Tulsa World: Johnson will not state claim for Cup title yet

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Johnson will not state claim for Cup title yet

With three races left in this year's NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup, Jimmie Johnson is closing in on his fourth consecutive championship. Chris Gardner/Associated Press

By RANDY COVITZ McClatchy Newspapers
Published: 11/6/2009 2:26 AM
Last Modified: 11/6/2009 6:44 AM

Jimmie Johnson is sitting almost exactly where he was at this time a year ago.

With three races remaining in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup, Johnson leads the standings by an almost-insurmountable 184 points in his pursuit of a record fourth straight championship.

A year ago, he led by 183 points going into Texas Motor Speedway. He finished 15th there last season, won at Phoenix for the third straight time and coasted home to the championship with 15th place at Homestead.

Even if Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin, who is in second place, wins the remaining three races, all Johnson has to do is finish 10th in each race to win the championship.

"Finishing 10th isn't as easy as it sounds," said Johnson, who has been out of the top 10 just 11 times in the first 33 races. "We're showing up to win races. If Mark did everything right ... it is a tough field of cars out there, and we need to be on our game. So with that in mind, we're going to race as hard as we can these next two races and see what happens for Homestead.

"Then at that point, we can look at more of a specific strategy. But with three to go, we need to race these next two as if we're behind in the points and get every point we can. What got us in this position was racing hard and going for every point, and until it's mathematically locked up, we're going to keep that mindset and try to get every point that we can."

In 12 starts at Texas, he's won just once, the fall race in 2007 which helped Johnson to

his second championship. By RANDY COVITZ McClatchy Newspapers

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