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Jimmie Johnson has both the points lead and some momentum going into the final two races of the season. (Photo: Getty Images/Jonathan Ferrey) » More Photos
WORKING THE ODDS Jimmie Johnson enters this weekend's action in the Valley of the Sun with a narrow 17-point lead over Matt Kenseth with just two races left in the NASCAR Nextel Cup season. Johnson's slender margin means he can't simply lay back and hope for a top-20 finish. Instead, he needs to finish in the top five or 10 if he wants to preserve his points lead. "I don't feel that our expectations here are to go out and dominate and win the race," Johnson said. "We just want to get that same thing going and be in the top five. … I really think we have a chance to improve our finishing position and be a threat to win." Johnson, at least, has momentum on his side, having scored three seconds and a victory in his last four starts."
SNAKE BITTEN To show its appreciation of the series-high six NASCAR Nextel Cup victories rung up this year by Kasey Kahne, Dodge presented the popular young Evernham Motorsports driver with a new Dodge Viper SRT10 sports car Friday morning at Phoenix International Raceway. And even though Kahne's championship hopes have gone up in a cloud of engine smoke and bent sheetmetal, the driver said that Team Director Kenny Francis and the rest of the crew will be back in 2007, which gives him great cause for optimism. "Next year is going to be pretty exciting," Kahne said. "We're going to have the same team. Kenny Francis is a great guy and he's done an awesome job all season long on my race cars. I feel like we'll be right back in the Chase again next year and be just as strong or stronger."
MODEL CITIZEN What a difference a year makes. Last year on pole day at Phoenix International Raceway, Kurt Busch was arrested and charged with criminal reckless driving after leading Maricopa County police on a brief chase. The arrest led to Busch being booted out of his Roush Racing Ford for the final two races of 2005. But since then, Busch plea-bargained his case down to a misdemeanor traffic ticket, did a lot of charitable work locally and in short has been a model citizen, which led to him receiving an honorary deputy's badge in a ceremony on Thursday. "I didn't expect it," Busch said of the badge. "It shows the
ROOKIE LIKES HIS CHANCES Even though he's currently fourth in points, Denny Hamlin said Friday that he doesn't have to win Sunday's Checker Auto Parts 500 to stay in title contention. "I don't think we have to win the race," Hamlin said prior to Friday's opening round of NASCAR Nextel Cup practice at Phoenix International Raceway. "We just have to capitalize if one of the two guys in front of us have a mediocre day. They really don't have to have a bad day for us to make up points. If we finish in the top five and they end up 15th or so, I mean, we're right back within 10 or 20 points. We're still in contention. We can't think about what points we lost through the season because everyone is in the same boat. For us, it's just going out there and doing the best we can."
'SHRUB' STARTING TO BLOSSOM Kyle Busch, despite his youthful age of 21, has done a fair amount of growing up this year. A large part of that is self-awareness, which he seems to have developed in just his second season of Nextel Cup racing. "Racing the way I raced last, I didn't make many friends last year," Busch said after being asked about the retirement of his former teammate, Terry Labonte. "This year, we kind of turned it around there in the middle part of the year and really started racing well. The thing you want to be able to do is to be well-liked when you retire. I know right now, I'm not close to retiring and I'm not close to being liked. So I've got some room to grow there."
CASE CLOSED A settlement has been reached in the 2003 lawsuit by Dodge against car owner Bill Davis. In February, Dodge won a $6.5 million settlement against Davis, who campaigned Dodges in the Cup series when he began developing Toyota's Tundra NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series entry. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Davis has dropped his appeal of the judgment and all parties involved apparently agreed to settle and put the issue behind them.
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