Johnson relaxed and focused at Charlotte, sort of

CONCORD, N.C. -- You know the routine. It's October.

It's that time of year when Jimmie Johnson enters the stretch of schedule where he places a chokehold on the rest of the field in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

You've heard of his legendary, razor-sharp focus during the Chase. He put it on display in the Charlotte Motor Speedway media center Thursday when he was asked about racing at Martinsville Speedway next week.

"We go to Martinsville next week? I swear I thought it was Talladega. I honestly thought it was Talladega," Johnson said.

He wasn't joking. Told that no, the Talladega race wouldn't come until after next week's stop at Martinsville, Johnson grinned and added, "OK, I'd better get my stuff together. Fantastic."

It could be argued that he's got his stuff together just fine, thank you. The four-time defending Cup champion also is defending champion of the fall race at CMS and has won six races overall at Charlotte.

But if you want the statistic of his from the track that really knocks dread into the heads of his fellow competitors, here it is: Johnson has led in 17 of his 18 career Cup starts at CMS for a total of 1,370 laps. Only five other drivers in the history of the sport have led more laps at the venue. Four of them are in the NASCAR Hall of Fame (Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, David Pearson and Dale Earnhardt) and the fifth arguably should be (it's Cale Yarborough).

So you can't really blame Johnson for overlooking Martinsville -- another place where he runs pretty well. Right now he's zeroed in on Charlotte and his attempt to put more room between himself and the rest of the 12-driver Chase field. Johnson enters Saturday's Bank of America 500 first in points, but only 36 ahead of Denny Hamlin, who is in second. Also close on his No. 48 Chevrolet bumper are Kevin Harvick, who is 54 behind; and Jeff Gordon, who is 85 behind.

"It's been good to us over the years," Johnson said of Charlotte's 1.5-mile track. "This track, by the time the checkered flag falls, we seem to have gotten the car where it needs to be and we can get a good finish."

Of course, he said that with an asterisk attached. Despite his win last fall, he is always quick to point out that others have experienced better success than him in more recent years -- coinciding with a repavement of the track's surface and NASCAR's introduction of a new Cup car.

Therefore, Johnson said he would not pick himself as the favorite in this Saturday's race. He said the No. 9 Ford driven by Kasey Kahne or the No. 2 Dodge driven by Kurt Busch, who swept both the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 in May, would be his pre-race choices.

"I expect those guys to be really on top of things," he said.

Jeff Burton, driver of the No. 31 Chevrolet and currently eighth in the point standings, made it clear that the rest of the Chase field expects nothing less from Johnson as well. But Burton did say he wanted to clear up one misconception he felt the media had regarding Johnson and his No. 48 team.

"I really believe there is a big misconception with the media that when you see the 48, there is some sort of intimidation factor," Burton said. "There is a lot of respect for them, as it should be. I don't think it's an intimidation factor. I think it's that they're just really good at what they do.

"You have to be on your A-game to beat them. That's how you gauge yourself. ... I think when you go to a race tack and you see a team that has been very, very successful, you know you are going to have to beat them -- but you don't go into that race knowing you are beaten. You go into that race knowing that you're going to have to step it up to match their results or to better their results. Respecting someone and paying attention to what they're doing with admiration is not being intimidated; it's being smart."

Of course, Burton added with a grin, that sometimes has changed through the years depending on who was on top in the Cup garage.

"Now, [the late Dale] Earnhardt was a different deal because he would wreck your ass," Burton said. "When you saw him coming, it was not that it was necessarily intimidation. But you knew, 'Well, I got something different that I've got to deal with here.'

"Jimmie is not that kind of driver. Jimmie is very, very, very fast and he is very, very, very smart and he doesn't take anything from anybody, but he's not the kind of guy you have to deal with from that standpoint. You have to deal with him because he's really, really fast and he's really, really good at what he does."

Just think how good he'll be once he figures out where he's racing in the coming weeks.

"I'm being 100 percent honest. I thought Talladega was next [after Charlotte]," Johnson said, laughing. "I just get on the plane and where it drops me off, I get off. And this week I wasn't told to go to the airplane, so I got in my car and drove here."