With six races left before the start of the 2008 Chase for the Championship, this much appears certain: The title will come down to a four-man sprint between Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

At the start of the Chase last year there were eight drivers who had a legitimate shot at winning the Cup, but not so in '08. Parity, for this season at least, is dead in NASCAR.

So how to account for the fact that four drivers have separated themselves from the rest of the field? It starts with the Car of Tomorrow. NASCAR rolled out the CoT last year, hoping it would bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots. Because of the common template of the car, there are only a few areas in which crew chiefs can tinker to try to find speed. But what's happened is that the best teams with the most money have been able to test these cars more than anyone else -- on tracks, in the wind tunnel, and in the shops on their seven-post shaker rigs (a machine that replicates track conditions).

As a result of all of this research and development, the elite, deep-pocketed teams have been able to seize a mechanical advantage over the rest of the garage. In other words, the CoT hasn't leveled the playing field, which was one of the main reasons NASCAR switched to the CoT in the first place.

Take a look at Johnson. He and crew chief Chad Knaus spent the final two months of the 2007 season testing and perfecting the old generation of car as they gunned for and won a second-straight championship. But by Knaus' estimate they fell five months behind the other top teams, because those teams were already aggressively testing the CoT in final months of '07.

Enter the near-bottomless resources of Hendrick Motorsports. Over the spring no team tested more than the No. 48, as nearly every week it traveled to tracks around the country, trying to unlock the secrets of speed in the car. Cleary, their work has paid off. In the last two races, Johnson has finished second at Chicago and first at Indy. And if you compare his average lap times to those of Busch over the last six weeks, you'll find that Johnson has been faster in nearly every race.

Even though he's fourth in the standings, Johnson is my favorite to win the title. No one knows how to handle the pressures of the Chase better than JJ, and those close to him will tell you that he desperately wants to beat Busch. The two are friendly enough, but in the three years Busch raced for Hendrick Motorsports, the two never hung out socially.

Busch told me recently that he felt like Johnson and Jeff Gordon had formed their own little clique and he was never invited to join their inner-circle. This clearly has left Busch with a chip on his shoulder. And while Busch drives his best when he feels like he has something to prove, Johnson relishes beating his old teammate.

When Busch snookered Johnson on the final restart at Chicagoland on July 12 to pass him and steal the win, the sting of that defeat stuck with Johnson even as he left the country to go on vacation. Johnson rarely shows anger at the track, but in Chicago he was visibly upset. Something tells me that once the season is over, that loss will be the key one of 2008.

Busch knows that Johnson is starting to come on strong. In the two years he's won the Cup, Johnson has entered the Chase on something of a roll. Many longtime veterans of the sport have told me repeatedly that momentum is the single most important thing in NASCAR, that once a team gets on a roll, it's hard to stop them. On Sunday Johnson will pilot chassis No. 502, which is the same car he drove at Chicagoland. Johnson is my pick to win at Pocono, a place where he's reached Victory Lane twice, and expect Busch to follow him closely.

"There's something to be said for carrying some momentum into the Chase," Busch says. "That's what Jimmie and those 48 guys were able to do last year. We've had some bumps in the road this season, but this M&M's team has been pretty resilient. We've just got to rebound and make sure that 48 team doesn't pick up too much steam."

Too late for that, Kyle.