Jimmie Johnson left work feeling like a victim. It wasn't just the wreck that left him with a 32nd-place finish at Kansas; it was the whole system. NASCAR's new Chase for the Nextel Cup appeared to have ripped the heart right out Johnson's No. 48 team and left it on the track for every Kurt, Jeff and Dale Jr. to run over.

Four weeks into the Chase--just five weeks ago--Johnson was in ninth place, 247 points behind the leader, and a season in which his championship prospects had been so bright seemed on the verge of spinning out of control.

"Momentum's a weird thing," Johnson says. "I'm one of the believers that there is such a thing as momentum, team morale and energy. If it's all on a positive, you know, good things happen. If you're down and out, bad things just seem to keep happening."

Look at Johnson now.

There he is in victory lane at Darlington. He has been in victory lane a lot recently, four of the last five weeks.

This time, in the last Southern 500 at Darlington, Johnson took advantage of a pit mistake by teammate Jeff Gordon's team. In fact, Johnson and his crew got off pit road first before each of the last two restarts, and that was the difference.

Now, with only one race to go, Johnson has made up all but the last 18 points of that 247-point deficit. What was it Johnson said about momentum?

His team expects good things to happen now.

"They've done exactly what they need to do--win," Gordon says. "I think all of us felt for Jimmie when he had his tough luck because he had led the points for so long earlier in the season and had been such a factor in this championship."

Nobody will be feeling sorry for Johnson this Sunday at Homestead. One race, the championship on the line. You want to bet against the No. 48 team?

OK, it's easy to look back now. How could we ever have questioned the ability of a squad that has finished fifth and second in points since it was cloned from the four-time championship No. 24 team three years ago at Hendrick Motorsports? As stock car racing stables go, Hendrick Motorsports is the Claiborne Farms of NASCAR. Hendrick breeds winners.

That stud pedigree showed when Johnson was running away with the points race: He led the standings for nine weeks and at one time built a 232-point advantage over Gordon. But Johnson's fortunes plummeted after a win at Pocono on August 1. Consecutive engine failures at Indianapolis, Watkins Glen and Michigan--with three different causes--led to a slip to second in points, quite a tumble considering the lead Johnson once held.

Johnson regained the top of the leaderboard heading into Richmond, the final race before 10 drivers would qualify for the Chase. He started third and led 32 laps before a crash involving two other drivers spread to Johnson, wiping out his hopes for a win and pushing him to second in the standings.

A loose car at New Hampshire in the first Chase race started another slide. First to fifth in points, then, after a top 10 at Dover, the bottom fell out. Back-to-back calamities--over-heating at Talladega and the wreck at Kansas--put Johnson one step above the Chase cellar.

Heading to Charlotte--the track Johnson calls "my house"--the No. 48 had little choice if it wanted to get back into the hunt for the championship. Johnson had to take the checkered flag.

And he did.

He followed that with consecutive victories at Martinsville--not knowing that news of the Hendrick plane crash with 10 fatalities was waiting--and Atlanta, while hearts barely had begun to heal.

The three straight wins catapulted Johnson from ninth in points to second.

"I'm not shocked," says fellow Chaser Mark Martin. "I think Jimmie gets it done. So does his team."

Defending Cup champion Matt Kenseth points to the chemistry between Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, as well as the influence of teammate-owner Jeff Gordon for creating a solid nucleus.

"Jimmie and Chad have great communication between them," Kenseth says. "Jimmie is really good at telling Chad what he needs in the car, and Chad is really good at calling the race and gambling when he should gamble and not gambling when he shouldn't."

For a team to be as successful as the No. 48 crew has been--14 wins in 110 starts--good chemistry must exist between driver and crew. That never has been more important than in the past couple of years, with all the changes to the chassis, car bodies and tires. Johnson credits his communication with Knaus as the reason behind the team's eight wins this season.

"That's the hardest part in our sport," Johnson says. "The equipment is similar. NASCAR does a good job of trying to keep things equal with new rules. We're not allowed to have computers in our cars to tell the crew what's going on. So the only thing you have is the driver, and the driver-crew chief relationship. That's the most important thing."

There's no denying the value of Knans. As part of the No. 24 team in the 1990s, he learned from watching Ray Evernham work with Gordon.

"I think the only time I've really seen a team work this well together would have been in 1997 with the No. 24 car," Knaus says. "I was fortunate to be a part of that team. Our pit stops were incredible. Our engine package was incredible. Our crew chief and our driver were on top of their games.

"In 1997, we won some races that we shouldn't have because we were in the right place at the right time and made the right call. That's the same thing that happened to us right now."

The victory at Darlington provided an exclamation point to Johnson's answer to all those who thought his team was toast after Kansas.

"I think those people were asking, 'Where did Jimmie Johnson go about 10 races ago?' " Johnson says, laughing. "We're back. I think people have been in this sport long enough to know that you have your ups and downs. The timing of our downs wasn't the best for us. But we got it back, and we're now in the middle of it."

Clutch performance

Jimmie Johnson's performance since the
fifth race of the Chase has propelled him
into contention for the Nextel Cup title.
Points totals in the Chase beginning with the
UAW-GM Quality 500 at Lowe's Motor
Speedway (through Darlington):

No.    (Chase rank)               Points

 1.     (2) Jimmie Johnson         890
 2.     (5) Mark Martin            729
 3.     (3) Jeff Gordon            719
 4.     (1) Kurt Busch             661
 5.     (6) Tony Stewart           649
 6.     (7) Ryan Newman            649
 7.     (4) Dale Earnhardt Jr.     618
 8.    (10) Jeremy Mayfield        514
 9.     (8) Matt Kenseth           458
10.     (8) Elliott Sadler         421

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