One of Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 cars and one of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 cars rest on a circular platform in the glass-cased lobby of the shop at the back of Hendrick Motorsports.

They are side by side.

Neither is a nose, much less an inch, ahead of the other.

Inscribed in the platform are the words: “Teamwork is the fuel that allows people to produce uncommon results.”

They are words everyone in the shop lives by, and the results thus far have been uncommon, if not spectacular.

Gordon and Johnson have combined for nine victories — five by Gordon and four by Johnson — 26 top fives, 35 top 10s and seven poles in 27 Nextel Cup races this season. They have claimed more than $10 million in prize money and led the point standings a combined 12 weeks.

They have done this by sharing every nut, bolt and idea that comes out of this multimillion dollar complex in the rolling hills near Lowe’s Motor Speedway in North Carolina.

They don’t plan to change during the Chase, even if that means sharing an advantage going into the final race of this 10-race playoff at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

“That open-book policy is what got us here and it’s what’s going, I think, to get one of us to a championship this year,” Gordon said. “I think we both understand that.”

They have no choice. That’s the way team owner Rick Hendrick, who also owns the teams of Terry Labonte and Brian Vickers that will be housed in the building being built behind this one, wants it.

By sharing information and resources, teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have raced into the thick of the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

“When we started rebuilding back in 2000, we told everybody we’re going to win together and we’re going to lose together, but we’re going to be together,” Hendrick said.

“And every crew chief and every driver that’s come into the organization since then … we’ve had the goal of working together, sharing information and making it work.”

It has worked. Since Johnson’s team evolved in 2002 with Gordon as an equity owner, neither team has finished outside the top five in the season standings. Gordon, who is seeking his fifth championship, has consecutive fourth-place finishes. Johnson finished fifth in 2002 and second last season.

They’ve been ranked in the top five for 18 of the past 19 weeks this season and one-two for seven consecutive weeks.

Most other drivers make them favorites to win the championship. But inside the Hendrick shop, where all but a couple of employees have shirts bearing Gordon’s DuPont sponsor and Johnson’s Lowe’s sponsor, there are no favorites.

There’s only one.

“There is no division between the two teams,” said Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus. “All the guys work on each other’s cars. All the cars are side by side.

“You go to a lot of race shops, and there’ll be a line straight down the shop. It’s not like that here.”

Employees often don’t realize whose car they are working on until the bright colors are painted over the factory gray. The engine shop doesn’t produce different engines for Gordon than Johnson.

The process of keeping everything equal goes all the way to the photographs on the wall. Not once are there consecutive pictures of one car or driver.

Even the bonuses from both teams are shared.

“A lot of times it’s those little things that starts setting the dividing lines,” said Gordon’s crew chief, Robbie Loomis. “We had a party not long ago and one of the sponsors wanted to just have it for the 24 team.

“We said we can’t have a party that way. It’s got to be the 24 and the 48 guys.”

The only separation comes at the track, where each team has its own pit crew and support staff.

“(In the Chase races) it’s not going to change,” Knaus said. “We worked very, very hard to make sure it was established that way.”

Loomis compares being a Hendrick employee to being the parents of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams when they were ranked No. 1 and 2 in the world.

“They want both daughters to win, but they know only one of them can be No. 1,” he said.

Nobody feels that more than Hendrick.

“A lot of people told me, ‘You can’t do that, the drivers and crew chiefs won’t share what they know and it will cause problems,'” he said. “It didn’t work out overnight, but I was pretty confident we had the right approach.”