HAMPTON, Ga. -- It was a long night of mashed fenders and frayed nerves, of cars rolling into the garage area in various stages of disrepair, of engines exploding like corn kernels in a microwave oven. The penultimate race of NASCAR's regular season has come and gone, and the championship field remains about as cloudy as the smoke lingering over the campgrounds outside of Atlanta Motor Speedway. Less than a week remains until the field of title contenders will be solidified, and everyone is still waiting for someone to step up and grab the thing by the throat.

Sunday, someone might have taken the first step toward doing just that. Cue the ominous string music. Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the race track ....

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Whatever it is, you're trying to find something to build your team around, [that] sends them off into the Chase like warriors ready to go and charged up for whatever is out there for them. We all find those things, and try to build the team around it and go from there.

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-- JIMMIE JOHNSON

There's Jimmie Johnson, again, piloting that blue and white No. 48 car to the front of the field, rolling through the corners and contending for a win like the past month never happened. It wasn't a victory, but it didn't have to be. Johnson's third-place finish in the Labor Day weekend 500-miler was his first single-digit result since his victory in late June at New Hampshire, and it arrives at the perfect time -- just close enough to the Chase to send a shiver down the spine of anyone who's paid attention to the past four years.

Calling it a statement might be a little premature. But consider that in the past seven Cup Series events, Johnson's average finish has been a rather un-Jimmie-like 26.2. Consider that at his Saturday media availability, one reporter asked if we should expect to see his photo on milk cartons. Consider that Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus needed the confidence boost that Sunday night's performance provided.

"It might sound crazy, but for myself, for Chad, to be in the heat of the race in the end when pit stops counts, the adjustments count, strategy counts, that's the stuff you need to be on your game with during the Chase," Johnson said. "And to get a good race here, to be in that moment and to feel the pressure, is something we needed. That pressure is fun to have, and it was a familiar excitement inside of me, and I was excited to be out there racing with everybody and being a part of it, and hopefully we can go to Richmond and get in that moment again to be as prepared as we can for the Chase."

And he's in the Chase, formally locking up his position Sunday, extending his streak of being the only driver to qualify for the playoff in all seven seasons of its existence. The four-time champion dominates that part of the year, partly because the assemblage of tracks in the final 10 weeks plays to his favor, partly because he has an ice-cold penchant for breaking the will of his opponents. He hasn't looked like that Jimmie Johnson during much of the past seven weeks, even if he's been the victim of some misfortune, even if he believes he's run better than those results may indicate.

But Sunday? That was the real deal right there. With 43 laps remaining, Knaus radioed in and told his driver that he had the fastest car on the race track by a full two-tenths of a second. With 30 to go -- following a mesmerizing duel also involving Kasey Kahne and Carl Edwards, where for lap after lap the cars fanned out three-wide in the corners -- he had moved into second. It was circumstances, a pair of late cautions and one pit-road jumble, that kept him out of Victory Lane. The car was clearly there.

And for the competition, that's the scary part. Johnson was the first to admit, his No. 48 team has had some issues with intermediate tracks during the summer, both in terms of setup and adjusting the car throughout the course of an event. Sunday, there were no issues. Sunday brought back the kind of Johnson performance that makes everyone take notice, particularly with the Chase so close at hand. Sunday was the kind of run this team can lean on as they approach the intermediate tracks like Atlanta that make up the bulk of the 10-race playoff.

"Definitely, the setup we ran [Sunday] will work on other tracks," Johnson said. "The thought process that goes with it will work. The thing that I'm encouraged about is, we can adjust on the car and make positive gains where many of the stuff we have been running, we adjust on it and all we do is hurt the car and slow it down as the race goes on. There's that aspect, and as I mentioned before, the fact that we are in there racing with everyone, pit stops counted, strategy counted, juices as a driver, frothing at the mouth and chewing on the wheel, racing as hard as you can. It was good to go back through all of that, for crew chief, driver, all of us, to get ready for the Chase."

Is he bulletproof? It certainly doesn't seem like it. One aspect of this season that's made the championship race seem so unpredictable is that Johnson no longer carries that "Superman" aura around with him -- at so many points in this year, he's even seemed downright vulnerable. But at the same time, an obvious challenger has yet to step up. Denny Hamlin showed flashes, but his blown engine Sunday sunk him to an unthinkable 10th in points. Kevin Harvick remains the runaway regular-season points leader, but his blown tire and shredded wheel well Sunday showed he's just as vulnerable to circumstance as anyone else. Everyone else wears a question mark as big and bright as the number on the sides of their cars.

Amid all the chaos, though -- and Sunday, there was plenty of it -- there's Johnson, NASCAR's lone constant the past four years. Atlanta showed once again why you cannot underestimate him, cannot sell him short, regardless of how average he may have appeared the past month and a half. Among the top contenders for this year's championship, no driver -- not Hamlin, not Harvick, not Kyle Busch -- is more capable of going on the kind of tear that can beat his opponents into submission. After all, he's done it four years in a row. If no one stops him, he'll do it again.

"Whatever it is, you're trying to find something to build your team around, [that] sends them off into the Chase like warriors ready to go and charged up for whatever is out there for them," Johnson said. "We all find those things, and try to build the team around it and go from there."

Sunday night, they found one. Right on schedule, the real Jimmie Johnson has returned.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

• Jimmie Johnson: Press Pass | Post-race reactions