updated 9:05 p.m. ET Nov. 12, 2006

AVONDALE, Ariz. - The Nextel Cup title is Jimmie Johnson’s to lose.

For anyone else, it would be a perfect position. But Johnson has been here before.

Johnson lost two of these titles before, and nothing is guaranteed — even after his second-place finish Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway gave him a firm hold atop the Chase for the championship leaderboard.

He needs to only finish 12th or better next week in the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway to win the championship.

“I seriously don’t have any clue what to expect,” Johnson said. “I don’t have any strategy other than go down and finish ahead of (the other Chase drivers). It’s just that simple. That’s all we’ve done so far, through these last few months, and we’re just going to go down there and do the same thing we’ve been doing.”

What Johnson has done is put together a nearly flawless five-race stretch to rescue his season. After leading the points for all but four of the first 26 weeks of the regular season, he saw his title hopes crippled in Round 1 of the Chase when he crashed and finished 39th.

That dropped him to ninth in the standings, and few believed Johnson could mount yet another one of his amazing comebacks. He did it the past two seasons, when he dominated the regular season only to fall apart at the start of the Chase and have to frantically work his way back into contention.

Doing it a third time just seemed a little too much to ask.

So he didn’t try to. Johnson instead decided to attack the remaining Chase races one at a time and let the points fall where they may. In doing so, he’s racked up five-straight finishes of second or better to move back into the points lead and put a healthy margin on the competition.

He leads Matt Kenseth by 63 points and only four other drivers are mathematically eligible to even catch him.

“I never felt like we were out of it, but I knew we needed some bad luck,” said Johnson, who was 165 points out of the lead after the third Chase race. “I never conceded, but I also said to myself ’Let’s just go all-out.’ “

Chase for the Cup final standings Driver Points Behind 1. Jimmie Johnson 6,723 -- 2. Jeff Gordon 6,646 77 3. Clint Bowyer 6,377 346 4. Matt Kenseth 6,298 425 5. Kyle Busch 6,293 430 6. Tony Stewart 6,242 481 7. Kurt Busch 6,231 492 7. Jeff Burton 6,231 492 9. Carl Edwards 6,222 501 10. Kevin Harvick 6,199 524 11. Martin Truex Jr. 6,164 559 12. Denny Hamlin 6,143 580 Standings final as of Nov. 18

That’s what he did Sunday, when he briefly flirted with racing Kevin Harvick for the win before smartly settling for second.

He raced Harvick just hard enough over a final three-lap sprint to the finish to maintain his track position and not jeopardize the big picture.

“In order to get the win, I was really going to have to force the issue,” Johnson said. “I had a good run on Kevin ... a little bit of position inside of him, but he was shutting the door and I knew that I needed to be smart from that point on.”

Harvick, who won for the fifth time this year and swept the season at Phoenix, led 252 of the 312 laps and was out front for a series of late restarts. A short stoppage allowed both drivers to map out their final strategy, which called for Johnson to make a brief run at Harvick over the closing laps.

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But Harvick twice held off the charge, and Johnson fell in line behind him as they crossed the finish line.

“Jimmie got a good run on me,” Harvick said. “But I wasn’t going to lose this race.”

Harvick, whose alternator was on the fritz over the final stretch, worried he wouldn’t have enough juice to make it to the end. But he got a good jump on the final restart, then steadily watched his rearview mirror as Johnson came hard at him.

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