Jimmie Johnson is poised to be the first driver to win the Daytona 500, the All-Star Challenge, the Brickyard 400 and the Nextel Cup in the same year. Credit: Autostock

Cross' Words: Texas

Nextel Cup is within Johnson's grasp -- and he won't let it slip

Random ruminations after Texas ...

• When Jimmie Johnson hoists the Nextel Cup in two weeks at Homestead, each Chase driver -- including Johnson -- will have at least one finish that falls under woulda, coulda, shoulda. Fact is, Johnson's late-season surge is as impressive as his stretch run in 2004.

Inside the Numbers Jimmie Johnson in the Chase Track '04 Finish   Track '06 Finish Loudon 11   Loudon 39 Dover 10   Dover 13 Talladega 37   Kansas 14 Kansas 32   Talladega 24 Charlotte 1   Charlotte 2 Martinsville 1   Martinsville 1 Atlanta 1   Atlanta 2 Phoenix 6   Texas 2 Darlington 1   Phoenix   Homestead 2   Homestead

Through the first four races of the '04 Chase, Johnson's average finish was 22.5, and he trailed Kurt Busch by 247 points.

Through the first four races of the '06 Chase, Johnson's average finish was 22.5, and he trailed Jeff Burton by 156 points.

History will not repeat itself.

This year, Johnson has the inside track on the championship on the strength of his consistency in the Chase:

• One of four title contenders with a win through eight playoff races;
• Leads the Chase field with four top-five finishes;
• Four top-10 finishes trail only Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon (5);
• Has run 85.1 percent of his laps in the top 15, tied with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and second to only Gordon (86.8 percent);
• Driver rating (108.7) is more than three points ahead of second-place Junior (105.5).

"So how is the strategy going to change now that we have the lead and aren't playing catch-up? Not one bit," says Johnson. "We are going to do the same things that got us here. Go to Phoenix and Homestead, not worry about anything but having fun and going fast.

"I think the thing I have learned about being in the Chase is that you have to keep doing what you have been doing all year. That's not just from the racing side of things either. I'm not changing anything in my personal life. Heck, I hope to get a few rounds of golf in during the next two weeks.

"I think it is the best strategy," he says, "plus it's kind of fun compared to sitting around worrying about things and making yourself miserable."

Now consider that Matt Kenseth's track records at Phoenix and Homestead are second tier among the Chase drivers and you can see Hendrick Motorsports adding to its trophy case ...

• There are matches made in heaven -- peanut butter and jelly, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, even the Captain & Tennille.

NBC and NASCAR ... not so much.

Did you know that Sunday was Football Night in America? Watch an NBC telecast, they'll beat you over the head with the commercial. (Anyone at NBC ever heard of high school football? Isn't that -- Fridays -- football night? Nah, NBC has that covered: Friday Night Lights -- on Tuesdays!)

Maybe if NBC had spent just a fraction of its energies promoting NASCAR the network's race numbers wouldn't be rivaling 30 Rock as the biggest joke on TV. ... It hard to believe this is the same network that brought us Must-See TV; seems it's now more like Must-y TV.

And now a word from our sponsors; we'll be back a lap into the next green-flag run ...

• Bobby Labonte finished 16th on Sunday, his seventh consecutive top-20 finish. He hasn't had a run like that since the final seven races of the 2004 season. It's also the best stretch for a Petty Enterprises driver since Kyle Petty had six top-20s between Charlotte and Daytona (Races 12-17) in '02 ...

• There is no truth to the rumor that this was David Ragan's speedometer at Texas.

It was A.J. Allmendinger's ...

• Casey Mears' seventh-place run at Texas, his fourth top-15 finish in the past six races, was his fourth top-10 in six starts at the track ...

• Clint Bowyer's average running position on Sunday was 7.274, fourth-best in the field. His fifth-place finish marked his 10th top-10 of 2006, and Bowyer was the highest finishing rookie for the eighth time this year. At least one rookie of the year contender has scored a top-15 finish in all 34 races ...

• Maybe Jeff Burton should have told brother Ward to stay in the woods; Jeff's average finish in the two races with Ward: 40th. However, Ward's average finish is 25.5 -- a tick better than his 25.7 average for the 2004 season. Some things do get better with age. Or is it the more things change the more they stay the same? ...

• Tony Stewart had led 175 laps in nine starts at Texas entering Sunday's race, when he ran on point for a race-high 278 laps -- and Smoke now holds the track record in laps led (453). Dale Jarrett is second (407) and Matt Kenseth is third (314).

So why is everyone poo-pooing Stewart's late-season run? He isn't competing for the championship, but he's still in the field to win the race. "I don't think I'm crashing anybody's party. I'm still not going to be in the top 10 and I'm still not going to be able to go for the trophy at the end of the year."

