Johnson takes big-picture approach to Chase pressure

The opening 1-2 punch of largely error-free finishes ranks Johnson fourth in the Chase standings ahead of Sunday's AAA 400 (2 p.m. ET, ESPN), the last race before the postseason field is whittled from 16 drivers to 12 for the Contender Round, the next three-race elimination phase in the debut season for the new playoff format. While Johnson said Friday that he feels relatively safe from an early-round upset, he said that "too many variables" make it too difficult to predict a champion or forecast the effect of early momentum.

"I'm not overly stressing about anything, sitting where we are in points right now," Johnson said. "I know the Penske guys are going to be tough, but if they win the first nine races, it doesn't mean that they're going to win at Homestead. It's just a totally different thing now."

Far easier to predict has been Johnson's tendency for domination at Dover, where his history of strong showings has resulted in nine victories -- making it his most prolific track of his Sprint Cup career. He's shooting for his third straight win at the Monster Mile, on the heels of leading 243 of 400 laps in last year's race and coming back to lead 272 of 400 here in June.

Winning three in a row at Dover would put Johnson in the company of NASCAR Hall of Famers David Pearson, Rusty Wallace and first-ballot cinch Jeff Gordon, but would also automatically punch his ticket to the next round without busying number-crunchers to figure the points. While Johnson doesn't have to win to stay alive in the Chase, he's easily among the favorites.

"Jimmie's been the guy that's pretty much had a lock on this place the last several years for as long as I can remember," said Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., who ran second to Johnson in this race last year. "I think this was one of the first race tracks where I noticed in his rookie season how good he could be. He's really the guy to beat every time you come here, and he might not really show that throughout the practices -- there'll be some other guys with good speed -- but when the race starts, he separates himself from the field."

While Johnson is enjoying some separation in the standings after the first two races, he sympathizes with the bottom half of the title-eligible field that sits squarely on the Chase bubble. The frantic nature of last weekend's race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway jumbled the pecking order and shed new light on how the new format ratchets up the premium on mistake-free racing across the board.

"Yeah, we're going to learn a lot this weekend on how that pressure is taken," Johnson said. "In the past, we've had the Richmond pressure, which we've all seen and experienced; and then maybe the last three races of the Chase, you can feel that pressure building up. But with all these elimination rounds, there's an opportunity for that pressure to build for four drivers each and every week -- and maybe up to six guys -- above that four in the bump-out zone that are kind of close to being knocked out. So, I think it lets a few people off the hook and you can kind of relax.

"Like right now, I'm sure that Joey and Brad are sleeping just fine. But the guys down in 12th to 16th, they're stressing. They've got to show up here and get it done. In some ways I guess to generalize, it just spreads the championship pressure out amongst everybody. Whereas, in the past, it started off with however many dealing with it, and then it just emerged with one or two at the end kind of feeling all the weight of the world. Now, everybody equally gets to share in the pain."

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