Johnny Benson

The 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup championship hits the halfway mark on Saturday night with the Bank of America 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte where Jimmie Johnson is my driver to beat. The 33-year-old from El Cajon, Calif. will be looking to extend his 72-point lead in the playoff standings.

Working in Johnson's favor
The two-time defending Cup champion has been on a tear over the last month and a half. Since Aug. 31 the Hendrick Motorsports driver has three wins in six races. He has not come home outside the top 10 in any of those events and only once in this stretch has he finished outside the top five. Even after starting out with a too conservative approach last weekend at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Johnson rallied for a ninth-place result.

He and his team have gotten it going in superb fashion for another strong run at the championship. And there are many signs which point towards the No. 48 Chevrolet having a solid shot to three-peat. In case you’re wondering, the last driver to capture three consecutive Cup championships was Cale Yarborough, who achieved the feat from 1976-78.

In his last 11 starts at LMS the two-time defending Cup champion has five victories, eight top-fives and nine top-10s. He also boasts a series-high Driver Rating of 116.5. Crew chief Chad Knaus almost always has Johnson driving one of the most formidable cars in the field when it comes to racing at LMS although in the spring 600-miler at this 1.5-mile tri oval engine trouble relegated him to finishing 39th. Before his motor woes, he led for 35 laps after starting 10th.

Over the last seven LMS races, Johnson is not only tops in Driver Rating (116.5) but also bests all other competitors in Average Running Position (7.7), Fastest Laps Run (260), average Green Flag Speed (176.860 mph), Laps in the Top 15 percentage (88.5) and Quality Passes (passes of cars in the top 15), with 388.

As if he needed any help at LMS, Johnson will be on the pole after qualifying was postponed Thursday due to inclement weather and the field was set by owners points. So he's got a lot going for him including good fortune so far in the Chase, especially at Talladega where he avoided getting caught up in a multi-car, late-race incident caused by over aggressive driving by Carl Edwards. The Big One Edwards brought on involved 12 cars, including those of some of the dozen contenders for the Cup championship.

Other drivers to watch
Look for Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle and Edwards to all be pretty tough to beat on Saturday night. Others from whom I expect bids for at least top-10 runs are Kasey Kahne, Brian Vickers, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton and Matt Kenseth.

In his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing, Busch -- formerly of Hendrick Motorsports -- came home third in the spring event at LMS after starting from the pole and leading for 61 laps. He had a rough first three races in the Chase and those poor results erased his title chances but he came back last week at Talladega to finish 15th despite getting caught up with Dave Blaney during The Big One.

Stewart broke through at Talladega for his first win in his final season with Joe Gibbs Racing. He has a victory (2003) among his 11 top-10 finishes in 19 LMS starts and a week ago he had a good test at Charlotte.

Biffle usually runs well in Charlotte and although he does not have a Cup victory at LMS, he has two poles, two wins, five top-fives and nine top-10s in 15 Nationwide Series starts at the track.

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Edwards does not have a long history at LMS but he certainly has performed well at Charlotte. In seven Cup starts the Missouri native has posted three top-fives, including third-place runs in 2005 and 2006. He was ninth this spring in the 600-miler.

A winner this spring in the Cup race at LMS, Kahne also won May's All-Star non-points race at the track so he is bidding for a 2008 sweep of the three events at Charlotte. LMS is one of Kahne's favorite places to race and his stats are super impressive over this 1.5-mile layout.

At Charlotte Vickers has led 137 laps over his past two races. In the spring 600-miler Vickers believed he had a car that could have won the race had he not experienced misfortune, losing a left-rear tire after running super impressively in the early stages of the race.

Besides Johnson, who is one of his teammates at Hendrick Motorsports, Gordon is the only other active driver with five wins at LMS. The four-time Cup champion won this 500-miler last year and that's the last time he has been to Victory Lane. He'd love to take the checkers on Saturday night as he hasn't had a winless season since his rookie Cup year of 1992.

Burton will be making his 30th career start at LMS, where he has two victories. The first was a dramatic triumph in 1999, when he edged Bobby Labonte by less than a second. The other was in 2001, when he topped Kevin Harvick, one of his current teammates at Richard Childress Racing.

For Kenseth this will be his 19th Cup start at LMS, where he has achieved one win, five top-fives and nine top-10s. The Roush Fenway Racing driver considers LMS a special place since it's where he got his first Cup win and also won the All-Star race in 2004 and a couple of Nationwide Series races as well.

My darkhorse is David Reutimann, who had put together a string of five solid races before engine problems last week at Talladega. Reuitimann has run well on the mile-and-a-half tracks.

The Chase is still a six-driver battle. Behind Johnson is Edwards, followed by Biffle (-77 points), Burton (-99 points), Clint Bowyer (-152 points) and Harvick (-171 points).

Keys to success at Lowe’s Motor Speedway
The majority of the drivers in this race have competed at LMS often enough that they will be able to quickly recognize and adjust to changes they encounter with the track after practicing in daylight and running at night. And unlike in the spring event, they won't have to deal with the race starting in the day and ending after dark.

With a new surface having been put down a couple of years ago, there's no question a very difficult challenge has gotten even more difficult. The last time I have tested at LMS the track has better grip than it has had at any point since the resurfacing. The surface has seasoned some more and the groove is starting to widen out so there will be some side-by-side racing. Probably after about 150 or 200 miles are run by the cars, the track will become friendlier for side-by-side racing.

There will be a bottom groove and eventually an outside groove and drivers will have to run both at least at some point in the event. But the drivers who best hug the bottom line and can maintain good speed in doing so should be the ones battling it out for the win. There should also be a few drivers who will run the top groove the entire race and they could be a threat for the win as well. There may not be any driver who can run both grooves real well.

As they have in the past hard tires could again prove a factor. With them it's very difficult to get good grip on the track for the first four or five laps after a tire change. With such a hard tire sometimes an issue called "chatter" comes into play. That's basically a vibrating sensation in the tires and it can be severe enough that drivers will be running on flats and not immediately realize it. They may also believe they have a flat and come onto pit road for servicing only to find there's nothing wrong with the tire.

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