1. Jimmie Johnson (car No. 48): This team is like kudzu. No matter what you do, you can't get rid of it. Last week: 1.

2. Carl Edwards (car No. 99): The Johnson miracle notwithstanding, Edwards did all that he could at Atlanta. Last week: 3.

3. Greg Biffle (car No. 16): Said the right things about the Chase not being over, but didn't back it up. Last week: 2.

4. Kevin Harvick (car No. 29): From this point down it's pretty much a battle to wind up the best of the rest. Last week: 6.

5. Jeff Burton (car No. 31): It seems like this team fired its artillery but couldn't follow up with a charge. Last week: 4.

6. Jeff Gordon (car No. 24): It'd be interesting for Gordon to get his first '08 win at Texas, where he hasn't won. Last week: 8.

7. Clint Bowyer (car No. 07): Finished mid-pack at Atlanta (20th) and is now mid-pack in the Chase (seventh). Last week: 5.

8. Tony Stewart (car No. 20): You know this team would like at least one more trip to Victory Lane together. Last week: 7.

9. Matt Kenseth (car No. 17): Good solid run at Atlanta, but Kenseth is still looking to avoid a winless year. Last week: 10.

10. Denny Hamlin (car No. 11): One or two fewer late cautions and he would have had a big day at Atlanta. Last week: 12.

For the rest of the top-40 rankings, go online and visit www.thatsracin.com

So maybe you've heard that Jack Roush proposed his own variation on how to Jimmie-proof the Chase for the Sprint Cup after Sunday's Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

After one of his drivers, Carl Edwards, won the race, Roush said he thinks NASCAR should allow each driver in the Chase to throw out his worst finish in the 10-race playoff and count only the other nine. That would not penalize a driver too much for having one bad race.

OK, first, if a driver can go 10 straight races without having a finish worse than about 10th, why shouldn't he get credit for doing that? Why shouldn't everything count?

But even if you don't buy that, this is another example of somebody not understanding that no system is going to help you beat a team that's

beating you as badly as Johnson and his team are beating their Chase rivals.

Let's do the math. If we had a onerace forgiveness system, Johnson would now throw out a 143- point race.

Edwards would throw out his 64-point race at Charlotte. Greg Biffle would lose 96 points. Jeff Burton would throw out a 109-point race.

OK, that would leave Johnson 104 points up on Edwards. He'd be 138 ahead of Biffle and 184 up on Burton. And that would be closer than it is now. (Johnson leads Edwards by 183, Biffle by 185 and Burton by 218.)

As always, though, where these things fall through is in how fast you can make up points.

Let's say next week Jimmie Johnson finishes 43rd at Texas, and Edwards wins the race and leads the most laps. Under the current format, he'd gain 161 points and be 22 points behind.

But under the system Roush advocated, Johnson would throw out the 34 points he'd get at Texas and get back the 143-point race that's now his lowest. So Edwards would get 195 points and Johnson, in effect, would get 143 from Texas.

So Edwards would pick up 52 points and would be 52 back.

In other words, he'd be 30 points further back Roush's way than he would be the way things are now.

Look, what teams in the Cup series ought to do instead of worrying about how to

change the Chase system, is to figure out a way to beat the 48 team more often.

Johnson and his team come to the track and do their job. They got a lap down Sunday and fought all the way back to second place. A bunch of teams could have come in for tires with eight laps left in Sunday's race and tried to pick up positions. Johnson's team did, and Johnson moved from 11th to second in those eight laps.

The Chase system didn't give them those points. Johnson and his team earned them. Every last one of them. And every last one of them should count, too.

Originally posted on David Poole's blog, "Life in the Turn Lane," available online at turn-lane.blogspot.com.