Marlin

Now we find out what Sterling Marlin is really made of.

As the Winston Cup circuit embarks upon its final, make-or-break stretch of 20 consecutive weeks -- starting with Saturday night's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway -- will the driver of the No. 40 Dodge continue to take his easy-going approach to the championship battle?

Or, will the pressure of being No. 1, coupled with two straight poor outings, start to get to him and eventually force him out of the title chase?

"Honestly, I don't look at them," Marlin said of the point standings. "I just get in and get out (of the car and track). If I stick around long enough, I might go get a sheet and look at it, but there's nothing I can do about it. We race as hard as we can each week. We had some guys last week at Sonoma who had a good chance to knock a big chunk out of the standings, and they had problems, too. So, week in and week out, we're just going to go to the races and try to do the best we can."

Marlin has been one of the few fortunate drivers this season that hasn't suffered a long slump. Granted, he finished 43rd last week in Sonoma, Calif., preceded by a 21st-place finish at Brooklyn, Mich., the previous week. But Marlin is the first to think positively and believe such outings were more of a quirk, rather than the start of a slump.

Still, Marlin admits there is a sense of urgency to get back on track Saturday night at Daytona and try to start padding what has been a slowly eroding lead in the standings.

"Yeah, at Daytona or next week at Chicago, it's important to post a top-five (finish)," he said. "But then, you may have an off-day and run 15th or 20th, but you can't run 15th or 20th every week and expect to win the championship. So, we have to get back to where we were, get back to making these cars driving good and see what we've got."

How bad was the lowly last-place finish at Sears Point? Enough to prompt Marlin to test several days last week at various venues rather than take a vacation with his family -- as most other drivers did in preparation for the nonstop 20-week grind.

When you skip a vacation -- although Marlin does admit he did sneak away for a little fishing in between tests -- there obviously has to be a lot more concern than what he's leading on to.

"We're changing stuff on the car and it don't make any sense," he said. "No matter what you're doing, the car does opposite what it should be doing."

While it is definitely not panic time yet at Chip Ganassi Racing, you can sense the team is beginning to circle the wagons in preparation for a tooth and nail battle. The question is whether the tools it has right now and the route it has taken in the first 16 races will be enough to sustain for the final 20 weeks.

Right now, Dodges, including Marlin's, are fighting what some see as an aerodynamic and performance disadvantage compared to Fords, Pontiacs and Chevrolets.

"Since last fall, everybody else has gotten changes (to aerodynamic packages) except for Dodge," Marlin said. "Dodge, in fact, had stuff taken away. So, I really think right now the Dodge is not as competitive as it was. That's why we spent all of last week trying to make our stuff better with aero and chassis and everything. We made some big gains, I think, and the second half of the year we're going to run as good or better than we did in the first half."

With Mark Martin right behind him in the standings, followed closely by defending series champ Jeff Gordon, rookie phenom Jimmie Johnson and the always dangerous Tony Stewart, Marlin knows what he's up against. While his two-plus decades of experience are an asset, Marlin lacks one thing a driver like Gordon has: knowing what it takes to win a championship.

For, if Marlin is to win the crown, he'll have to do it by feel, talent, drive and ability ... along with a whole lot of help from folks like majority team owner Chip Ganassi, who recorded four straight championships in CART in the mid-to-late 1990s.

"Jeff (Gordon) and Jimmie (Johnson) have been running here good of late, and it looks like (Robert) Yates has really got his cars going good again," Marlin said. "Tony Stewart can have a good race and then a bad race -- they can't seem to put a streak together -- and Mark Martin is right on our heels along with the other Roush cars.

"So, there's lots of guys nipping at our heels. We've just got to stay focused on our stuff, get it driving good and see what we've got. As we go along, I think we can hold our own and be right in the thick of it."

To win that elusive championship, Marlin said he needs at least two more victories to add to his earlier triumphs at Las Vegas and Darlington, S.C.

"Like I said going into this season, I felt like we could win four or five races and be right there in the points championship," Marlin said. "Right now, we've got two and the season isn't quite halfway, so maybe we'll win a few more races before the year is out."

Despite the stumbles at Michigan and Sears Point, neither Marlin nor the rest of his team are running low on confidence.

"We think we're doing the best we can with what we've got with the Dodge," he said. "We're coming up to some tracks where we run pretty good at, so we're just going to try and get us a win here pretty quick.

"If you told me at this time last year that I'd go on to win four races since then and Gordon wouldn't win any, I'd have said you were nuts.

"So much can happen, it's so competitive. Back in the '80s, someone could run fifth and be four laps down. Look at our races today, if you're fifth place, maybe you're three seconds behind. The competition has really increased and gotten tougher and tougher each year. The competition is just so tough right now."

Yet as tough as the competition is, Marlin remains cool, calm and collected. If indeed he wins the title, he could wind up being the most easy-going champion ever. He even takes a philosophical approach to what may or not be by season's end.

"We've been doing this for a long time, and what will be, will be," he said. "We're going to try and do everything we can to win races and win a championship. If it don't happen this year, well, we've got next year."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.