Stewart, others make a statement in Atlanta

At one point this season, Tony Stewart was mired in the worst slump of his Sprint Cup career. He went through his longest ever top-ten drought and suffered through a string of races where his #14 Chevrolet simply was not competitive.

After recording the 38th victory of his career Sunday evening in Atlanta, the two-time series champion is among several drivers who enter the final week of NASCAR’s regular season having made a statement that they will be factors in this year’s championship battle.

Before his race quite literally went up in smoke as he completed lap 143, Denny Hamlin had one of the two fastest cars in Georgia. He and Stewart traded the lead back and forth in one of Atlanta Motor Speedway’s classic duels for the lead that have helped make the 1.54 mile track a popular one among competitors. In leading 74 laps and staying in the top-five for pretty much the entire time his Toyota Camry was operational, Hamlin served notice that the slump that has plagued his Joe Gibbs Racing team since winning at Michigan in June might be coming to an end.

Carl Edwards had easily his best opportunity - on a non-restrictor plate track - to return to a Sprint Cup victory lane since his last trip to the winner’s circle in November 2008 at Homestead. The driver of the #99 Ford Fusion led 32 laps, after leading only six laps all season and just 13 laps since last June at Pocono, where he led 103 circuits. His Atlanta performance was the latest in an eight-race upswing that has seen him finish between second and seventh seven times and have a worst result of 12th two weeks ago in Bristol. The surge is reminiscent of his push in early 2007 before he scored a drought-breaking win that June at Michigan, and it has signaled that he very well could be on his way to contending for this year’s championship.

Jimmie Johnson finished third, incredibly his first top-five finish since he won consecutive races at Sonoma and Loudon at the end of June. As with Edwards - and Hamlin as long as his car was running - Johnson was in the picture nearly all night, a nice change of pace for a team and driver who faded almost weekly over the course of their two-month slump. Johnson and his Chad-Knaus team haven’t needed to rely on ending the regular season with a bang, as they won the 2006 and 2009 titles after closing out the first 26 races on a little bit of a downslide, but when Johnson and his team enter the Chase with any bit of momentum, as they did after winning the final two regular season races in both 2007 and 2008, they have proven that much more unstoppable.

Two more drivers who can look at their Atlanta results as signs of potential championship life are the Busch brothers. Both suffered through early-race woes - Kyle with a green-flag speeding penalty and vibration with his Toyota and Kurt with a poor-handling Dodge - but rebounded and scored results of fifth and sixth. Whereas the duo had struggled to overcome adversity throughout recent weeks, both drivers and their teams exhibited poise and staying power once they were able to get back towards the front of the pack. Motivated and with momentum is a situation under which either Busch brother can be dangerous to their competitors’ pursuit of success, and that is where both appear to stand.

The night, for all intents and purposes, however, belonged to Stewart. While his run to victory was eased somewhat by the elimination of Hamlin, his performance continued a recent string of strong races in which he has finished outside the top ten just twice since a 15th-place result in the Coca-Cola 600 - the last race of a career-worst six-race top-10 drought. It was over the course of the final races of the regular season a year ago in which Stewart’s dream first season as a driver-owner began to come off the rails. He entered the Chase more with a whimper than with a bang, and - a victory in Kansas aside - never regained the level of performance that allowed him to lead the standings from early June. This year, Stewart’s team appears to still be gaining momentum as the Chase nears. For a driver with a penchant for going onto hot streaks, scoring multiple victories over the course of a few weeks, that puts Stewart, potentially, in his best position to win the title since he won the Chase in 2005.

All of these drivers, however, made a statement in Atlanta that they will not be footnotes in the race for the 2010 championship. Such a wide pool of potential contenders could make this year’s edition of the Chase a thrilling affair that goes right down to the wire in Homestead, perhaps ending the perceived necessity for tinkering to the playoff format.