Johnson good at being in the right place in the Chase

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- The urge is slight, but still it's there -- the urge to call Jimmie Johnson lucky.

The urge surfaced again as events turned Friday afternoon at Kansas Speedway, on the eve of the third race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and a short time after Johnson had conducted his media briefing after qualifying second for Sunday's Camping World RV 400.

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It was also a short time after he'd congratulated Juan Montoya on the Colombian's first pole position of the season. But those good feelings became moot when Montoya's qualifying time was disallowed due to improper gas pressure in his No. 42 Dodge's rear shocks.

Johnson suddenly had his seventh top qualifying spot of the year, and the best shot on Sunday to lead Lap 1, thus increasing his league-best bonus point total gained via leading laps. That's an opportune turn of events, considering his two main competitors in the Chase, leader Carl Edwards and third-place Greg Biffle, are only separated by 10 points total.

But if the urge overcame you and you did, in fact, call Johnson "lucky," take it back, because over the last two Chases and two races, Johnson has been uncannily consistent -- which accounts for his two consecutive Cup championships and his current position 10 points behind Edwards.

Make no mistake -- luck had nothing to do with either of those championships. Try out these stats: In the 22 races since the 2006 Chase opener, and counting Kansas' qualifying, Johnson has five wins, 13 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes.

Lest you think he was lucky to get this pole, don't try that, either. Johnson's qualifying stats in the same period are virtually identical, with four poles, 12 top-five and 18 top-10 starting spots.

Thus it's no surprise that Johnson is cool, calm and consistent at Kansas -- to the point of almost being on cruise control. If you're the competition, the scary thing is that, in the past, Johnson has stumbled, relatively speaking, early in the Chase only to come afire later.

In 2006, he had an average finish of 25th in the first four events before rattling off four seconds and a win, which put him in a position to cruise to ninth in the Homestead finale. In 2007, while teammate Jeff Gordon had an extremely good Chase, Johnson was consistently better as he improved his first-four average to 6.5, but then won four of the next five races to put him in position to cruise to seventh at Homestead and claim his second title.

This season, Johnson's average finish after two events is 3.5 and his average start is eighth. That ain't lucky -- that's just plain good. And Johnson's said he's still learning how to do this, even better.

So don't expect a change.

"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.