After two straights wins, Johnson may be coming on strong

LONG POND, Pa. - This is the threat Jimmie Johnson poses to his Sprint Cup rivals:

"[He's] good enough to win the championship, year in and year out," Carl Edwards said yesterday, before qualifying for tomorrow's Pocono 400. "They're basically the only team that's able to do that. Performance-wise, it's the model of how all of us would like to perform.

When Johnson, a six-time Cup champion, went winless in the season's first 11 races, whispers began: If he doesn't win soon he might not even make the Chase. Then Johnson won two consecutive races in the No. 48 Chevrolet, heading to Pocono, at Charlotte, then Dover.

Points leader Matt Kenseth voiced the opinion of many in the garage area yesterday when he said: "Jimmie just got off a championship and he went [11] races without winning. I don't think he was worried about his job."

Smiling, Kenseth said, "I don't think anyone else [was saying], 'Jimmie's not winning, this is our shot.' It doesn't surprise me he won those two races, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he won [tomorrow]."

Johnson won last year's June race at Pocono, boosting his win total at the track to three. He is the last Cup driver to win three consecutive races. In 2007, on his way to his second of six championships, he won four in a row at Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas and Phoenix.

Denny Hamlin edged Kurt Busch with a track-record time for the pole for tomorrow's race. Hamlin's time in the final qualifying session was 181.415 mph in a Toyota, just ahead of Busch's 181.408 in a Chevy.

Hamlin is a four-time winner at Pocono. His Pocono sweep, as a rookie in 2006, was from the pole in both races.

Jimmie Johnson had set the track qualifying mark of 180.654 mph last August. He qualified 20th yesterday at 178.678 mph.

"We definitely weren't a pole-winning car after practice or throughout the first round," Hamlin said. "We just kept getting our car better. A little was repetition, me getting all I could out of the race car."

Under the new "knockout" format for larger tracks such as Pocono, there are three qualifying sessions. The first 25-minute round includes all the cars. The 24 cars with the fastest times advance to a 10-minute second round, with the fastest 12 advancing to the 5-minute final round. Only the 12 fastest cars are eligible for the pole.

Kurt Busch and several other NASCAR drivers and officials are expected to participate in the third annual Pocono Celebrity Charity Poker Showdown July 31 at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre. The drivers will be in the area for the 400-mile Sprint Cup race Aug. 3 at Pocono Raceway.

Proceeds benefit the Armed Forces and NASCAR Foundations. Fans can choose from four donation options by registering at NASCAR.com/foundation.

Yesterday's 70th anniversary of D-Day seemed an appropriate time to ask Patricia Driscoll, president of the Armed Forces Foundation, whether she senses more appreciation for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than there was for Vietnam veterans.

"The Vietnam era group has made sure our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are not treated the way they were," said Driscoll, Busch's companion. "They go out of their way to make sure that there's still coming-home celebrations, they're there to welcome them at airports."

Driscoll said the Vietnam veterans are helping build community centers to help the vets "transition in life so we don't see them on the streets, addicted to drugs or committing suicide."

Driscoll noted that Vietnam vets weren't welcomed home as heroes "because [the war] became very political."

Kyle Larson, 10th in Sprint Cup points as a rookie, won the pole in a Chevrolet for today's 80-lap ARCA series race at Pocono (1 p.m., Fox Sports 1). Larson, clocked at 169.472 mph, said Ganassi Racing wants him in the ARCA race because he'd never raced at Pocono before.