Johnny Benson

This weekend's Nextel Cup race is Sunday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, a track where Jimmie Johnson should head anyone's list of top contenders.

Working in Johnson's favor
Johnson, whose primary sponsor is Lowe's, considers the Charlotte oval his home track. And he has certainly shown a home-track advantage. The Hendrick Motorsports driver has won five of the last seven points races at the 1.5-mile oval.

Overall, Johnson has won five points races and two non-points races at LMS. Over the last four years at this venue he has never had a result lower than third. Last year Johnson was runner-up to Kasey Kahne in both Charlotte Cup events. He made history in 2005 when he became the first driver to win this event three consecutive years.

Johnson and his crew chief Chad Knaus have a tremendous feel for LMS. No matter what's thrown at them in the Charlotte races they respond well. Needless to say the No. 48 team is plenty confident coming into this race.

There's one trap that they must guard against. It's not overconfidence but rather shying away from trying new things in the belief that what's worked in the past can't be improved upon. Sometimes when success comes as abundantly as it has for Johnson at LMS there's too much of a temptation not to change a thing. That can backfire on a driver and a team.

Johnson is second in points and he has the most wins (4) on the Cup circuit this season. He's the defending Cup champion and is showing that his defense of that title lacks nothing. His setups are super, his pit stops clean and quick, and the combination of him and Knaus may again prove unbeatable.

Other drivers to watch
Besides Johnson four other drivers -- Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, and Jeff Burton -- should be extremely tough to beat on Sunday night.

This is Gordon's 29th Cup start at LMS, where he has seven poles, four wins, 13 top-fives, and 15 top-10s. His most recent Cup victory at the Charlotte track came in October of 1999. The four-time Cup champion finished 36th in this event last year after being involved in a wreck.

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Gordon's been a power on the Cup circuit this season. He leads in points -- 231 markers ahead of his teammate Johnson. In 11 races he has led a series-leading 674 of 3,653 laps, 18.45 percent. He's been a model of excellence, is really hitting it off with crew chief Steve Letarte, and would love to make Charlotte his fourth win of the year.

Kenseth is the only driver in NASCAR history to win the Charlotte 600-miler as a rookie, achieving that feat in 2000. In his career he has posted four wins at this track, including in the All-Star Challenge two years ago. And last weekend the Roush Racing driver ran extremely strong in the All-Star event, finishing seventh after capturing the pole.

Stewart has nine top-10s in 16 starts at LMS, where his average Cup finish is 13.7. He took fifth in last Saturday night's All-Star Challenge. The two-time Cup champion doesn't have a win this season, but he sure has run well enough in several races to have made it to Victory Lane.

Burton has designs on a win after coming home no worse than sixth in his last three events at LMS. He was fourth last week in the All-Star Challenge, third in last fall's Cup race, and sixth in this event last year. He has seven top-10s in 11 races this season, good enough for fifth in points.

Kevin Harvick won the All-Star event last weekend and he should have something good going on Sunday night with a top-10 result certainly within reach. The Richard Childress racer will be in the same chassis he drove to Victory Lane last weekend.

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