Johnson, Gordon prepare for one final showdown

Three battles will take place in the Ford 400 (3 p.m. ET Sunday, ABC) at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

• The first is for No. 1. Jimmie Johnson leads Jeff Gordon by 86 points. He needs to finish 18th or better to clinch his second consecutive Nextel Cup championship. If Johnson leads a lap, the magic number is a 19th-place finish; if he leads the most laps, 21st.

Or Johnson could simply leave it to Gordon, who with a finish of 15th or worse would make his teammate the champ. Of course, Gordon has finished worse than 15th only four times this season, and his worst finish in the Chase was an 11th-place showing at Dover.

"We'll do everything possible to finish on a high note," Gordon said. "But, if we win it, it's going to be because Jimmie and the 48 team has problems. And while we'll accept it, we don't want to win the championship that way."

Chances are he won't. Johnson has won four consecutive races to take control of the Chase.

"The lead that we have, it's a nice, comfortable position to be in. But we've got to go down there and run 400 miles," Johnson said. "If we don't run the full distance of the race then we're in trouble. The lead takes some pressure off, but we're going to go down there and try to keep it simple like we've done.

"I don't want to act like it's our championship yet. We have a nice margin in the points right now. But 400 miles, that's my goal. I have to run 400 more miles, and we'll get nuts after that."

Johnson has made it look so simple that Gordon can have a 5.2 average finish in the Chase and still be behind.

"The 48 team deserves a lot of credit. They have stepped up their game during the Chase and destroyed the competition these last four weeks," Gordon said. "So far, they've done the job needed to win the championship. I thought this was our year but, the way things have been going lately, I don't think it is."

• The second battle is for the 10th spot in the standings. NASCAR deemed two extra drivers important enough to participate in the Chase, but not good enough for the 11th- and 12th-place finishers to join the Champions Week celebrations in New York City.

Kurt Busch holds the 10th spot going into the season finale. Martin Truex Jr. is 11th, 47 points behind. Denny Hamlin is 12th, 83 points off the mark.

"There certainly is a tight battle going on from about sixth-place on back and that could be very interesting," Busch said. "All the Chase drivers want to finish at least in the top 10 in the points. Only the top 10 get to drive their show cars around Manhattan and take to the stage at the NASCAR Awards Banquet. It's a case of team pride.

"To tell you the truth, as hard as all the teams work toward making the Chase, it's kind of sad that two teams get left out like that. I really don't understand that, but I guess you just have to accept it and go on."

Carl Edwards is only 11 points in front of Busch, after engine failure last week at Phoenix dropped him four positions in the standings.

"The last two weeks we've had great racecars, but we've had some mechanical troubles that have kept us from realizing our potential. This week, we're not going to have those issues," said Edwards, who has one top-five, two top-10s and has never finished worse than 14th in three starts at Homestead. "Hopefully, we'll have a top-five run that will clinch us inside the top 10 in the Chase."

• The third battle is for the top 35 in owner points. The No. 22 Toyota of Bill Davis Racing currently holds the final coveted position that guarantees a starting spot in the first five races of the 2008.

Driver Dave Blaney needs to finish 34th or better Sunday to secure a 2008 five-race guarantee.

"Barring something really unexpected, we should be able to walk away knowing we are locked into making the first five races next season, and that's huge. The pressure of knowing we had to race our way into the Daytona 500 would have made for a really stressful off season, so we're hoping all goes well this weekend," Blaney said.

"I like to think we'll start 2008 with a little better luck than we did this season and not dig ourselves into such a hole. We've had our ups and downs and we're hoping to finish the season off on a high note."

The No. 22 leads the No. 21 Ford of the Wood Brothers by 136 points. Driver Bill Elliott has to finish second at Homestead to even have a chance of moving into the top 35. Elliott won at Homestead in 2001.

"I've always liked racing here at Homestead and my track record is pretty good," said Elliott, who has three top-10s in six starts. I just want to be able to send all these guys out on a good note, if I can."