Jimmie Johnson pads lead with 2nd-place finish

MARTINSVILLE — Jimmie Johnson should consider making some room in his trophy case.

The driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet extended his lead in the standings to 118 points with a second-place finish at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday. Johnson, who is in line for his Cup-record fourth consecutive championship, tacked 28 points onto his lead over second-place driver Mark Martin after the TUMS Fast Relief 500.

If history proves anything, Johnson will be hard to catch in the final four weeks. Just don’t ask him about it. Visibly irritated, Johnson made it clear that he’s tired of discussing what it will take to stay on top of the standings.

“It’s the same stuff over and over again,” Johnson said following Sunday’s race. “The mechanicals, the stuff we can’t control is the stuff I’m worried about. The stuff we can control, I feel we’re going to be great. Four good tracks coming up for us. If we have no issues, I feel that we can race for this championship and things will turn out as we want. But the stuff I can’t control, I know it gives everybody something to talk about, but I’m tired of talking about all the what-ifs, and I’d just rather not.”

Since the 2004 inception of the Chase, the driver leading the standings following the Martinsville race has won three out of five years.

Take a guess who is the only driver who has been able to overcome a deficit to win the Chase in the final four races. That’s right: Jimmie Johnson.

In 2006 and 2007, Johnson didn’t take the points lead for good until Texas, the 34th race of the 36-event schedule.

Johnson entered Sunday’s race with a 90-point lead over Martin — the largest advantage by any points leader at that point in any of the previous five Chases. Although his lead leaving Martinsville wasn’t the 149 points it was in 2008, it’s still almost insurmountable considering Johnson’s consistency down the stretch.

“The way he’s running, you’ve probably got to win the next (four) races and have him have some bad luck,” said Juan Pablo Montoya, who jumped from sixth to fifth in the standings.

If there’s one track left that could cause a hang-up for Johnson, it might be next week at Talladega Superspeedway. Although Johnson has one win there in 15 races, his average finish is 17.7 and he has six DNFs.

Johnson said he tries to put blinders on to help his mental state as the Chase continues.

“I need to just worry about doing my job and not let the emotions affect my effort and my focus,” he said. “That can be negative thoughts, it can be good thoughts. You’ve just got to stay focused on your little world, or I stay focused on my world, and that’s it.”

Johnson has told his crew to do the same. If the No. 48 team can get through Talladega with a decent finish, the rest of the way might be easy sailing. Johnson is solid at the final three tracks on the calendar — especially at Phoenix, where he has won three of the last four races.

As Johnson proved on Sunday at Martinsville, Martin — his closest competition in the Chase — found he’s hard to catch if you can’t finish ahead of him. “We need to pick it up,” Martin said. “You know, eighths, sevenths — that won’t get it done right now.”

And that makes it all the more frustrating for those teams.

“He has got that dominant performance going and he is out there pulling away from everybody,” said Darian Grubb, crew chief for Tony Stewart. “You have a good, strong run and you still lose points. That is a hard day to swallow.”