Leaders to close season on tracks that aren't their best

Combined they've won 112 races and five championships on NASCAR's premier level, and together they stand first and second in the Chase for the Nextel Cup standings. But the final three racetracks of this season have the potential to make Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson look something they're rarely seen during other times of the year.

Ordinary.

Say goodbye to places like Martinsville and Charlotte, tracks where the Hendrick Motorsports drivers have each visited Victory Lane multiple times and are always a threat from the minute their respective racecars are unloaded. With only nine points separating the two, this championship will be decided at Texas, Phoenix, and Homestead-Miami, layouts where Gordon and Johnson have struggled to build the consistency that's defined their efforts at other venues, and at times been downright frustrated by speedways that drivers don't see as much as others on the schedule.

Gordon and Johnson have separated themselves from the pack over the course of the last four races, events run on tracks in Talladega, Charlotte, Martinsville and Atlanta where the Hendrick teammates have won a combined 35 times. On the final three tracks, they have only a single victory between them, that recorded by Gordon at Phoenix this spring. Texas and Homestead are the only two active Nextel Cup venues where Gordon has never won. Results for each driver at each track are inconclusive, with top-five runs interspersed with failures and days where they've just missed the setup.

At Texas, where the Nextel Cup circuit races Sunday, Johnson has placed inside the top 10 in six of his eight career starts, but led only three laps and holds an average finish of 10.2. Gordon has finished outside the top 10 in more than half of his 13 career starts in Fort Worth, and his average finish on the 1.5-mile oval is just that, an average 15.8. In the track's spring race, he started on the pole because qualifying was rained out, and led a race-high 173 laps before banging off the wall late and finishing fourth.

"I can honestly say this is one of the first times I'm excited about racing [at Texas] from a competitive standpoint," said Gordon, who has six victories this season. "I've always loved the facility, but it's been hit-or-miss for us. We've been close to victory the past couple of times. But for whatever crazy reason -- whether it's an electrical problem while leading or me smacking the wall off Turn 4 while leading -- we just haven't won."

Neither has Johnson, who holds an average finish of 10.6 on the season's final three tracks, compared to Gordon's 11.8. Only Phoenix, where Gordon has now finished inside the top 10 in all but one of his past 12 races, offers either driver any degree of comfort. And then there's the 2-mile oval in Homestead, Fla., a place where the Hendrick drivers have been either mediocre or awful, and a track where neither relishes ending the year.

"The consistency hasn't been there, that's for sure," Johnson said. "At Phoenix, we finished fifth there in the spring and I've had some other top-five finishes. It's been hit or miss. But I've been there, so I tell myself we can go back there and run well and try to get the right mindset about Phoenix. At Texas, we've been running better there every time we come back. This past spring we were really strong and had an engine problem. So even though the result doesn't reflect it, I feel really good about going to Texas."

But not Homestead, where Johnson has an average finish of 14.5 to Gordon's 11.4. Johnson did wrap up his 2006 title at the metro Miami facility with a ninth-place result there last November.

"Homestead is Homestead for us," Johnson added. "It really hasn't been an earth-shattering performance there for us. I recognize that, but I also know the game and the situation I'm dealing with, and that is that Homestead isn't the best track for Jeff."

In the previous three editions of NASCAR's playoff, the eventual champion has posted at least one finish of 25th or worse over the course of the 10-race event. Including third-place Clint Bowyer -- who is 111 points behind -- the top three Chasers have enjoyed relatively clean runs, with Johnson's 14th-place finishes at Dover and Charlotte standing as the worst of the bunch. But in the case of the Hendrick drivers, they've also thrived on tracks where they have a history of winning. That's not the case from here on, as NASCAR moves to venues that are relatively new to the schedule or have only recently acquired a second race date.

"All we can do right now is put up the best numbers and performance on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the next three events and hope that's enough," Gordon said. "I think we have a team capable of winning the championship. We have a slim points lead right now. I don't care how small or large a lead is after the season finale at Homestead. I just hope it's [our] team with that lead."

Johnson seems well aware of the fact that the final three weeks of the schedule doesn't necessarily play to his strengths. The goal from now on isn't necessarily winning -- something a Hendrick driver has done each of the last four weeks -- but salvaging top-five finishes. Still, what he'd give for another Atlanta or Martinsville somewhere in this concluding stretch.

"Yeah, that wouldn't hurt my feelings," he said with a laugh. "But it's not the situation we have. We just came out of a really good stretch, I think, for the No. 24 and No. 48 as far as race wins are concerned. These fall races are more top-five events for us more than anything."