As Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick sat on the dais and fielded questions during Thursday's press conference hyping Sunday's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the mood was vastly different from recent years.
There were no barbs. No verbal jousting. No mindgames. Instead there was just lighthearted banter among the three challengers.
Why was there no tension like last year's presser featuring Johnson and eventual Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski? What happened to the theatrics of the 2010 edition when Johnson and Harvick took turns messing with the psyche of then-points leader Denny Hamlin?
The answer is relatively simple and straightforward. Unlike last year or the year before, or really most years since the Chase was implemented, this year's championship is all but decided. Johnson enters Homestead with a healthy 28-point lead over Kenseth, and is up 34 on Harvick.
Kenseth and Harvick's chance rest on trouble besieging Johnson -- preferably something terminal like a blown engine or a crash.
Because the reality is no matter what either does, even if they were to win the race and lead the most laps, Johnson still controls his own destiny. All the five-time champion has to do to secure a sixth title is finish 23 or better without leading a single lap.
In short, this is the 48 team's championship to lose and both Kenseth and Harvick know their chances are remote. Kenseth even joked that Johnson could "run 28th on three wheels."
"It's definitely a really, really longshot," Harvick said.
And although their hopes may be slim, don't think Kenseth or Harvick are openly rooting for Johnson to stumble. Harvick says by doing so invites misfortune to strike his team instead.
"I'm a firm believer in karma," Harvick said. "It's not something that you want to root against the other side or try to force something to happen. It's something that we need to control what we can control. We have to win the race on Sunday to have any of those scenarios play out."
Meanwhile Kenseth is more pragmatic.
"I'm not a guy that roots for teams to lose," he said. "I'm kind of a guy that roots for my favorite teams, so I'm probably more rooting to go out and dominate the race and win the race than anything else."
For his part Johnson played things cool Thursday. He never talked like the championship was all but secure, continually mentioning the importance of staying focused on the task at hand. That task includes taking no chances Sunday.
While Homestead is a track he's yet to win at, Johnson isn't concerned about winning the Ford EcoBoost 400. His sights are set on the much larger prize.
Aiding his efforts, Johnson's team is bringing its best car. It's the same car he used to collect a pair of dominating Chase wins (Dover, Texas) and would have had a third victory (Charlotte) had it not been for a untimely yellow flag.
Understandably, it's Johnson's favorite. When the team raced the car this summer at Michigan International Speedway, Johnson requested his team mothball it so that it would ready for the Chase.
"When we pulled it out as a backup in Michigan, I had to start dead last in the field," Johnson said. "Before I knew it I was weaving through cars passing three to four a lap and was at the front before we had that engine failure.
"The comfort the car brought to me, how secure the car was, that's where I go, ‘Man, this thing is amazing. We need to hang on to this car.'"
For their respective title hopes Kenseth and Harvick better hope something happens to Johnson's magical car, otherwise it's a race for second-place.
"It's kind of like that quote from "Dumb and Dumber," ‘So you're saying there's a chance,'" Harvick said. "All you want is a chance. That's all you really want.
"Who would have thought Matt Kenseth would have went to Phoenix last week and ran like they did? Where did they finish, 23rd or 28th? That's where (Johnson) needs to finish this week, so I know it's not impossible. Those circumstances can crop up at any particular moment. You try to do everything that you can to not have those things happen. But we've seen a lot of things happen in this sport."
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