NEXTEL CUP Johnson not thinking of "C-word" yet

Even with three straight wins, the team is trying to keep focused.
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
MILWAUKEE -- Jimmie Johnson saw what the "S-word" cost one of his rivals in the NASCAR points chase, but it's another word that makes him leery: Championship.
Carried by three straight victories from ninth place to second in the title race, Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports team insist that they don't want to think about last week, next week or the banquet in December.
They are most successful when they simply stick to what they're doing.
"The best thing this team can do is to act and feel like it did three weeks ago -- we don't have a shot at it and we just need to go out there and win races -- because that's worked for us," Johnson said. "When we play offense, we do a lot better job that when we play defense.
Focus on winning
"We're going to try not to say the 'C-word' too many times. We're going to focus on [winning] and not on the championship, and just go racing."
The streakiest driver on the circuit, Johnson was putting distance on the competition this summer before consecutive finishes of 36th, 40th and 40th in August set him back.
When the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup shootout began, Johnson sat second to teammate Jeff Gordon in points, but overheating at Talladega and a crash at Kansas dropped him to ninth.
Since then, he's been unbeatable.
"These last three races have shown us it takes a full day's work," Johnson said. "If we're not the best car in the beginning, it doesn't matter. It's a long day, and the lap that really pays is the one at the end and we've been able to be the best car at the end for the last three weeks in a row."
While Johnson had the best car at the right time, leader Kurt Busch and some of the other top contenders found their share of trouble.
"In the last three weeks, we've gained all the points we lost in the first four weeks [of the Chase], almost," said Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief. "It's nice to have good bounce-backs."
59 points behind
Busch, who dropped out with an engine failure Sunday at Atlanta, leads Johnson by 59 points as the series heads to Phoenix International Raceway this weekend.
Gordon, who encountered transmission trouble Sunday, fell to third another 13 points back, and Mark Martin, the runner-up to Johnson at Atlanta, has climbed to fourth, nine behind Gordon.
After a wreck Dale Earnhardt Jr. fell to fifth, 98 out of the lead, a deficit that includes a 25-point penalty for his language during a TV interview after he'd won at Talladega.
"For us to win or have an opportunity to win, we can't get a top-10 anymore, we can't get a top-five, we need to win one or two of these races convincingly," said Earnhardt.
And as the Chase tightens, Johnson and his team are on a strange sort of high, fueled not only by their recent on-track success but by what that success has meant to the Hendrick organization.
Johnson, 29, has never scored a more emotional victory than Sunday's, just three days after memorial services for some of the 10 victims of a team plane crash.
"There is so much pride to be able to do what we did and put a smile on faces that have been mourning for a week," Johnson said.