DOVER, Del. -- Uh-oh. Look who has his Chase for the Sprint Cup game face on.

It's four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who led a race-high 191 laps after starting from the pole Sunday en route to winning the AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.

The victory did more than simply vault Johnson from sixth to second in the point standings, merely 35 behind leader Denny Hamlin with eight races remaining in Johnson's latest title defense. It also sent a strong message throughout the garage that Johnson has no intention of going away quietly in this 10-race Chase, and that reports of his No. 48 team's "vulnerability" in this Chase vs. others have been greatly exaggerated.

The rumors had grown with Johnson's uncharacteristic 25th-place finish a week earlier at New Hampshire in the opening race of the Chase.

"I think a lot of people were counting them out," team owner Rick Hendrick said while celebrating Sunday's win. "We were counting on Loudon and this race to really give us that springboard we needed in the Chase."

Whatever bounce was missing from their collective step after the debacle at Loudon was replaced at Dover by something more tangible than the mythical Hendrick springboard. Even afterward, their sixth win of the season in the bag, it was as if Johnson and crafty crew chief Chad Knaus simply were offering a matter-of-fact confirmation that they're not really back because they never really fell off all that much to begin with.

Observers were left with the distinct impression that in a weekend dominated earlier by off-the-track hi-jinks that seemed to distract some of the other top Chase competitors, Johnson and Knaus were smiling to themselves all along. Let the others squabble amongst themselves and distract each other while we just get along with our business at hand, they seemed to be saying to each other with a wink and a nod.

Asked about the squabble between Hamlin and Kevin Harvick, who had entered the weekend one-two in the standings, Johnson chuckled and admitted he got a kick out of it.

"We were watching them because it was entertaining," said Johnson, laughing. "Who wasn't watching?"

Been there, done that

Knaus admitted he found the Hamlin-Harvick dustup entertaining as well. The garage stall of the No. 48 Chevrolet team happened to be right next to those of Hamlin and Harvick when those two drivers tangled on the track at the beginning of a practice on Saturday, and then exchanged heated words as their cars were being repaired.

"Once we got into the garage, I didn't really know anything about it," Knaus said. "Jimmie and I had been talking for probably a good solid two or three minutes, and hadn't even realized there was any type of altercation in the garage between the two guys.

"Then Jimmie was like, 'Those two guys are about to fight.' I was like, 'Wow.' At that point I kind of looked up to see what was going on."

Knaus didn't let his focus stray to the sideshow for long. He knew he had work to do.

"Quite frankly, we didn't waste a whole lot of time being spectators at that point," Knaus said. "We put our heads down, got to work on what we needed to do on our race car.

"We've been through all that stuff. You go back to 2005. We had a bit of a match with the 20 car [then driven by Tony Stewart]. We've had on-track problems with other people. We've lived all that stuff. We've had suspensions, fines, all that kind of stuff.

"Everything that's possible to be done in the sport from a negative and a positive, we've unfortunately been involved in. So we don't really pay a lot of attention to what goes on outside of our four walls. We worry about our race car, our tool box, and try to make it right."

Chase dominance

It became evident very early on Sunday that Johnson and Knaus had gotten the 48 right. Other than the No. 43 Ford of A.J. Allmendinger early and the No. 18 of Kyle Busch for one 46-lap stretch in the middle of the race, no one else had a car that could come close to touching the 48.

The dominating performance came as no surprise, said none other than Hamlin.

"In my mind, just thinking of how that team performs, this probably is their best race track," Hamlin said. "I can't think of anyplace else where they really dominate like they do at this race track."

Well, let us assist Mr. Hamlin then. How about at all Chase tracks in general? While Johnson has indeed been dominant at Dover, where he swept both Cup races last season and has won a total of six times now in his career, Sunday's victory also was his 19th victory in 62 Chase races since the playoff format was adopted in 2004.

That means Johnson has won better than 31 percent of all the Chase races run in the history of NASCAR. That means he should be good for two more in this Chase, which would make it awful hard for someone to knock him from his four-time throne.

So while Hamlin was lobbing verbal hand grenades toward Richard Childress Racing and Harvick was retaliating by ramming Hamlin on pit road, Johnson and Knaus and the entire 48 team were staying on task in a typical business-like manner. That manifested itself on Sunday.

"I haven't thought much about it," Johnson said of the Hamlin-Harvick sideshow. "The reason I don't want to think much about it is because I need to worry about my race car and my team. I want to expect the best out of those two race teams and not think, 'Well, they're occupied with each other, so they're not going to be as strong.' That would be a mistake on my part."

And as we all know, Johnson doesn't make many mistakes.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.