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Only Cale Yarborough, from 1976-78, has won three straight championships in stock car racing's premier series, and Johnson is looking more and more as if he will be the second.
"I'm going to have to answer those questions one of these days, aren't I?" Johnson said of Yarborough and taking a position beside him in history.
Johnson's sixth victory of the year extended his points lead from 69 to 149.
"There's a lot of great teams that were huge in the sport," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, lumping Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus in with his father and Richard Petty, both seven-time champions, and Hall of Famers Yarborough, David Pearson and Junior Johnson. "To pack it in 3 years and just dominate like that, there's only a half-a-dozen teams that have ever done anything like that, been that strong consistently," Earnhardt said.
It was a year ago that this race started a four-race winning streak for Johnson, a run that he said left him thinking, "I cannot believe I'm experiencing this."
Now, to experience it again, he's not planning to let up at all.
"As long as I can stay scared and on my heels and worried about losing this thing, the better this team's going to be. If we start getting comfortable and complacent, we're going to stub our toes, make mistakes," he said. "We're trying to keep our eye on the prize."
So are the rest of the contenders.
"We're going to come and get them," said Greg Biffle, who climbed to second in points. "We've got four more chances and we're going to some of our best places, so they better be on their 'A' game . . . I'm still confident we can catch him."
So are Jeff Burton, 152 points back in third, and Carl Edwards, fourth and 198 behind.
"He could have any sort of trouble the next two races and be right back there with us," Edwards said. "It can happen to anyone."
But at Martinsville, as always, none of them had a way to stop Johnson. It was his third consecutive fall victory here, and fourth in the last five races on NASCAR's shortest oval.
Earnhardt was second, followed by Edwards and Jeff Gordon, with Denny Hamlin fifth and Casey Mear sixth.
Johnson sealed the win in a two-lap sprint to the finish after the 12th caution flew on lap No. 499.
"I didn't have anything for Jimmie. That car was so awesome," Earnhardt said.
* Steve Lawson, a popular NASCAR official, was found dead in his hotel room in Martinsville yesterday morning, NASCAR officials said. He was 51.
The cause of death was not announced. Lawson, of Rockford, Ill., was scheduled to work at the TUMS Quikpak 500 at Martinsville Speedway. A moment of silence was held before the race. *
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