In Cup racing, it's not how you end, but how you start

Greg Biffle can feel free to book a room at the Waldorf-Astoria. Dale Earnhardt Jr. can begin writing his banquet speech. Kasey Kahne can start tuning his racecar for Chase events. Jeff Burton should go to his living room and clear some mantle space for a very large trophy. And as for Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards ... well, there's always next year.

At least, that's what the statistics would indicate. Fans like to point to the regular-season stretch run as the deciding factor in who gets into NASCAR's 10-race playoff, but in reality, those concluding events determine only the final few spots. The heavy lifting of qualifying for the Chase has already been done. It's the start of the season that puts championship contenders in the position they'll try to maintain for the next five months, or dumps others in a hole they spend the rest of the year trying to climb out of.

Supporters of drivers buried deep in the standings look at the long six months leading up to that September race at Richmond International Raceway, and see it as plenty of time for their men to make up the distance. Odds are, they won't. Recent history shows us that the overwhelming number of drivers who make the Chase are those who stake their territory well in advance, and those who win the championship are near the top of the standings all year long.

In the more than four years since NASCAR implemented the Chase format, the sanctioning body has awarded 42 playoff berths. Of those, 34 have gone to drivers who were already in Chase position after the fifth points events of the season -- which this year, was two weeks ago at Bristol Motor Speedway. Climbing the standings sounds viable in theory, but in practice it's brutally difficult, and in actuality it rarely happens. Simply put: With a few exceptions -- like Tony Stewart's stretch run in 2005, or Kurt Busch's late charge last year -- it's not how you finish, but how you start.

"It's much easier to be in the top five and have a race to give then to know that you can't afford to screw up or mess up or have a bad pit stop or anything. You may not make it in," said Ryan Newman, who's seen it both ways. He was in Chase contention all along in 2004, and sneaked in at the last moment the next year. "It's easier to work your way down a little bit than to work your way up."

Newman's 2005 Chase berth -- where he improved from 11th to 10th in points in the final regular-season event -- is the exception rather than the rule. Eight of the top-10 drivers in the standings after the fifth race of the 2004 season went on to make the inaugural Chase. The exact same scenario unfolded in 2005 and 2006. Last year the field was expanded to 12 drivers, and of those who qualified, 10 were already in Chase position after the circuit left Bristol following the fifth event of the season. One of those who fell out was Mark Martin, who didn't run a full schedule. The struggle of the outsiders was personified by Earnhardt Jr., who suffered early difficulties, was 18th in the standings after Bristol, and ultimately missed the Chase by 201 points.

As Newman suggested, this is a series where problems and pressures compound themselves, and deficits only loom larger as the season goes on. The way to win in NASCAR today is to get ahead early and stay there, a tactic followed by most recent champions. After the fifth event in each of the past two seasons, two-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson was third in the standings. Although Stewart secured his second title in the summer, he was still third leaving the spring Bristol event in 2005. Eventual champion Kurt Busch was fourth after the fifth event of 2004. The final champion of the pre-Chase era, Matt Kenseth, was first after the fifth race of 2003.

And so it goes, the standings after that fifth race a preview of the contenders who would battle it out in the end. Jeff Gordon was fourth in points after the fifth race in 2001. Bobby Labonte was first in points after the fifth race in 2000. Dale Jarrett was sixth in 1999, Gordon fourth in 1998. The lone exception: Stewart, who was 12th after the fifth race in 2002, but up to eighth two weeks later. It's not like he waited until August to make his move. In the last decade, the average points position of the eventual champion following the fifth race is fourth -- a number sure to sit well with Burton, who's in that spot now.

So even though the season is young and the point gaps relatively small (108 from leader Kyle Busch to sixth-place Kasey Kahne), don't be deceived. Chase positioning has been well under way for weeks, and those facing substantial deficits are already in jeopardy. Johnson, Gordon, Hamlin and Edwards currently occupy positions 13 through 16 in the Sprint Cup standings. All of them are championship-caliber drivers. But because of their sluggish starts -- or, in Edwards' case, a 100-point penalty for a missing oil tank cover -- they're all battling long odds this year.

Of course, hope is not all lost. The two eventual Chasers not in the top 12 after the fifth race last season both made huge comebacks, with Kurt Busch rallying from 20th place and Martin Truex Jr. from 25th. Jeremy Mayfield came back from 18th position in 2004, Hamlin from 17th in 2006. So it can be done. But we're also talking about eight guys out of 42, a clear minority. We're talking about just two out of 12 last year, one of them aided by a part-time schedule that eventually took Martin out of the running and opened a spot for somebody else.

This year, there are no such gifts. The drivers who make the playoff in September are very likely to be the same ones in the top 12 now. The Chase hopefuls buried deep in the standings are going to have to make a long, difficult climb, and history is against any of them reaching the top.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer