BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Boy, a guy wins a race -- ONE race -- and all of a sudden he thinks he can win the championship.

"I'm not counting us out by any means," Dale Jarrett said after winning Sunday's Pepsi 400 at Michigan International Speedway. "I hope that we can continue the pace that we're on."

	Dale Jarrett won the Pepsi 400, throwing him into the thick of the title hunt.

But, wait a minute.

Maybe Jarrett really CAN mount a rally in the remaining 13 races and still claim this season's Winston Cup crown. It would take a Herculean effort no doubt, some heavy indebtedness to Lady Luck, and the need for more breaks than you'd see in a hospital casting room, but Sunday's win proved Jarrett indeed may not be out of the running for the championship, as he puts it, "by any means."

After all, Sunday's win helped Jarrett jump two spots in the standings, climbing into the top-10 for the first time this season. He's still a hefty 309 points behind points leader Sterling Marlin, but just 14 points behind No. 9 Matt Kenseth and 73 points behind No. 8 Bill Elliott.

OK, so Jarrett is still quite a ways behind Marlin. That's a lot of ground to make up. Yet, at the same time, with 13 races left, there's still plenty of time for Jarrett to close in on Marlin or whoever else will occupy the top spot in the standings.

As the circuit leaves Michigan and heads for its annual Saturday night at Bristol (Tenn.) later this week, Marlin's lead is even more precarious. Marlin leads No. 2 Mark Martin by just 43 points after Sunday's event, followed by Jimmie Johnson (60 points behind), Sunday's runner-up Tony Stewart (84 behind) and defending Winston Cup champ Jeff Gordon (150 points).

But this isn't just about Jarrett. While Sunday's win certainly renews his vigor and determination to get back into the championship hunt, he's also as much a keenly interested observer in how things will wind up as he is worried about his own destiny.

"It's going to be a wild race to the end (of the season)," Jarrett said after Sunday's race. "I think it's up for grabs for any of those guys that are in the top seven or eight."

When asked to handicap the remainder of the season, Jarrett puts Gordon still at the top of his list to win it all -- providing Jarrett doesn't get there first.

"I think it's highly possible for Jeff Gordon to still win the championship and not win a race this year," Jarrett explained. "I can't imagine that he's not going to win at some point in time, but he could do that. They're that type of team."

But Jarrett has a pretty good team himself. How else would you explain how a guy who started eighth, fell quickly to 39th after 10 laps due to a loose suspension, spun out of control coming out of turn 4 one lap later, bounces back into the top-10 less than 60 laps later, and then passes Jeff Burton to take the lead for good with four laps remaining to win Sunday's race?

"We certainly didn't start out like we were going to be sitting here talking about a victory," Jarrett said of what many quickly dubbed his "spin and win" strategy of sorts. "When I spun out, I wasn't sure I had enough talent to finish this day, but with the adjustments that we were able to make, it made it a fun day."

Furthermore, it continued what is becoming a Jarrett legend of sorts at MIS. Sunday's triumph marked 11 years to the day that Jarrett won his first career Winston Cup race there. All told, he's won four times at MIS, including three events that ironically have all come on the same day, August 18, and now stands with 30 career victories on the Cup circuit.

	“	It's going to be a wild race to the end (of the season). I think it's up for grabs for any of those guys that are in the top seven or eight. ”
		— Jarrett

Sunday's win, Jarrett's second of the season (he also won in June at Pocono), helps heal a spate of bad luck he's had in recent races. After finishing third at Loudon and fourth in the season's return match at Pocono, Jarrett ended up a disappointing 10th at Indianapolis two weeks ago after a miscue knocked him out of the lead. Then, last week at Pocono, transmission trouble forced him to retire with his fourth-worst finish of the season.

Yet, the 1999 Winston Cup champ still thinks he, crew chief Todd Parrott, team owner Robert Yates and the rest of his team have the intestinal fortitude to, well, gosh darn it, come back and win it all.

"We're just going to do our job, and if we can do that, maybe we'll end up in this battle if (the guys he's chasing) have a few more problems," Jarrett said. "I think it's wide open and it's going to be interesting to watch and see how they handle it."

If the top-five frontrunners start worrying amongst themselves about how to keep their closest challengers at bay, it may very well open up a space for Jarrett and others like Elliott and Kenseth to sneak up into the top-5 themselves.

"I think probably it's going to give others a chance, including us, to go and be aggressive and win some races because these guys (like Marlin, Martin, Johnson, Stewart, Gordon, etc.) are going to start looking at those points. You're going to start getting down to that point that they're all going to start saying, 'Hey, I've just got to finish in front of him or I've got to beat him today.' That will be a chance for us and others to go win."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.