Winning a Cup championship is a very tall order. Repeating as champion in NASCAR's top series is even harder. In fact, a champion has not successfully defended his title since Jeff Gordon in 1998. But now with the Chase for the Championship format, I think capturing back-to-back titles will prove a slight bit easier than in the past.

A winning
hangover
After Jeff Gordon's titles in 1997 and '98, the names of succeeding Cup champions were impressive ones: Dale Jarrett, Bobby Labonte, Gordon, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth.

But none were able to successfully defend their titles the following year.

Why has repeating as champion been so difficult?

Because in addition to facing the same incredible competition it took to win a title, there’s a little something called a “New Year’s Hangover” that the champion and his team need to overcome.

The “Hangover” has nothing to do with a Dec. 31 party.

Instead, it has to do with a party that begins after the championship-clinching race, and continues through most of December. 

Party might not be the correct term to describe what happens to the champion and his team.

The “party” includes all of the functions a champion and his team must undertake after winning the title, beginning with the endless days of media obligations after claiming the crown, continuing through the week-long New York awards event, and then sponsor and manufacturer appearances -- sharing the celebration with all of those who helped make it possible.

It’s an exhausting process, and by the time it’s finished, a big rest is in order.

The problem is that there’s no time to rest.

When the celebrations are finished, it’s on to the holidays, always busy in most households, then right into preseason testing in January -- testing that now runs from coast to coast, and lasts the full month.

Before you know it, the season has started, and the chance to recharge and rest up is gone.

Team also feels impact
Although a lot of what I just described revolves around the driver, the team suffers its own form of a hangover. 

Once the team finishes the New York awards celebration, it’s time to focus on the next season and prepare for testing.

But with so much effort, physically and emotionally, invested in the final months of the successful championship bid, and no time to rest and recover, a team easily suffers a let down, and falls a little bit behind the competition in preparing for the new season.

It’s hard to maintain the intensity and effort needed at all times in NASCAR without any chance for rest and relaxation, and the championship team begins the new season a little low on energy.

Chase forgiving of slow start
I think the Chase for the Championship format should make it easier for a title-winning team to overcome the “hangover.”

Under the previous Cup-crowning system, if a championship team was a little slow out of the blocks to start the season, it might easily find itself 200 or 300 points behind the leader very quickly.

That’s a big deficit to spot the competition, and not one likely to be overcome through the course of the rest of the season.

But now, instead of worrying about his deficit to the points leader, all the defending Cup champion really needs to focus on is making sure he’s in the top 10 in the standings or within 400 points of the leader by race No. 26 in early September, as that will qualify him for the 10-race playoff for the championship.

It really doesn’t matter how far behind the leader a driver is at race 26, as long as he is in the playoff since the point totals of those in the Chase are reset by five-point increments from top to bottom of the playoff field.

A 200-or-300-point gap to the leader becomes probably 45 points at most, depending on how many drivers qualify for the Chase.

By the time the final 10 races arrive, the defending Cup champion and his team are over their “hangover,” and because of the new Chase format, an early-season deficit is no longer an issue.

They have new life at defending their title.

It’s not much of a stretch to expect the defending Cup champion to at least make the Chase the following season, thus my opinion that repeating as champion will become easier.

Don't count Busch out
The team of 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch of Roush Racing was well aware of the “hangover” after winning the title last November.

On the day after the Homestead-Miami finale, while the driver was locked away doing television interviews all day, his crew chief Jimmy Fennig was back at the team’s shop, locked in on the mission of preparations for 2005.

Still, even if there’s a hangover for Busch's team starting the new campaign, all they need to focus on is making the top 10 by the Richmond race next September.

I would count on them doing that.

And once they get into the Chase, they’ve got as good a chance as any team to take home the trophy.

With the bulk of Roush Racing’s operation undergoing little change from 2004 to 2005, and the new championship playoff, the chance of a repeat champion is better than it’s been for some time.