Still something to drive for

— -- HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Jeff Gordon would very much like to win the final race of the Sprint Cup season Sunday. A fifth victory would feel like the perfect cap to a resurgent season for the 43-year-old veteran. And a win is a win, even with 92 already.

But Gordon knows very well that it would also feel very much like a lost -- or stolen from him -- opportunity. Because without the intervention of flabbergasting late-race catastrophes in the final two races of the third round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, a triumph at Homestead-Miami Speedway would have provided him a fifth championship at NASCAR's highest level and his first since 2001.

"That's only going to make it hurt a little bit more in some ways because we could have won the championship if we were here," he said after winning Hendrick Motorsports' 200th pole Friday. "I think it's not that I'm over it yet, but I've definitely -- getting to the racetrack, it allows all of us to focus on what we do best, which is go and compete, and when you're fine-tuning the setup of the car and making laps, especially at this place, right up an inch off the wall every lap, that takes your mind off of it."

Gordon led the driver standings and the race during a green-white-checker restart at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago, but suffered a cut tire and subsequent 29th-place finish when Brad Keselowski attempted to wedge past him seeking a victory for advancement to the final.

Last week, Gordon crossed the finish line second at Phoenix and was set to advance to the last four via points, but Ryan Newman bullied by Kyle Larson on the final turn for an 11th-place finish that ejected Gordon from the transfer group and put Newman in.

"It hit me hard when I crossed the line at Phoenix," Gordon said. "I think I was just really in disbelief for a good 24 hours that we did everything so right and didn't make it. You know, that disappointment was definitely there throughout the week, and then of course I go up to New York and I'm around people that are asking me about it, so you get these constant reminders."

The conundrum for Gordon is whether this season was the culmination of four productive seasons with crew chief Alan Gustafson or the high mark in a new level of excellence they will attempt to maintain in 2015.

The pair won three races in their first season together in 2011, two in 2012, one last season and four so far in 2014. Gordon has finished eighth, 10th, and sixth in driver points in that span, and he enters Sunday sixth again with a chance to nab fifth.

Gordon is one of several drivers at a performance crossroads entering the 2015 season, which commences with the Daytona 500 in 99 days. Forward or backward is the question?

1. Jimmie Johnson: The defending series champion and his No. 48 Chevrolet were pedestrian for much of 2014, failing to recapture the performance and mystique indicative of his dominance of the series since winning the first of six titles beginning in 2006. Johnson enters the weekend 13th in points and is assured of a career-worst finish having never ended a season lower than sixth as a full-time competitor.

2. Tony Stewart: The veteran shambles to the finish of a season woeful in all aspects, physically still exhibiting aftereffects of a 2013 sprint car accident that shattered his right leg, mechanically struggling to master the aerodynamics of this iteration of Sprint Cup car. Without a win Sunday, his streak of 15 consecutive seasons with at least one Cup victory will end.

3. AJ Allmendinger: Qualified for the Chase with a win at Watkins Glen, but, as he predicted, his JTG Daugherty team was not ready to contend for a title. Granted, road course aptitude has improved greatly throughout the NASCAR driver community, but the return of Marcos Ambrose to Australia to race V8 Supercars improves Allmendinger's chances to nab a Chase berth yearly.

4. Aric Almirola: Claimed a rain-shortened win in the Daytona summer race to put Richard Petty Motorsports and the No. 43 Ford into the postseason but likely will finish 16th and lowest among Chasers. He has made methodical improvement in his third full Sprint Cup season, but failing to recapture a Chase spot will be a regression.

5. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: NASCAR's most popular driver enjoyed a renaissance with his most successful season in a decade, winning four races, including the Daytona 500 and a coveted grandfather clock at Martinsville. But crew chief Steve Letarte departs to work as a television analyst for NBC after Sunday. Greg Ives slides over from JR Motorsports and a Nationwide title campaign with rookie Chase Elliott and appears confident and capable. But so did many of the crew chiefs who came before him who were unable to create the rapport and results for Earnhardt the way Letarte eventually did.

6. Kyle Larson: The Sprint Cup rookie of the year looked as if he belonged in NASCAR's big leagues despite having just four starts in the series before the Daytona 500, producing eight top-5s -- with three runner-up finishes -- and 17 top-10s. Except for the mustache he was sporting on the final race weekend of the season, the 22-year-old avoided many of the pitfalls of youth predicted when team owner Chip Ganassi anointed him as the successor to Juan Pablo Montoya in the No. 42 Chevrolet despite running just one Nationwide season. Nothing short of a Chase berth will do next season.