One can't help but wonder how much current Winston Cup points leader Matt Kenseth is thinking these days about what happened to Sterling Marlin last season.

It was exactly a year ago this week that Marlin was wrapping up a streak that saw him lead the Cup points race for 25 of the first 26 weeks of the 36-week season. He then went to Loudon, N.H., site of this weekend's New Hampshire 300, and left the track second in the standings, his reign of supremacy over.

And then, three weeks later, it was all over for good for Marlin, who suffered a season-ending injury in a crash at Kansas that not only knocked him out of the championship hunt, but dropped him to an 18th-place finish in the final 2002 standings.

For all the hard work and fruits of that labor he enjoyed during the first 26 weeks, Marlin saw his fate suddenly turned from fantastic to fickle. He not only lost out on what had been his best chance to win a Winston Cup title, it also may very well have been the best chance he'll ever have for a championship trophy in the remainder of his stock car racing career.

Granted, Kenseth, who has been No. 1 for the last 23 weeks, has a much more dominating lead than Marlin had at this time last year. A year ago, Marlin led Mark Martin by nine points heading into Loudon. Now, Kenseth leads closest challenger Dale Earnhardt Jr. by an extremely comfortable 418 points, and third-place Kevin Harvick by 441 points.

If Kenseth can maintain the consistency he's displayed in 2003, it's a fairly safe bet he'll wrap up the championship when the series visits Atlanta in late October, the fourth-to-last race, or in Phoenix (race No. 34) the following week.

Even so, one can't help but wonder whether there's some fretting in the camp of the No. 17 Ford. With the unfortunate happenstance that befell Marlin last season still fresh in everyone's mind, and given the volatile and unpredictable nature that is the hallmark of Cup racing, no lead is secure -- not even Kenseth's huge margin.

In light of that, what kind of gameplan is being devised back at the Concord, N.C., headquarters of Team Roush, which, after more than 15 years of racing in stock car's premier league, is finally on the verge of earning its first Cup championship? Will Kenseth and crew chief Robbie Reiser keep things status quo -- namely, keep consistency as the No. 1 priority -- or do they take things in an opposite direction?

It seems there are really just two ways Kenseth, Reiser and Roush can go:

	Matt Kenseth shouldn't get too happy with his lead. Bad things can still go down.

1) With the lead they currently maintain, they can throw caution to the wind and strive more for aggressiveness (and more wins, given that Kenseth has won only once this season), potentially wrapping the title up sooner.

2) Change their outlook from consistency to caution. Given the No. 1 target he carries on his back each week, Kenseth is at risk to be taken out by other drivers each week. And now, with 10 races remaining, Kenseth has the potential to be an even larger prize looming in the crosshairs of other drivers, particularly those who are so far out of the running they have nothing to lose.

If I'm Kenseth, my top priority from here through the final race at Homestead-Miami is to keep my nose clean, so to speak, on the race track. If that means driving more cautiously to stay out of harm's way and protect what he's earned thus far, so be it. If it means finishing some races in the top-20 rather than the top-10, just to defend what he's earned up to now, again, so be it. This is no time to get cute or trade what's gotten him this far -- consistency -- for aggressiveness.

I'm sure Kenseth would love to earn a second or third or even fourth win before the season is up. And given the fact that three of his seven career Winston Cup wins are at tracks still coming up on the schedule -- Charlotte (where he won in 2000), Phoenix and Rockingham (won at both last season) -- he admittedly has a fairly strong chance at adding to his wins total before the season comes to an end.

But wins don't always earn championships, and Kenseth is the perfect example of that. Last season, he won a series-leading five races, yet was relegated to an eighth-place finish overall.

The same thing can be said this season about Ryan Newman. He's turned what started out as a horrible start to his sophomore campaign into a phenomenal mark of six wins in the last 20 starts. Yet, because of the early-season struggles he endured, Newman is only sixth in the standings today, 619 points behind Kenseth. He has no real shot at overtaking Kenseth, unless something unfortunate happens to Super Matt between now and then, in much the same way as it did to Marlin last season.

So, with a 418-point lead and 10 races left, is the championship chase all but over for Kenseth and the rest of the 40-plus full-time drivers on the Winston Cup circuit? Is the man to beat going to remain pretty much untouchable down the stretch?

In my mind, far from it. One need only look back to last season and what happened to Marlin to realize nothing is over until it's finally over, as Yogi Berra would say.

No, to me, things are just starting to heat up and are going to get very interesting from this point on.

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Motorsportwriter@MSN.com.