LOUDON, N.H. -- Jimmie Johnson spent the first morning of the Chase assembling a crib for his baby daughter. He put the mobile on top, set up a little bathtub, and became so engrossed in the project that he lost track of time. His weekly media availability, Cup Series practice, the road to a potential fifth consecutive championship -- it all faded into the background, at least until he realized he was running late.

For all the discussion about Johnson's perceived vulnerability on the race track, a theory bolstered by a sluggish stretch in late summer, the most foreboding thing to the competition Friday had to be the sight of Johnson striding around New Hampshire Motor Speedway, completely at ease with his environment. The pressure of NASCAR's playoff is out there, evident in the faces of crew chiefs and the narrowed point gaps between the top 12 drivers, and Johnson is squarely in its crosshairs. But with his easy demeanor, scruffy beard, and unruly hair curling up behind his baseball cap, the champion looked more like a guy ready to catch some breakers off Coronado.

“

I'm giving it 100 percent either way, so the less I stress about things, I think the better I'm going to run.

”

-- JIMMIE JOHNSON

"I know I have said that that point comes when it hits you. It hasn't yet," Johnson said. "I know it's the Chase. I'll walk into the garage area and take my job seriously and do everything I need to. But each year, I've had more fun in the Chase, and I'm hoping that this is a sign that I'm more relaxed, enjoying the moment. I'm giving it 100 percent either way, so the less I stress about things, I think the better I'm going to run."

Hardly spoken like a man who seems worried that his reign is nearing an end. And yet, doubts were clearly evident in the midst of a distinctly un-Johnsonian stretch between Daytona and Bristol that was devoid of a single-digit finish, and dropped the driver of the No. 48 car to ninth in points. He's rebounded with consecutive third-place results the past two weeks, and is back to second now thanks to the Chase reset, but there are many who wonder if the champion still carries the same mojo. Following last week's event at Richmond, Clint Bowyer summed it up: "Superman has not lost his cape," he said, "but it's shorter than it was in years past."

But that was last week. This is the Chase, a playoff Johnson has won four consecutive years, and New Hampshire, a track where he's won three times. Kyle Busch has a simple message -- underestimate Johnson at your own risk.

"I'm going to tell you something. He'll come out here first practice and be top five. He's going to be at the top of the board. He'll be, I'm sure, top seven or eight in qualifying, and he'll be right there leading the race," the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who starts the Chase in fourth place, warned Friday morning.

"No matter how he's run through the season and how many times you guys want to say, 'Oh, he's vulnerable,' boom, he's right there in the Chase. It's like they flipped the switch on and they're there. They know how to do it. They know how to run these last 10 races. I don't know if they have a team meeting before every race and say 'This is what we're going to do today,' and they end up doing it, or what. ... They're able to put it together; they always have fast race cars. Jimmie is a pretty smart driver and knows what to do in certain circumstances. He's pretty smart at knowing how to win a championship, being able to do it four times in a row."

Busch's prediction was a little off -- Johnson was seventh in practice and an uncharacteristic 25th in qualifying, tying his worst starting spot of the year on a tricky weather day in the Granite State. But he's also driving the same car he won with here in June, and knows the Chase track lineup plays to his strengths. For all the talk about his struggles of late, Johnson's average finish over the last five races of this regular season (16.2) is better than that over the same span last year (20). His weak summertime stretch, he said, was more a factor of his team tinkering with equipment and race strategies they hadn't used in the past. He's one of only three Chase drivers who isn't using a new car this week in New Hampshire.

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"Through the summer and some of these races we've struggled at, we've been trying new stuff, from different style clips on cars, to setups," Johnson said. "Some days you think you need to keep moving forward to keep up with guys, and you go down that road, and it doesn't pay off for us. So we've actually backtracked a little bit, and gone back to stuff more like the start of the year, early spring, that really works for us."

The turnaround was a third-place run two weeks ago at Atlanta. "We went back to 48-style stuff, what we know," he said. "We had a car that maybe wasn't the fastest all night long, but a car that we could adjust on and improve, and at the end of the race had a shot to win. If we didn't have Atlanta, I'd be a little bit more concerned, but Atlanta gave us a lot of direction."

Will that direction point toward a fifth consecutive championship? The next 10 weeks will tell. For all its pressures and roller-coaster swings of emotions, the Chase for Johnson is as comfortable as an old pair of shoes. If you're looking for hints of vulnerability, you didn't find any in the No. 48 camp Friday at New Hampshire. Instead, there was just the same quiet confidence they've carried with them the past four years.

"We've had enough slow summers to where I don't feel vulnerable going into the Chase," Johnson said. "I know the tracks on the schedule, and we all know how good they are for me, and they all give me a lot of hope and excitement moving forward. I don't think that I'm any different this year than last year. Stats may show that maybe this year I'm in better shape than I was last year. ... Either way, I know we've got great tracks coming up, I know we respond well to pressure, and I'm excited for it. I feel good about things."