Well, not the trophy -- but he does have his eye on the Ford 400 hardware: "This car that we ran [Sunday] has three wins and zero losses. I want to sleep next to this car and make sure nothing happens to it each night for the rest of the year.

"I don't care what cars we took to the tests," he says, "I can promise you this is the car that I will race at Homestead in two weeks."

• For those who cannot get enough of what-if -- yes, if he had made the cut, Stewart would be leading Johnson by 73 points in the Chase ... and yes, if they were racing circa 2003, Kenseth would be leading Johnson by 35 points. ... Alas, NASCAR made a move before the 2004 season to a 10-race playoff, and here's how it stacks up in the real world (where frogs don't have wings and do bump their ... ahh, never mind):

Say Anything

"Those guys decided that they wanted to take matters into their own hands and trip my wife in front of their pit box and ran her over. That's a little bit unnecessary so we're not too happy about that."
-- Kevin Harvick, after a post-race altercation with a crew member of the No. 10 team

• Harvick, Riggs' crewman have run-in after wreck

Figuratively Speaking

1 -- Cup champions who have won at Phoenix the same year he claimed the series title: Dale Earnhardt on Nov. 4, 1990.

Dickies 500 Official Results Pos. Driver Make 1. Tony Stewart Chevy 2. Jimmie Johnson Chevy 3. Kevin Harvick Chevy 4. Kyle Busch Chevy 5. Clint Bowyer Chevy • Complete results, click here • Official standings, click here Victory LaneTony Stewart celebrates his Dickies 500 win at Texas Top finishersDale Jr., Johnson and Bowyer talk about their race in Texas UnfortunateJeff Burton slams the wall, sending him to garage with heavy damage Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

The Intimidator entered the Valley of the Sun trailing Mark Martin by 45 points, then won the Checker 500 (Martin finished 10th) to take a six-point lead to the season finale at Atlanta.

Earnhardt finished third at AMS (Martin was sixth) as he claimed his fourth of seven Cup Series championships by 26 points.

Fast Facts

• Clint Bowyer became the 15th driver with at least 10 top-10 finishes this year. The last time at least 15 drivers did not have double-digit top-10s: 2000, when Joe Nemechek just missed with nine. The last time at least 10 drivers failed to garner 10 top-10s: 1973, when Dick Brooks and Lennie Pond finished with nine.

• The trend of strong finishes for the top-rated pre-race drivers continued at Texas: For the seventh consecutive week the winning driver --Tony Stewart -- had a pre-race Driver Rating ranking in the top 10. Kevin Harvick was the last driver to win with a pre-race Driver Rating outside the top 10 -- at New Hampshire in September. Harvick's pre-race Driver Rating at New Hampshire was 91.1 (12th).

Up Next

Phoenix | 3 p.m. ET Sunday | NBC

• With the retirement of Terry Labonte, there are 10 active drivers with wins at Phoenix. Only two have multiple victories: Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr., with two apiece. (Davey Allison also had two.) And only two drivers have double-digit top-10 finishes: Mark Martin (13) and Jeff Gordon (12).

• The race has never been won from the Bud Pole at Phoenix. In fact, race winners have done so from a top-10 starting position only seven of 20 times. The average starting position of the winners at Phoenix has been 13.8.

Mailbag

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Ain't it funny how quiet the NASCAR community has been toward Kevin Harvick's total annihilation of the competition in the Busch Series? Remember a few years back when there was so much flack about Mark Martin's numerous victories in the very same series, and there were complaints about this not being fair to the other drivers and blah, blah, blah. Was it wrong if you were driving for Jack Roush but OK if you drive for Richard Childress? When Cup owners feel they need to bring in drivers from other forms of motorsports because of a lack of talented drivers, it should raise a red flag to say, "Hey, the Busch Series is failing as a stepping stone into the Cup Series." We need to nurture the series a little bit and even take it out of the Cup's shadow.
-- Warren

Get in line, buddy. No one believes the Busch Series is the bee's knees when it comes to producing the next generation of Cup Series drivers -- but there's a huge difference between Buschwhacking (Cuppers running selected Busch races) and Harvick racing the full Busch season.

Do you think the top 35 in owners' points should automatically make the race? It seems to me the rule was implemented in a knee-jerk fashion when Scott Riggs and someone else didn't make a race. It was supposed to make sure the regular sponsors wouldn't be left out. Now it seems that it is doing the opposite. With so many of the Toyota teams being brand new, don't you think they would want to abolish that rule?
-- Teresa

No, I do not think the top 35 should be guaranteed a spot in the starting lineup. IMO, no one should be guaranteed a spot. It's racing -- make the field on your speed. But sheez, if you can't run consistently enough to make the top 35, what's your gig? And I certainly don't think NASCAR should abolish the rule for Toyota's sake.

