Mr. October: Johnson always around at end

Some friendly advice for Jimmie Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus: Don't over-engineer this thing.

You can't win the NASCAR championship in a hospital bed.

So you don't have to test every day of the week from here on out.

Maybe a round of golf instead.

"The new track at Rockingham was just finished -- maybe two days -- when we got on it," said Johnson, the tour's points leader. "It was intended to look like Martinsville (flat) … and act like Martinsville.

"It's just an oval sitting out there with a few hay bales. Really old-school looking.

"But they just got the asphalt and concrete down, and they built it to be a lot like Martinsville, so we had to shoot over there and give it a shot, to see if we could learn something to bring here.

"They did a great job -- but it's brand new and it needs some work: They need to grind some areas and smooth it out.

"And there are no walls up…

"We blew a right-front tire, and thankfully there were no walls, because I went flying out through this field.

"I thought I was going to end up on pit road where everybody was standing. I'm coming through turn four, and the tire blows and there's nothing there. I'm like ‘This is going to be big.' "

Johnson can laugh now.

Fortunately.

It would be difficult to explain losing the Sprint Cup championship because of a broken ankle or something while running wildly through a Richmond County cornfield.

"Luckily the ground was real soft, and the car stuck -- threw dirt all over the place," Johnson said.

"Without walls it was comforting, because there is nothing to hit.

"Well, it was comforting until the tire blew and I was heading toward pit road.

"I thought ‘Man, this could be really, really bad.'

"My transporter was the first one over there … and how cool would that be -- to blow a tire, go off the track, and run into your own transporter?

"But it didn't happen."

Wonder if that part of this year's NASCAR championship chase will make the highlight video?

And it's not like Johnson and Knaus need much practice for this place, which Rick Hendrick teams have dominated for years.

But Martinsville Speedway is quirky and deceptively simple. Matt Kenseth said that racing here is like racing around a couple of light poles in a mall parking lot.

However four hours of that -- and punching the gas and the brake every 10 seconds -- can take a toll. Not to mention the aggravation of this kind of rush-hour traffic, where each man has such a different agenda -- particularly this weekend, with so many jobs on the line.

This could make for some cutthroat racing.

Of the 10 tracks in the chase, Talladega and Martinsville are the two that seem to worry these drivers the most. Talladega, for obvious reasons: Ask Biffle, Edwards and Kevin Harvick about that.

Martinsville because it's just a brutal, and brutally long and frustrating afternoon.

Well, for everyone but Johnson. He said he's more worried about the next two stops on the chase tour than this one. "You can have your fenders torn off the car here but still stay in the race and get some points," he said.

"At Texas and Atlanta, you don't see big pile-ups that you can see here. But there still is a lot of risk at those tracks. If you crash at Atlanta or Texas, chances are you're on the truck and going home.

"I've looked at this -- and I've looked at Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards -- and said ‘This could be a track where, if we're in a big dogfight, maybe I can get 10 or 15 points on these guys.'

"Now Jeff (Burton) is second right now and looking strong; this is a good track for him.

"I'm just hopeful to stretch it out a little more: If it's 10 points or 15 points, my goal is to get a few points on those guys.

"And this is a track where I feel we can do that.

"Now the next one, things might change a little bit."

The wild-card driver is likely Edwards, who has had one of the strongest cars all season, but who seems all but out of the hunt now after two bad races.

One thing to remember in all this: Johnson could very easily be going for his seventh straight Cup title. From his first full season on the tour, 2002, Johnson has not only been a championship contender, but he's been in the title hunt down the stretch.

Mr. October.

So he seems to have learned how to stop stressing out so much ….well, forget that brief fit of pique after Saturday nights troubles at Charlotte.

"I'm drawing great comfort in what we've done, and that's making it easier on us," Johnson says. "I had fewer nightmares in 2007. And this year, less again.

"But it's because we're performing.

"If things change -- and our luck changes – I'm sure the nightmares would come back in a hurry.

"But experience -- and building on the confidence of that experience -- has helped me be much more relaxed."

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