You may not like the rules, but you have to admire the way Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus play the game.

In may ways, they are treated like baseball’s New York Yankees – with endless stories each spring and early summer, lamenting how far they’ve fallen from their perch when it seems they can’t get out of their own way. And then, like they’ve hit a switch, they hit their stride in time for the playoffs and all that praise is heaped back on their collective shoulders.

With Knaus as the manager, the No. 48 team understands the new NASCAR. And Knaus is like a baseball manager or a hockey coach. He’s not worried about wins and losses in the second month of the season.

He’s worried about how his team is playing for the stretch run. Right now, the No. 48 is as good as any team in the Sprint Cup Series – having won 3 of the last 7 races, including the last two in a row after taking Sunday’s rain-delayed Chevy Rock ’n Roll 400 at Richmond.

The Chase starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway next Sunday. And Kyle Busch may be the top seed with 80 bonus points, but he’s seemingly a footnote to everything Johnson is doing now.

"Momentum is certainly something we are looking at and trying to carry, but more than anything, I think we are just confident in our stops and what I'm doing on the track," Johnson said. "I'm trying to show up at next week's race scared, worried about 11 other guys, and worry about doing my part."

Johnson sounds like someone from one of the stick-and-ball sports, someone who has seen playoffs a hundred times over and knows what players in other sports know. NASCAR’s teams and its fans may have been slow to adopt the Chase format as anything more than a contrivance – but Johnson, under Knaus’ guidance, has been quick to embrace the format.

Like Kobe Bryant or Tom Brady, Johnson knows that the postseason is the second season – and all that matters for the history books is what happens from here on out.

Johnson, the third seed and just 50 points behind Busch entering the Sylvania 300, is poised to win three of the five Chase championships. He’s already won half of the ones contested.

"From my standpoint, you don't have a clue until five or six (races into the Chase) what that average target is going to be," Johnson said of what his goal is for each individual race. "You get through the first five and do all that you can and you kind of look around and say, all right, this is what we need to do, and then you go for it from there."

Busch is happy to follow Johnson’s lead, even if he is the top seed in the Chase with eight regular-season wins.

"They have been strong," Busch said. "If I was in Jimmie's spot, I'd say, heck, yeah (I’m the favorite). We feel like (Edwards), with the races that are coming up, you know, I believe there's like five mile-and-a-half tracks in the finals... With the way the 48 and 99 have run this year, it's going to be hard to beat those guys there."

While the No. 48 may flirt with experimental setups or out-of-the box techniques in the first half of the grueling NASCAR season, Johnson said the team prides itself on not taking unnecessary risks at this time of year.

When it’s crunch time, Johnson and the team buckles down and attacks the big picture.

"If you show up and you're swinging for the fence every time, you're going to make mistakes," Johnson said. "With the way the pack is running, especially (Edwards and Busch), you can't show up and run at 80 percent and just hope that a top-10 is going to get the job done. You have to show up and bring your ‘A’ game each week.

"I feel confident that we are there now and that we can run with these guys."

Unfortunately for his competitors, they all feel the same way, too.

Posted at 10:35 p.m. by TBarrett