Is This Jeff Gordon's Best Chance at a Title Since 2001 Championship?

Jeff Gordon may come into this year's Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup as the second seed, but he's likely No. 1 in the minds of his fans.

Having won his fourth and last-to-date Cup championship in 2001, Gordon has been chasing his fifth career Cup crown—the so-called "Drive For Five"—for 13 seasons now.

During that time, he's had good years and bad, even missing the Chase entirely in 2005, only to rebound to finish second two years later and third in 2009. He also finished third in the first year of the Chase's existence in 2004.

But in the Chase's first 10 years, Gordon rarely showed the kind of drive, resilience and burning desire to win a title like he has in 2014.

That leads us back to our original starting off point: Is this Gordon's best shot to win a Cup crown since 2001?

I say yes, unequivocally. No. 13 is supposed to be unlucky, but in his 13th year of chasing the Drive For Five, Gordon may finally have arrived at the destination he's been seeking for so long.

With the performance he's shown this season, there's little doubt that now at the age of 43, Gordon is racing like he did at 23, when he began a run that would see him win four championships in the next seven years.

Five or six years ago, it seemed like Gordon was ready to hang up his firesuit once and for all. It seemed unlikely that he'd race beyond the age of 40.

But since his second marriage, to model Ingrid Vandebosch in 2006, and the subsequent births of his first two children (Ella and Leo), Gordon has gone from potential thoughts of retirement to the possibility he may keep racing until he's 50 or older.

And front and center of Gordon's motivation is to keep winning races (with three already this season, he now has 91 in total, third-most in NASCAR Sprint Cup history) and to finally get that elusive fifth championship, with the possibility of then going for No. 6, No. 7 and even more.

In the first 26 races this season, Gordon was atop the Sprint Cup standings for 17 weeks. He earned three wins, had nine top-five and 17 top-10 finishes.

And had it not been for Brad Keselowski winning Saturday night's final Chase qualifying race at Richmond, Gordon would have entered the Chase as No. 1 after the points were reseeded.

Instead, he's seeded No. 2 and comes into Sunday's Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway just three points behind Keselowski.

Much has been said about Jimmie Johnson winning a seventh Cup championship in 2014, which would tie him with NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt for most championships won by a driver.

There's also been significant attention focused on Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is enjoying arguably his finest season in NASCAR in a decade, with his most wins (three) in a single season since winning six in 2007.

Adding to Earnhardt's notoriety is that Steve Letarte is in his final season as Junior's crew chief before moving to the NBC TV booth as an analyst in 2015. As much as Earnhardt wants his first career Sprint Cup championship, he equally wants to do so as a sort of going-away present for Letarte.

A case can also be made that even though Gordon (along with team owner Rick Hendrick) owns half of Johnson's No. 48 car, maybe Gordon finally got tired of Johnson winning all those championships—and came away with very little for himself.

Or maybe it's this simple: Gordon has just tired of being an also-ran for every year since 2001.

One thing to watch for: A win Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway would put Gordon in the Chase driver's seat, no pun intended.

History is on his side: When Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski started their respective Chases in 2011 and 2012 with wins at Chicagoland, they ultimately went on to win the championship in the same season.

Todd Warshaw/Getty Images

And Matt Kenseth won at Chicagoland last year, ultimately winding up second only to Johnson.

Gordon has a decent track record there heading into Sunday's race, with one win, six top-five and eight top-10 finishes in 13 starts at the 1.5-mile track located 50 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.

What puts Gordon ahead of Keslowski, Johnson, Earnhardt and the other 12 Chase drivers? While some may argue, it just seems as if a fifth championship is Gordon's destiny this season more so than he's shown in the previous 13 years. Since the season opener at Daytona, he's displayed all the right signs, the right motivation, the right attitude, the right team and proven himself to be arguably the right driver to win it all.

They say that 40 is the new 30. If that's the case, Gordon is 43 going on 33—and maybe, just maybe, he still has the second prime of his career and a few more championships still ahead.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski