Mammoth Blog

Halfway through the NFL playoffs, no one knows who will play in the Super Bowl. In hockey, baseball and basketball, best of seven game series determine the champion.

Then there's the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which NASCAR created in 2004 to spice up the final 10 races and the battle for the championship after Matt Kenseth won the 2003 title with just one victory. That year, nine other drivers won at least two or more races but couldn't overcome Kenseth's consistency.

Early on, the Chase met this goal. In 2004, Kurt Busch became the champion, edging Jimmie Johnson by eight points and Jeff Gordon by 16. In 2005, Tony Stewart edged Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards to win the title by 35 points.

Since then, it's been all about Johnson and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team, which has won the title the past three years.

With five races to go in this year's Chase, Johnson scored what crew chief Chad Knaus called a "perfect" weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte - winning the pole and the race, as well as being the fastest in the practice sessions. His victory Saturday night in the NASCAR Banking 500 was his series-leading sixth of the season.

Unlike the first four playoff races, when Chasers all but filled the Top 10, Kasey Kahne, who finished third, and Gordon, who finished fourth, were the only other Chasers in the Top 9.

The two drivers who had been keeping pace with Johnson, Mark Martin and Juan Pablo Montoya, sustained damage in an incident during a restart on lap 125. If they avoid that problem, the race and the Chase would look different. Once again, Johnson looks indestructible while his competi-tors fall by the wayside.

The next two races - at Martinsville Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway - tracks at the opposite ends of the NASCAR spectrum - will demonstrate whether or not the No. 48 team will have a cakewalk the rest of the season or a battle for the Cup.

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Martinsville, just .526 miles in length, can be an obstacle in any driver's path. The beating and banging at a short track can leave a car with a broken radiator, flat tire or other malady. Unfortu-nately for the other Chasers, Johnson has won five of the past six races at the Virginia short track. So to win at Martinsville, you have to get past Johnson.

Denny Hamlin, whose Chase woes continued at Lowe's, was the other Martinsville race winner in the spring of 2008. Hamlin also finished second to Johnson there this spring. But he's now out of Chase contention, 372 points back. As much as Chasers such as Hamlin want to win for themselves, winning to keep Johnson out of victory lane is also a motivating factor.

Johnson's closest competitors are his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, Martin in second place, 90 points back; and Gordon, 135 points back. If they can't stop him at Martinsville, there is still a very large hurdle all drivers must overcome the following race - Talladega.

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