Jimmie Johnson gets back in the Chase

Jimmie Johnson is back knocking on the door of what would be an unprecedented fifth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title after handily winning the second race of the 10-race Chase for the Cup playoff.

And this should surprise anyone?

The only surprise was that Johnson finished a lackluster 25th in the Chase opener at New Hampshire. But he and his Hendrick Motorsports team, led by crew chief Chad Knaus, restored order with the victory at Dover, Del., last weekend.

That lifted Johnson to second in the Chase, 35 points behind leader Denny Hamlin, with eight races left, starting Sunday at Kansas Speedway. The Chase comes to Southern California the following weekend with the Pepsi Max 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana on Oct. 10.

It never was in question that Johnson, 35, was a favorite to win yet another title despite lots of pre-Chase talk that this year’s 12-driver playoff was perhaps the most competitive since the Chase format began in 2004.

Although his No. 48 Chevrolet had its share of poor races this year, Johnson had five wins — only one short of Hamlin’s series-high six — during the 26-race “regular season” leading to the Chase.

That said, the Chase still is very much up for grabs.

“It’s still anybody’s game right now,” said two-time champion Tony Stewart, who’s started poorly in the Chase and already is a distant 162 points behind Hamlin in 10th. “If any of us can predict the top 10 positions in Sunday’s race, you’re a genius, let alone figuring out how the next eight weeks are going to be.”

Hamlin still leads the Chase, lest anyone forget, and the six victories by the Joe Gibbs Racing driver — on top of four wins the prior year— showed that the Virginian has developed a consistency that could crown him champion at the season finale in Florida on Nov. 21.

“A lot of people are just waiting for us to slip up like we have done in the past,” Hamlin, 29, said after the Dover race. “I just don’t see that happening this time around.”

The next three drivers in the Chase standings — Kyle Busch, his older brother and former champion Kurt Busch, and Kevin Harvick, who led the points through most of the regular season — also will give Hamlin and Johnson plenty to handle.

The Busch Brothers and Harvick have a combined eight victories this year, although none of the three has ever won at Kansas since the 1.5-mile oval began holding Cup races in 2001.

And if Hamlin is correct that people are waiting for him to slip up, the same goes for Kyle Busch, 25, and it will be interesting to see if the aggressive, temperamental and extremely talented driver stays in the hunt throughout the Chase.

With 19 career Cup wins, Kyle Busch is in his fourth Chase but has yet to make much noise in the playoff, and he missed last year’s Chase entirely. Still, Busch likes several of the upcoming tracks in the Chase.

“Kansas may be hit or miss, but California is a good one,” along with Charlotte and Phoenix, Busch told reporters recently. His first Cup win as a rookie in 2005 came at the two-mile Auto Club Speedway.

IndyCar finale

After winning the Aug. 22 race in Sonoma, Calif., Australian Will Power held a 59-point lead over reigning champion Dario Franchitti with four races left on the Izod IndyCar Series schedule.

But all four were on oval tracks, and Power — while an accomplished driver on curvy road or street layouts such as Infineon Raceway in Sonoma — had yet to win an IndyCar race on an oval.

That’s still true with only one race left, the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida on Saturday, and Power now is clinging to a lead of only 12 points over Franchitti.

“I’ve never finished ahead of [Franchitti] on an oval and one day I’ll get it,” said Power, who drives for Team Penske.

Still a leading Force

With three races left in the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship playoff for its premier Full Throttle drag-racing series, 61-year-old John Force still leads the funny car standings in hopes of winning a remarkable 15th title.

The Yorba Linda driver has a 25-point lead over Matt Hagan, last weekend’s funny car winner in Dallas. In the top-fuel class, Larry Dixon leads by 69 points over Cory McClenathan and by 94 over Tony Schumacher, who won in top fuel in Dallas and is seeking his seventh consecutive title and eighth overall.

The series finale is at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona on Nov. 11-14.

james.peltz@latimes.com