With only four races remaining in the 2008 season, those in the top-12 in points are focusing in on capturing the championship title. Leaving Martinsville, it is clear Jimmie Johnson and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports crew are the leading contenders, but don't expect the rest of the field to lay down and hand them the trophy just yet.

Johnson flat out dominated Sunday's TUMS QuikPak 500 at Martinsville Speedway, leading 339 of the 504 laps en route to his second win in the Chase. No other driver really had anything for two-time champion as he extended his points lead to 149 over Greg Biffle in second.

"Today was a big step in the right direction," Johnson said following Sunday's victory. "Still, as long as I can stay scared and on my heels and worried about losing this thing, the better this team is going to be. If we start getting comfortable and complacent, we are going to stub our toes and make mistakes."

As this Chase progresses, it seems the only team that has been able to avoid mistakes has been Johnson and the Lowe's team. Johnson's worse finish in the first six races of the Chase is a ninth at Talladega - the race where Johnson lost the draft and went a lap down early in the race.

Atlanta is no weak spot in Johnson's repertoire either. In fourteen starts at the mile-and-a-half track, Johnson has three wins - including a sweep of both 2007 races - eight top-5s and nine top-10s.

When compared with the other eleven Chase drivers throughout the first six races, Johnson has the best average finish of fourth. The man third in the points, Jeff Burton, has the second best average finish of seventh.

Burton went into Martinsville second in the standings, but a pit road penalty for pitting outside the box late in the race relegated the No. 31 AT&T team to a disappointing seventeenth-spot. The Richard Childress Racing driver dropped to third in the standings and is 152 points behind Johnson heading into Atlanta.

"I still think there are some huge variables in the remaining Chase races," Burton explained. "We had a good finish at Talladega but Martinsville was a volatile race for us. Atlanta is exceptionally hard and is extremely demanding. There's not a race track we have coming up we all look at and not think that it's a difficult race track. To be successful at every race track requires a great deal of ability from your team and driver. So, I think it's a great test of who's on top of their game because I think the next four races are very, very difficult."

With Johnson extending his lead and sailing through the Chase, Greg Biffle is remaining hot on his trail. The Roush Fenway Racing driver opened the Chase with two impressive wins, but after getting caught up in the 'Big One' in Talladega, Biffle took a bit of a hit in the points. A 12th-place finish in Martinsville was not exactly what this team was looking for, but Biffle and his No. 16 crew remain optimistic.

"We're gonna come and get them," Biffle said of the No. 48 team. "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 know they have been so far, but we're gonna bring the heat to Atlanta and all the rest of the places and see what we can do."

Two terrible weeks at Talladega and Lowe's dropped Biffle's teammate Carl Edwards from second to fourth in the standings, but the driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion was able to rebound with a third-place finish in Martinsville. Despite his fourth top-5 of the Chase, Edwards remains 198 points out of the lead. Just like the rest of the competition, Edwards knows one bad weekend for Johnson could change everything.

"He could have any sort of trouble at the next two races and be right back there with us with all these guys that are kind of bunched together," Edwards pointed out. "It looked like all of us were within 40-50 points second through fourth, maybe, so it could happen to anyone. We saw what happened with Kyle [Busch] and his team. Those guys seemed unbeatable, but they just had the bad luck - like what happened to us [at Lowe's]. We still don't know exactly what happened - just some sort of gremlin in the electrical system, so, no, this isn't over until the last lap at Homestead, that's for sure."

There are a lot of people out there that are ready to hand Jimmie Johnson his third straight championship, but this thing is not over by a long shot. Just as Edwards pointed out, one slip up on Johnson's part - whether it is of his making or not - could open the door up for those drivers in the top-4 of the Chase.

Be sure to check back to HardcoreRaceFans.com for all of the latest news and updates live from the Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend.