Johnson is firmly in driver’s seat

Matt Kenseth will be poised to seize the NASCAR Nextel Cup if points leader Jimmie Johnson runs into trouble at the final race Sunday, but otherwise Johnson has earned the title, Kenseth’s team owner said Tuesday.

With a 63-point lead over Kenseth in the Chase for the Cup, Johnson “certainly deserves to be the champion and the only way he won’t be is if he has some mechanical problem or gets involved in a wreck where he can’t finish the race,� said Jack Roush, whose Roush Racing fields Kenseth’s Ford Fusion.

“I’m not wishing that on Jimmie,� Roush said. “Given the fact that he’s finished first or second in the last half-dozen races, he’s certainly the odds-on favorite to win and I hope that he can.�

Only Johnson, who drives the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, rookie Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. still have mathematical chances to win the Cup at Sunday’s Ford 400 stock car race at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.

But it is Johnson’s title to lose. He needs only to finish 12th or better on Homestead’s 1.5-mile oval to win the championship, even if he doesn’t earn bonus points for leading a lap or leading the most laps.

That’s a tough challenge for Kenseth and Roush.

“We do have a chance. We’ll see what happens,� said Roush, who joined team officials for the four other drivers on a news conference call.

Johnson, 31, an El Cajon native, overcame problems early in the 10-race Chase with his recent string of impressive finishes to take the points lead. Since mid-October, he has had four seconds and a victory.

He was second, behind Harvick last Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, where he stretched his lead from 17 points. Harvick and Hamlin are 90 points behind Johnson. Earnhardt trails by 115 points.

“We just don’t need to have any bad luck this Sunday,� said Johnson’s car owner, Rick Hendrick, who previously won championships with Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte. “I feel extremely good about our competitiveness on the team.

“I just hope [Johnson] can close the deal,� he added, noting that Johnson came close to winning titles the last four years. “I’ve known Jimmie since he was probably 17 years old. He’s going to make a great champion.�

Kenseth, the 2003 Cup winner, has stayed in this year’s hunt by avoiding horrendous finishes during the Chase, but he has seldom been in the top five, because of recurring handling problems with his No. 17 car.

“Matt Kenseth is as mature as any driver I’ve ever worked with,� Roush said. “He’s not going to beat himself. We’ve just missed something on the car. It’s something that we’ll find an answer to eventually.�

This is the third year of the Chase, a playoff-style format in which the top 10 drivers in points after 26 of the series’ 36 races compete for the title. The others in this year’s Chase -- Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin, Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch -- were eliminated at Phoenix.

NASCAR has said it might tweak the Chase next year to make it more competitive, but the five owners still eligible this year said they generally were satisfied with the system.

Hendrick and Richie Gilmore, a vice president of Dale Earnhardt Inc., said they would like to see drivers get more points for winning throughout the year, to boost the emphasis on winning races each week.

Currently, the 43 cars in a Cup race earn points on a sliding scale depending on where they finish, the winner getting 180 points and the second-place finisher 170. Drivers also earn bonus points by leading a lap and by leading the most laps in a race.

“I just feel like it ought to be more than 10 points [between first and second],� said Hendrick, who also owns the cars driven by Gordon and Busch. “I feel like it ought to be at least 20. I just don’t think there’s enough spread.�

But Roush said, “I don’t have any criticism of the Chase,� noting that five teams still have a chance Sunday. The format puts a premium on teams “to be durable and to be consistent and to have a good average performance,� he said.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The Chase

NASCAR Nextel Cup standings:

*--* Rk. Driver Points Behind 1. Jimmie Johnson 6,332 -- 2. Matt Kenseth 6,269 63 t3. Kevin Harvick 6,242 90 t3. Denny Hamlin 6,242 90 5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 6,217 115 6. Jeff Gordon 6,165 167 7. Jeff Burton 6,107 225 8. Mark Martin 6,059 273 9. Kasey Kahne 6,013 319 10. Kyle Busch 5,973 359

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* Final race: Sunday, Ford 400, Homestead-Miami Speedway,

11 a.m. PST (Channel 4).