Johnson confident as quest begins for three in a row

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Nightmares aside, two-time defending Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson is confident that this season he can equal Cale Yarborough's historic run of three consecutive championships.

"I'd love to -- that would be awesome -- unbelievable," Johnson said. "I look at things to motivate me, at making history [and] I think I've got a good shot, I really do.

"I really feel that we're getting stronger as a team and I don't think we've hit the peak yet of what we can do. I look at the 10 wins we had [last] year and a few that slipped away, thinking it could have been a 13-[win] season so I still feel we can do a better job."

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Since Yarborough achieved consecutive championships in 1976-78, Johnson is the fourth driver to have a chance to "go for three," and his effort will be the sixth, following Darrell Waltrip (1983), Dale Earnhardt (1988, 1992 and 1995) and Jeff Gordon (1999).

Earnhardt came closest, lacking 34 points of winning three in a row when he finished second to Gordon in 1995. Gordon himself lacked only 37 points of winning four consecutive titles, when he finished second to Hendrick teammate Terry Labonte in 1996.

Johnson said his team, led by crew chief Chad Knaus, had already made radical changes to its over-the-wall pit crew to facilitate achieving its third title, including new front- and rear-tire changers and a new front-tire carrier, plus a new jack man who was merged into the crew midway through 2007.

Johnson said his rear-tire changer had actually transferred to teammate Gordon's crew; the three replacements were brought in from outside the organization.

"We have made some adjustments [and] it wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination because we've had the same group of guys together, really, for a long, long time -- we've won two championships with these guys, so it was a tough thing," Johnson said. "But we just felt like we could be a little faster. It didn't go over easily with everybody, but Chad's got to make those decisions and feels he's making the team stronger, so in trying to look to the future we made some changes and hopefully those will pan out and work out as we hope -- and it should.

"We've put some great guys back in place to go over the wall and change tires and stuff like that. There have been some small changes, but the core group of guys is really the same, especially the guys on the early crew that come out and prep the car and get all the mechanical stuff together."

Johnson won't be having nightmares about pit stops but, incredibly, fear of failure -- or being "just average" -- is something that drives him even as 2008 opens. (Continued)