AVONDALE, Ariz. -- The El Cajon posse was out in force.

They gathered around the No. 48 pit box at the far end of Phoenix International Raceway's pit road, friends and family and wives and girlfriends and assorted hangers-on. Throw in the Hendrick Motorsports executives and the occasional television cameraman, and you had easily more than 30 people milling around the big war wagon, not even counting the guys in firesuits there to do a job. There were so many people, the No. 48 team brought along an aluminum bench so some could sit down. The regular metal barrier used to separate team-only areas from the open part of pit road wasn't enough to contain them all. So a metal chain, painted of course in Lowe's blue, was strung up. It was like a velvet rope at the hippest Las Vegas nightclub. Only the invited got past.

They were all there to see Jimmie Johnson take another large step toward history, which he did Sunday by leading 217 laps to dominate the quirky 1-mile racetrack at the base of the Estrella Mountains. He needed to increase his points lead to 162 over Carl Edwards to effectively clinch his third consecutive championship on NASCAR's top division, something no one has accomplished since Cale Yarborough did it 30 years ago. He nearly got there. He holds a 141-point margin over Edwards heading to next weekend's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he can coast to a 36th-place finish and still win it all. The entire season, he's finished 36th or lower just once -- in May, at Lowe's Motor Speedway. And that was because his engine blew up.

So the celebration began in earnest Sunday in the desert, where Johnson became the first driver to win three consecutive races and set the stage for an even bigger three-peat in seven days. All the star power that El Cajon, Calif., could muster was on display -- native son Johnson, his former high-school pals turned pro baseball players Marcus and Brian Giles, and major-league pitcher Mike Hampton. They were part of a throng that hooted and high-fived as Johnson ran away in the green-white-checkered finish, that watched the No. 48 crew spray champagne in a Victory Lane (watch video) flanked by saguaro cactus, that could very well be in attendance next weekend in South Florida to watch their old buddy finish the deal.

"I usually have a big group when I come close to home, and a bunch of friends from El Cajon came out. We'll be getting crazy [Sunday] night, for sure. So I look forward to that," Johnson said with a smile. "Just friends of mine who play baseball who are based here in the Phoenix area in the offseason. It works out to be a fun race, and I try to spend a couple of days before or after and visit everyone. And I'm sure with what's on the line, everybody was interested in showing up [Sunday]. And I'm sure next week we'll have a lot of requests for passes and things as well."

Next week will be a formality, when -- barring abject, unthinkable disaster -- Johnson will stand on another big stage amid a flutter of confetti, receive another sterling silver trophy, and make room in his bank account for another check worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 million. The record will show that Johnson secured his third consecutive title in Homestead. But in actuality the clincher was Phoenix, where the No. 48 team rebounded from their worst Chase showing in more than two years to turn in the kind of commanding performance for which they're known. They exuded confidence in every way, from the size of the entourage, from Johnson's comments on Friday that he was here to take the trophy and maximize his points gain, to the fist pound crew chief Chad Knaus traded with Johnson's wife, Chandra, right before the race.

They left opponents awestruck. "What he's building on and what they're doing with three championships in a row, it's something very special," said Kurt Busch, Sunday's runner-up. "Jimmie Johnson is putting a whooping on everybody."

It didn't quite seem that way one week ago, when Johnson and his normally unshakable crew were clearly rattled by a poor-handling car that doomed them to a 15th-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway and allowed Edwards to slice a chunk off the lead. With Edwards riding a two-race winning streak and seizing all the momentum, the Hendrick bunch actually appeared vulnerable, something they hadn't looked since Johnson kicked off his championship streak by climbing out of a 156-point hole two years ago. Once the series arrived in the desert, it all proved a mirage.

Of course, that didn't mean there weren't some anxious moments. After the Phoenix garage area closed Saturday night, Knaus and Johnson talked on the telephone four or five times, the last at about 11. Going back and forth between Johnson, car chief Ron Malec and engineer Greg Ives, Knaus burned through two batteries taking notes on his laptop computer. The garage area reopened Sunday morning at 8 local time, and Johnson was back on the phone with Knaus at 8:01. And again at 8:15. And might have been again had the crew chief not told his driver, a notorious early-riser, to go back to sleep. "That's when he yelled at me," Johnson said, with a wry smile.

"I did yell at him," Knaus said. "At 8:01 he calls me. I was like, 'Dude, let me get to work.' He was stressed. There was no input at 8:01, I can tell you that. I told him to go back to sleep, he was bothering me. We changed a lot. We changed upper control arms, three spring, four shocks, sway bar, everything. And it worked."

Was Johnson, the epitome of cool inside the car and out, actually nervous? Maybe not. The performance at Texas stung him like a personal affront. He stewed over it all week. He came to Phoenix ready to show what he and his team were really capable of.

"I was mad that we gave up points. I assumed that Carl was going to be one of the better cars at Texas, but I really thought we could finish in the top five, if not top three. And then to get off on that third run and go down a lap, not be able to get back the lap at that point, losing 80, 70 points, whatever it was, you can't do that many more times, especially with Phoenix and Homestead, and you can never count on having a race with no mechanical [problems] or flat tires. You just don't know what's going to happen," Johnson said.

"I want every single point that I can get, and I was frustrated that at Texas we didn't do that. We still ran well. We were competitive and ran near the top five all day long, but we were a lap down and never got the lap back. I can be laid back and relaxed, but I can be very hard on myself and just my mind can do the same thing to me that it does to everyone else. I just want to be on top of my game and do my job every time I'm in the car. I put a lot of pressure on myself coming into this weekend to hit my marks in qualifying, practice, and during the race and all those things, and I just wanted to show up ready and spot-on."

He was. A few eyebrows went up Sunday when Jeff Gordon, Johnson's Hendrick teammate, blew an engine because of a bad valve spring. The cars of Johnson and Gordon are built in the same facility, and parts come from common bins. Would the No. 48 suffer the same fate? Would Edwards, who proved no slouch himself by running in the top five almost all day, find the opening he needed to get back into it? Would the champion be in doubt at Homestead? Even team owner Rick Hendrick paced up and down pit road, the uncertainty extended by two red flags and 10 cautions. "Longest short race I've ever seen," he called it later.

All the worry was for naught. The valve springs held. The No. 48 car cruised. The El Cajon posse cheered. The title was all but decided. "Spectacular performance," Knaus told his squad over the radio afterward, accurately summing it all up. Now Johnson can freewheel down to Homestead, not that he necessarily will.

"I'm really excited about next week, and there's no need to do anything stupid by any stretch, every way you look at it," he said. "But at the same time, how cool would it be to win out? I still think we can do that. I'd love to do that. And that's what our goals are. If we get in the race and I've got to drive at 110 percent to go for the win, there's no need to. But if we can go out there and win the race like we did [Sunday night], hell yeah, let's do it."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.

Johnson Interviews
• Video: Victory Lane on NASCAR.COM | Sprint Press Pass