Jeff Gordon Inches Closer to 5th Title After Strong Martinsville Showing

Three checkered flags are all that separate Jeff Gordon from his fifth Sprint Cup championship.

That statement doesn’t necessarily mean Gordon has to win all three of those final races of the season.

Rather, all Gordon has to do from this point on is survive and do what he does best: continue to be consistent in each of those three remaining events.

If Gordon can get through Texas, Phoenix and Homestead and manage to hold onto the lead in the points standings that he now has, his Drive For Five bid for a fifth Cup crown will be complete.

Of course, Gordon go a long way toward that by finishing as high as possible in each of those last three races, much like the way he finished runner-up at Martinsville on Sunday to teammate and race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“I’ve never felt like you couldn’t think about being consistent in this format, but points can still get you through,” Gordon said in his post-race media conference Sunday. “Winning gets you through, but points still can.

“It’s good I was second to someone not in the Chase. Had it been someone in the Chase, it would have been hard to swallow.”

Sure, a win Sunday would have given Gordon an automatic berth into the fourth and final round of this year’s reformatted Chase, the four driver, winner-take-all season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

But he got the next best thing at Martinsville. Now if he can only repeat with strong performances at Texas and Phoenix, tracks at which when Gordon is on, he’s really on:

In 27 career starts at Texas, Gordon has one win, nine top-five and 12 top-10 finishes. He's coming off a runner-up finish there in this season's spring race on the 1.5-mile banked and super-fast track back in April.

In 31 career starts at Phoenix, Gordon is slightly better with two wins, 11 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes. 

Unfortunately, those same two tracks can be bad for Gordon, as well. When he’s off at either place, he’s really off.

Since his last win at Texas in spring 2009, Gordon has made 10 starts, with five finishes of 23rd or worse, including showings of 36th and 38th in last year's two races there.

Since his last win at Phoenix in spring 2011, Gordon has made six starts, including finishes of 30th and 32nd.

And that’s not even including the nth variable—being caught up in someone else’s wreck and getting knocked out of a race not of his own doing.

Even though Gordon has between a three- and seven-point edge over the next four drivers in the Chase standings, he has a much more comfortable edge over the last three in the rankings: Carl Edwards (-20), Brad Keselowski (-31) and Kevin Harvick (-33).

Keselowski rallied last week at Talladega in a win-or-go-home scenario to punch his ticket into the Eliminator Round. But given how far Bad Brad already is in the standings, one really has to question if lightning can strike twice for him with a win at Texas or Phoenix.

Harvick, on the other hand, does very well at Texas and particularly well at Phoenix. But trying to make up 33 points—particularly if Gordon maintains the kind of consistency that has been his hallmark this season—is going to be very difficult for Harvick.

So, if the standings remain the same over the next two races, we’ll have a lineup in the final championship-deciding race of:

• A four-time champ (Gordon)
• Two former champs who haven’t won a title in a really long time (Gordon since 2001; Matt Kenseth since 2003)
• Two drivers who have never won a Cup crown (Joey Logano and Ryan Newman)
• And two drivers who have yet to win a race in 2014 (Newman and Kenseth).

Leaving Martinsville, Newman is three points behind Gordon, Logano is four back, Kenseth is five back and Denny Hamlin seven points back.

But honestly, put Gordon’s racing resume against any of them, and it’s hard not to pick him to win the championship. I should know; I’ve been picking him to win his fifth crown since probably midseason.

And I haven’t wavered once.

As far as I’m concerned, Gordon is going all the way.

This isn’t Gordon’s championship to win. It’s his to lose—and I don’t see that happening.

Gordon quotes came from the official NASCAR transcript of his post-race press conference.

Follow me @JerryBonkowski