Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus on track for Chase run

[Schwartz Fan]

Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus on track for Chase run
By Rea White - Associate Editor
Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus know how to play the game in NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup.

The two-time defending Cup champions may not have enjoyed their traditionally strong season to date, but they are starting to show some awfully familiar signs of strength these days. If there's anything certain about Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports crew, it's that they know how to shine in the Chase.

If things go as they have in the past, this two-win streak the team is on is simply the beginning of a run toward the top in the standings. While it will not be easy to pick off the men ahead of him - Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch with eight wins and Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards with six – it's clear that Johnson and his team are in the best shape they've been in all season.

Johnson is more comfortable with the new model car being used in all races this season, the team is more confident in the changes it is making to it, and the results are showing it. The team has finishes of seventh or better in six of the last eight races. They've won three in that stretch - pushing their season tally to four – and also have a runner-up result and third-place finish in this current run.

So as the team prepares for the final 10-race run to the championship - a stretch of races in which they won four times last season - they are feeling fairly confident about their chances for a third straight title.

"Momentum is certainly something we are looking at and trying to carry, but more than anything, I think we are just confident in our stops and what I'm doing on the track and the way we can adjust on the car," Johnson said after winning Sunday at Richmond. "We even showed up [at Richmond] a bit off in practice on Friday and worked throughout the practice and got it right. So very, very proud of the effort."

Johnson is only 40 points behind leader Busch in the standings now that the field has been seeded based on a system that awards 10 bonus points per victory in the season's opening 26 races.

He admits that the closing of the gap - he entered Richmond 369 points behind Busch - has further boosted confidence for his group. But he's not taking anyone lightly. He looks over the field and sees a lot of top teams that can strike quickly.

He's also dodging talk that his team could be a Chase favorite and trying to focus on performance.

Johnson says it's hard to tell, right now, exactly what type of run it will take to snare the championship.

"You just don't know," he said. "From my standpoint, you don't have a clue until five or six [races] in what that average target is going to be. You get through the first five and do all that you can, and you kind of look around and say, all right, this is what we need to do, and then you go for it from there."

Busch agrees. Both are veterans of the past three Chases and know how things can change. Last year, it took an average of finish of fifth to win the title. The previous season it seemed as if every contender had a bad race somewhere in the stretch, lowering that mark.

"I think it's going to come down to the wins if you can get some and the top-fives, of course and on the bad days. Everybody says you have one or two mulligans, which it's hard to say, but would you rather not have to use those up? But whatever comes back the best with some of those is going to be the key, too," Busch said.

For now, though, Johnson is trying not to think too far ahead. He's trying not to think about the possibility of becoming only the second driver in NASCAR to win three consecutive championships, but to take things one race at a time.

But after a season in which the wins were harder to come by than they were last year, the team has made the dream of a third championship a possibility.

Can they continue the turnaround and turn this into a championship season?

"Now it's becoming more of a reality," Johnson said. "Still, the less I can think about it, the better I'm going to be. The less I can think about all of the stuff that's coming up in the next 10 races, the better I'm going to be and just fall back into the confidence that I have in my race team and my abilities and the confidence that we are bringing to the track and give 100 percent.

"If you show up and you're swinging for the fence every time, you're going to make mistakes. With the way the pack is running, especially the 99 [of Edwards] and the 18 [of Kyle Busch], you can't show up and run at 80 percent and just hope that a top-10 is going to get the job done. You have to show up and bring your A-game each week.

"I feel confident that we are there, now, and that we can run with these guys."


Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knaus on track for Chase run - Sprint Cup Series | SceneDaily.com - NASCAR News