Johnson in good, not great, shape

OK, Jimmie Johnson, this championship's for you … if you want it.

That's the consensus from Johnson's Sprint Cup rivals, even though the leads Johnson has on second-place Carl Edwards (72 points) and third-place Greg Biffle (77) might not look very big with six races left to run, including tonight's Bank of America 500.

Jeff Gordon, 232 points behind teammate Johnson, conceded that Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus "have a fantastic shot at it." But he also said it would be "oversimplifying it" to write off Edwards and Biffle, "as good as Carl and Greg started the Chase … and especially as good as Carl has been all season. Those guys are not going to go down without at fight."

Edwards especially, and maybe literally.

Edwards and Kevin Harvick got into a brief wrestling match in the garage Thursday when Edwards confronted Harvick about his "pansy" quote on TV at Talladega. Crews for the drivers eventually broke things up.

Edwards is one of NASCAR's fittest drivers, and Harvick is right there with him. When asked about a favorite in a head-to-head match, Rusty Wallace laughed and said: "Well, Carl is really physically fit … but Kevin is crazy. Carl might get into a fight, but Kevin would be likely to pick up a wrench or hammer and bop him with it. So I'd put my money on Kevin."

Rain on Thursday forced NASCAR to set the lineup on points, putting the 12 title contenders at the head of the pack, with Johnson and Edwards on the front row for the 7:30 p.m. start.

What to expect? Gordon said, "What happened at Talladega (wrecks) can happen at Charlotte. It can happen at Martinsville. It can happen anywhere. It's about avoiding those situations, and Jimmie did a phenomenal job at Talladega. If he can avoid those situations, it's going to be hard for those guys to make up those kind of points on him."

What about Gordon's chances?

"Well, we're not that far out of second (160 points). We're quite a ways out of first, but we're not that far out of second," he said. "We've got to put some numbers up there, get those top fives, get that win that we've been looking for all year, and we can handle 150 points.

"But 230? That's a little tougher."

One driver to keep an eye on will be rookie Regan Smith, who is coming off his controversial "loss" to Tony Stewart at Talladega. Smith and his DEI teammates haven't done that well at 1½-mile tracks, so this race, and the Atlanta stop in two weeks loom large, because DEI needs sponsorships.

Smith will be a free agent at the end of the season, and that puts pressure on all sides.

"Runs like Talladega -- showing what the company is capable of -- definitely helped out," Smith said. "My first option, and my priority, is to get a sponsor on this car and stay right here at DEI. I believe in the company, I believe in the direction we're going. We've made a lot of good moves the last four months.

"The last three races (Dover, Kansas City and Talladega) there's been at least one DEI car capable of winning. That says a lot about where we're going, and I'm proud of that."

Part of the pressure Smith has been under has been keeping the team in the top 35, which guarantees starting positions, and he's 29th … which means the team has a spot locked up for the Daytona 500, a big plus with potential sponsors.

Smith and Stewart have talked this week about Sunday's dramatic final lap. "He knew the move I was going to make, and I knew the block he was going to make," Smith said of his outside-then-inside bid on Stewart. "And when I went down to the bottom I thought I was good to go and clear….

"So I was sitting in the car after the race thinking, ‘I just got my first win as a rookie at Talladega, too. This is incredible.'"

Then NASCAR reversed the finish and gave Stewart the win and penalized Smith for going below the yellow line.

Photos of the two cars clearly show contact on the right front of Smith's car and the left rear of Stewart's. That would seem to confirm Smith's contention that he was forced below the line after getting his nose up under Stewart.

"I thought since I had my nose in under him, that it was legal for me to go below the yellow line at that point because I was forced down there," Smith said. "If that was a misinterpretation on my part of the rules, there were a lot of other drivers foggy about it, too … and probably would have done it the same way I did it."

Johnson and Biffle are in that group.

"What he needed to do was wreck Tony in front of the entire field," Biffle said. "Stay there and turn him sideways. Make him go flipping through the grass on his roof. That is the message (NASCAR officials) are sending.

"If I'm in that situation, I'm going to wreck him … if NASCAR is not going to penalize a guy for forcing someone below the yellow line."

Smith, leading NASCAR's rookie-of-the-year standings, now agrees with Biffle.

"Knowing what I know now," Smith said, "there would have been a big crash, because I wouldn't have budged. I'd have stuck my nose there and left it there."

Even in defeat, Smith has come up a winner in the publicity battle. "The fan support has been overwhelming," he said. "My Web site crashed three times this week because of all the fans hopping on.

"Whether you think it was the right decision or the wrong decision, hopefully it was an entertaining finish. The part that makes it difficult is it's a judgment call. Again, I wouldn't want to be in NASCAR's shoes, because anytime it comes down to judgment somebody's going to be mad.

■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.