CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY; Jimmie Johnson takes Dover, jumps to points lead.(Motorsports)

Byline: AL PEARCE

Pundits have this Chase for the Cup thing all figured out. They've double-checked all the angles, pored over last year's stats and found a trend: The '05 NASCAR champion will have at least one butt-ugly finish and two or three mediocre ones during the 10-race, 10-driver playoff.

Last year's Chase bottom-feeders had at least three bad races and three or four other double-digit finishes. Indeed, 10th-place Jeremy Mayfield, ninth-place Elliott Sadler and eighth-place Matt Kenseth combined for 11 "mulligans'' (finishes in the 30s and 40s). By contrast, champion Kurt Busch, runner-up Jimmie Johnson and third-ranked Jeff Gordon had only four mulligans.

In short, the Chase is about consistency. Winning is nice, but not as important as avoiding mistakes. Busch, for example, balanced his lone Chase DNF last year with a win and eight other top-10 finishes. Johnson's four Chase wins and three other top 10s offset two 30-something stumbles. Gordon was 0 for 10 last year, but his seven top 10s trumped three finishes between 13th and 34th place. Busch won the inaugural Nextel Cup by eight points over Johnson and 16 over Gordon.

Is it too soon to start officially eliminating drivers from Chase II? Anything can happen with a 156-points swing from first to 43rd. But we'll say this: The Roush Racing trio of Carl Edwards, Kenseth and Busch can't afford many more stumbles. Each is already 100-plus points behind Johnson, who jumped from sixth in points to first by winning at Dover.

Teammate Kyle Busch was second, while Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Ryan Newman rounded out the top five. Tenth-starting Kurt Busch led five times for a race-high 192 laps but finished 23rd after a late-race, green-flag stop with a cut tire. To make matters worse, he was busted for speeding on pit road, costing him a third lap. Combined with his wreck-related 35th at Loudon two weeks ago, the defending series champion is 170 points behind and already close to going under. Or is he?

"You've got to believe that anybody is a threat,'' said Johnson, the only Hendrick driver in the Chase. "We've [already] had some guys have bad luck and slip back. If anybody can make it clean, I don't know who it is. I hope it's us.''