No. 1 - Jeff Gordon

By looking at the standings, it would appear that Jeff Gordon only needs to worry about his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson catching him. Gordon has a 53-point lead over Johnson, but with four races to go, that lead could evaporate quickly.
“We’ve had a good start to the Chase, but a lot can still happen in the remaining four races,” said Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. “A lot can happen in one race. In the few years since the Chase began, it seems like the champion has had at least one bad finish during the 10-race stretch. But that may not happen this year."
Johnson has posted some impressive finishes in the first six races of the Chase. But so has Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart, the third and fourh place drivers in the Chase.
"Jimmie has been strong and I don’t see that team letting up, and Clint has been consistent," Gordon said. “A lot of people are counting Tony out, but that team is capable of going on a tear. Until someone is mathematically eliminated, I’m considering them a threat to win the championship.”
The car Gordon's team is bringing to Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend is the same one it raced at Lowe's Motor Speedway earlier this month. Gordon won the race at Lowe's, considered a sister track to Atlanta. Both are similar in design and both are 1.5-mile ovals.
“I love racing at Atlanta because of the multiple grooves in the corner, and we had an awesome car here in the spring,” Gordon said. “But we lost a lap on pit road due to repairs (loose crush panel)."
In 30 starts at Atlanta, Gordon has four wins and 12 top-five finishes. The first start of his Cup career came at Atlanta in 1992. It was also the last career Cup start for Richard Petty.
To celebrate the 15th anniversary of that race, Gordon will serve as grand marshal for Sunday's race. He will give the command for drivers to start their engines.
“It’s an honor to give the command to start engines prior to the race at a track where my Cup Series career began 15 years ago,” Gordon said. “For the first time, the entire crowd may actually cheer for something I did. Or, then again, this may be the first time that the command is booed.”