While moping around during the first bye week of the Nextel Cup season (why do they need a week off after just two races, especially when they’re only going from California to Vegas?), I got to wondering, who is the Bill Belichick of NASCAR?

You know, the race team that, given an extra week to prepare, is probably going to find a way to win.

After doing a little research, there are two clear candidates, Chad Knaus, crew chief for Jimmie Johnson, and Robbie Reiser, crew chief for Matt Kenseth.

In the last three seasons, there have 13 races following an off week. This calculation does not include the Daytona 500, which comes after several off weeks between seasons. But it does include the Coca-Cola 600, which officially follows a bye even though most of the cars compete the previous weekend in all-star racing.

Anyhow, in those 13 races following a bye, Knaus has guided Jimmie to an amazing nine top-five finishes, including five victories. His other post-bye finishes have been seventh, 11^th, 16^th and 38^th, the latter of which came at the 2005 Brickyard 400 when Jimmie got collected in a crash on Lap 144.

Now we all know some drivers do better at some tracks than others, so you may be thinking that is skewing the bye week numbers. But in reality it’s not. While some of the post-bye races are always the same, most of the time they change. Easter, for example, is always a bye week, and that falls on different weekends each year.

The 13 post-bye races I looked at over the last three years have come at eight different tracks, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Charlotte, Indy, Bristol, Martinsville, Richmond and Loudon, which makes for a nice cross sample.

Getting back to Chad and Jimmie, their last seven post-bye races have produced finishes of 1^st, 7^th, 2^nd, 1^st, 1^st, 5^th and 1^st.

The only team that comes close to matching that is Reiser/Kenseth.

In those same 13 post-bye races, Kenseth, like Johnson, has nine top-five finishes. He does, however, have just one victory compared to Johnson’s five.

In the other four post-bye races, Kenseth has finishes of 8^th, 8^th, 15^th and 37^th, with the 37^th coming due to a crash at Charlotte in 2005.

Of course, grabbing both Johnson and Kenseth will seriously deplete your salary cap, so you may be looking for a cheaper driver.

Consider Jeff Burton, who finished in the top 15 in all four post-bye races last year, and Mark Martin, who finished no worse than 11^th following each of his four off weeks. Remember, though, that Martin is with a new team and crew this year.

Carl Edwards fell flat at the Vegas race last year, but he rebounded with post-bye finishes off fourth (Phoenix), third (Charlotte) and ninth (Indy).

The bottom line is, Jimmie Johnson is pretty much a must-buy. And if you can handcuff Johnson and Kenseth together and still come up with three decent cheap guys, you may find yourself in Victory Lane on Sunday, minus the showgirls, of course.