Johnson, Martin dominate all on-track activity at LMS

CONCORD, N.C. -- From Thursday's largely inconsequential one-hour opening practice through Friday night's Happy Hour, Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin have dominated at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet and Martin's No. 5 version have sat, in that order, atop each of the four on-track sessions leading up to Saturday night's NASCAR Banking 500.

But according to many of their chief competitors, that fact isn't the last word when it comes to naming who'll be in Victory Lane.

Steve Hmiel, manager of competition for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, whose driver Juan Montoya is the only competitor to have scored top-five finishes in all four Chase races, gestured up and down the row of Chase cars that were grouped together in the garage as he said "we'll be all right." He referenced Montoya's No. 42 Chevrolet, which was 11th and 25th in Friday's two practices.

"It's really difficult to tell because all of these cars are so good," Hmiel said, "that after five laps, they basically run the same speed, so you've got to look over long ranges. Obviously, we think the 48 and the 5 are good and we're right there amongst them, and then there are a bunch of cars behind us that think they're amongst us."

It was a fact. Kyle Busch, who has four consecutive top-six finishes here and was fifth on the Happy Hour sheet, tied Martin for the best average lap time, 29.80 seconds, as they ran 45 and 44 laps, respectively.

Johnson's average lap in 48 laps was 29.82 seconds while Denny Hamlin, who was third in Happy Hour, averaged 29.83 in 54 laps.

"So it's difficult to tell, but we think we're in good shape," Hmiel said. "We've got a little farther to go [at the start] than we've been having to go here, lately because we didn't qualify as well as we might. But that's not gonna get us down and we'll be in there digging [Saturday] night."

That'll also be the case for Matt Kenseth, who won his first career Cup race here and was 10th in the Coca-Cola 600; his teammate Greg Biffle; and Lowe's most recent dominator Kasey Kahne, who has three victories in the last seven Lowe's races and four consecutive top-eight finishes.

"Our car was decent," said Kahne's crew chief Kenny Francis, who's put Kahne in the top 10 in every practice and third on the grid. "We've been a little tight all weekend, but it's not bad. Hendrick's got good stuff right now and they're on top of their game, but we've shown we can beat them before, we've beaten them a couple times this year already but they're tough and we'll have to keep after them."

"The car was OK [in Happy Hour], so I guess I'm cautiously optimistic," Kenseth said. "We've still got to go 500 miles and if we do everything right there, I could probably give you a better idea of how I'm feeling.

"Pretty much ever since they got together, Jimmie [Johnson] and Chad [Knaus, crew chief] have been the ones to beat and anyone who's been around the sport for any time knows Mark is one of the best, if not the best driver in the garage -- and if you get him in stuff capable of winning, with the right people, he'll be pretty impossible to beat. So neither one of them [dominating Lowe's] really surprises me that much."

Neither Kenseth nor Biffle said they had a chance to run around the Hendrick duo Friday night, but Hmiel said quickly popping up a hot lap might have been why the two Hendrick team leaders were atop each sheet.

Martin, particularly, once he did that continually expressed a lot of concern on his team radio about his car's handling as crew chief Alan Gustafson picked and probed and made changes seeking to broaden his car's sweet spot.

"It's just like the 42 was at New Hampshire," Hmiel said of Montoya. "We won every practice, sat on the pole and led a bunch of laps."

Hmiel seemingly stated the obvious when he pointed out the danger of what Montoya did before finishing third in his first Chase race; and what the Hendrick pair, who own nine Lowe's Cup wins between them, was fashioning this weekend.

"What the 48 and the 5 have to watch out for -- that's the reason people work on their cars," Hmiel said. "If you've always got somebody out there whipping you every session -- like those guys are now -- you keep working on your race cars.

"You've got to be careful with how good you are, like Jack Roush used to always say, 'sometimes, if you've got a bigger hammer than you need, you don't always use it.' So yeah, those guys are going to be terrific [Saturday] and we think we'll be in good shape. We've got a long way to go, but it's a really long race and typically, unfortunately, there are a lot of cautions and it's going to be really cold tomorrow night -- and what's all that going to mean and how fast are these cars gonna run?"

Biffle thinks he knows, and he was smiling about it, despite having to come from 23rd on the grid after he admitted blowing his qualifying lap.

"Before the track rubbers-up, our car is really good, but as the track starts to take rubber we just lose the handle," Biffle said. "It starts to slow down and back up, it gets looser and it doesn't turn. But still, we think we're going to be pretty good."

"It's just going to be a very competitive race," Hmiel said, "because all these cars are so even with each other in performance."