Johnson good at being in the right place in the Chase (cont'd)

"Since the first championship, I've been much more at peace with my abilities and my team's abilities and we're just in a sweet spot of sorts and just doing what we can and not living and dying by every emotion that comes along -- and only championships bring that calmness to a team," Johnson said. "The success over the last couple years has only cemented my thoughts on the way I've approached it, and I've built more confidence in that philosophy and that method.

"The first year [2006], guys let us back in [to contention] because everybody had problems and we got off to a slow start. But last year we had to race for every damned point, and win a lot of races to do it. So I feel that regardless of the conditions, we have the composure to pull it together, our equipment's getting better and better each week and hopefully we can keep that steady and consistent mojo going that we've had."

Just don't call Johnson lucky. During the day's lone Cup practice, Johnson ran into a large orange body hammer that had dropped off another racecar and been deposited in an upper lane of the racetrack, apparently out of the immediate sight of NASCAR's spotters.

Leave it to Johnson to say the L-word.

"Luckily we had some time to get it corrected while we were working in qualifying trim," Johnson said. "I hit the thing and it tore up the splitter and the nose of the car pretty good."

That Johnson even hit the "thing" was real bad luck, and bad timing.

"I got real loose into Turn 1 and chased it up the track and was off-line," Johnson said of the incident. "And that's where the thing was sitting and I tore the car up."

No worries. It seems Johnson at Kansas, more than anyone in his Chase competition except Dale Earnhardt Jr., has been able to freeze all distractions from his focus and hone in on conquering the 1.5-mile speedway. Johnson practiced second-best and on the original qualifying sheet, was also second.

Only two other Chasers, Earnhardt in sixth and Tony Stewart in 20th, were in the top 10 in practice and only Matt Kenseth joins Johnson in the top 10 on the starting grid, while Earnhardt's 11th. Johnson says that focus is an acquired trait.

"I'm getting better [at focusing on the track at hand], and even this year I've done a better job of thinking 'this race is just Kansas and it's not Race 3 of the Chase,'" Johnson said. "Last year I saw a trend and it was getting easier to deal with the situation of what was coming up.

"And I think as years go by and I add more experience in these conditions, I will become more and more comfortable rather than going nuts. That's good because I can think rationally and make the right decisions instead of having other emotions make those decisions for me."

He'll leave that to the other guys, if they choose to fall into that trap. Even given the Chasers' woes on Friday, Johnson wouldn't pass judgment, though he did have a wish.

"The only way to judge someone is at the end of the season [when you see] where you end up," Johnson said. "Because so much can take place in the course of an event, especially right now as tight as the points are. At Dover we qualified 20th and all of the Chasers were right there at the front, and with our experience and saying 'it's 400 miles at Dover, anything can happen, stay calm and stay focused on the right things' and before we knew it, we were right up in the thick of things.

"For my sake, I hope that they are freaking out right now, that everybody's in their transporters fighting like cats and dogs. Is that really happening? I doubt it [because] they're all good teams and smart people.

"But hopefully this'll set some people into a tailspin and we can get them making bad decisions. You just never know."

And wouldn't that be lucky for Johnson and company?

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.