For the record, the top-35 rule for owners' points was in place long before Riggs failed to make the show for the Daytona 500 (although a few e-mailers have noted Teresa's "knee-jerk" reference point may be that Riggs failed to make the Fall 2004 race at Atlanta.)

FYI:

• Top 35 rule is Toyota's worst enemy for 2007
• Petty's plight shines spotlight on unfair rule
• Top 35 in owners' points fertile ground for competition
• NASCAR guarantees positions with new qualifying procedure

E-MAIL •   Send Duane your thoughts ...

Has NASCAR.COM forgotten how RCR (Jeff Burton's team) was somehow deemed innocent of running illegal rims at Pocono? Robby Gordon probably chucked the padding out the window, but this is old school -- and so is Robby. You newbies to the sport would not understand this. RG will always be under probation by NASCAR, just listen in to the in-car audio every week. He says things NASCAR simply does not want to hear (the truth).
-- Dave

You can't handle the truth! (Love that movie.) But for the newbies, here's what Dave is referencing:

• SPEED defends RCR story while Burton fumes
• Passing the inspection process harder than ever
• R. Gordon lucky, Burton not-so after debris yellow
• R. Gordon fined, loses points for debris caution
• NASCAR black flags intentional cautions

Fantasy Perspective

Ford has won 12 of the 20 Cup races at Phoenix, and Roush Racing's Mark Martin has 13 top-10 finishes in 20 races at PIR. Chevrolet has six victories at Phoenix, including four of the past five races. The highest finishing Dodge driver in the seven races that the manufacturer has competed at Phoenix since 2001 was Ryan Newman (2nd in 2004).

Chase Tracker

Points are awarded for each correct pick; one point is awarded for each correct pick in Week 1, two for each correct pick in Week 2 and so on through the final race on Nov. 19. Each correct pick of the race winner earns the contestant five bonus points. Correctly predicting the 2006 Cup champion is worth 20 points.

Star Gazing After 8 of 10 Chase races Pos. Celebrity Pts. 1. Floyd Mayweather Jr. 71 2. Derek Lowe 65 3. Brad Maynard 59   Aaron Taylor 59 5. Jake Peavy 56 6. Larry Fitzgerald 52 7. Mike Hampton 51 8. Steve Smith 49   Marcus Giles 49   Jerry Stackhouse 49 11. Alan Embree 48 12. Jackie Joyner-Kersee 45 13. Dominique Wilkins 39 14. Scottie Pippen 38 15. Tom Brady 29 16. Grady Little 28 17. Shawne Merriman 27 18. William Henderson 19 19. Johnny Damon 17   DeAngelo Hall 17

Floyd Mayweather Jr. collected 32 points and moved into the top position in the Chase Tracker game. Mayweather, considered the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, identified the positions of four drivers in the standings -- Jimmie Johnson (first), Matt Kenseth (second), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (third) and Mark Martin (ninth).

Mayweather was in 18th place after Week 5, but has correctly predicted the position of at least two drivers each of the past three weeks.

Mayweather wasn't the only Chase Tracker participant to predict Johnson's position atop the standings -- 10 of the 20 celebrities playing the game had Johnson in first.

Four other celebrities -- Derek Lowe, Aaron Taylor, Mike Hampton and Jackie Joyner-Kersee -- picked Johnson first and Kenseth second.

And Finally ...

She's 60 today and would rather no one know it. She would rather be at home watching HGTV or the Food network. Instead she's walking the halls of a nursing home, taking care of others. After 40 years of marriage and two kids, it's time she slowed down. To a trot, that's all I'm saying.

Born in rural Moore County, Tenn., she was the baby of three children. Lawrence and Martha Jewel Cunningham doted on their daughter -- but instilled a work ethic that remains today. Never mind she was the baby (and a girl!), Tootie still did her part alongside her older brothers. In the garden. In the tobacco patches. In the kitchen.

Thirty-four years ago she learned to drive, for the sake of getting her first-born to baseball practice on the other side of town. Before that, she'd walked to work most days. That son never would have made it to college had she not nurtured that dream of baseball -- and overcome the fear of driving.

Since then, she has buried the three men who helped shape her early life. Today she cares for her mother, and the mothers and fathers of those in that Aberdeen, Miss., nursing home.

She raised two boys, and now has five grandchildren and yet refuses to slow down.

Just to a trot, mama, that's all I'm saying.

Happy birthday.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.