Recent lull tests Johnson

Jimmie Johnson hears the buzz. It’s been kind of hard to avoid during the four-time defending NASCAR champion’s recent slide.

A single top-10 finish in five races. Two crashes. Some bad racing luck. Driver error. No victories since early spring.

Do the performances fail to meet the impossibly high standard Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports team has set for itself during its record-breaking run? Sure.

Are they proof that the cracks in Johnson’s dominance are finally starting to show? Not exactly.

“You read the headlines and it’s like the No. 48 team is shutting down,” Johnson said.

Hardly.

Johnson sits seventh in points heading into today’s 500-mile race at Pocono in Long Pond, Pa., where he’ll start 25th at the massive 2.5-mile oval. Halfway through NASCAR’s regular season, it would take a series of major catastrophes for him to miss out on the Chase.

Still, even Johnson admits he’s not exactly been at his coolly efficient best of late.

“I’ve always had that good rhythm of walking that tightrope, and you step over it from time to time,” he said. “Lately I’ve been stepping on the wrong side of that line.”

He did it twice last weekend at Charlotte, where a pair of wrecks sent him retreating to the garage. He gamely headed back to the track after repairs, though the sight of Johnson running a dinged up car 35 laps behind the leaders at a place where he’s won six times bordered on the bizarre.

It was just the latest in a series of mishaps that has taken some of the steam out of Johnson’s start, when he won three of the first five races and filled the rest of the series with a sense of “here we go again” dread.

Yet Johnson hasn’t been back to Victory Lane since taking the checkered flag at Bristol on March 21. No biggie for most drivers. A veritable lifetime for Johnson.

He won the pole at Talladega but got caught up in a wreck with six laps to go. Two weeks later at Darlington he crashed for his third DNF of the season. Things weren’t much better at Dover, where he slogged to 16th. He gambled and lost at the All-Star race. He spent last Sunday getting friendly with the wall at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“There’s always this stretch of four or five races every year where people kind of get concerned with the 48, how he’s running,” said Denny Hamlin, who sits fifth in points. “It’s just that his expectations are so high, we expect him to win every other week, and the fans expect him to win every other week, and when he doesn’t everyone has questions.”

If Johnson is concerned, it doesn’t show. He’s too busy racing.

He zipped around the fabled Tricky Triangle for a couple of hours on Saturday morning, then hopped in a car to get to Watkins Glen in time to drive in the Six Hours at the Glen for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

Briscoe tops Patrick in IndyCar race

Ryan Briscoe again led a lot of laps at Texas. This time, he won the race.

Briscoe pulled away in the closing laps after briefly losing the lead to Danica Patrick and won the IndyCar Series race at the 1 1/2 -mile track in Fort Worth on Saturday.

It was the fourth time in the last five races at Texas that a Roger Penske-owned car drove to Victory Lane. It was the first victory this season for Briscoe, who started the race on the pole.

Briscoe finished 1.463 seconds ahead of Patrick, who followed up her sixth-place showing at the Indianapolis 500 with her best finish of the season.

Marco Andretti was third, followed by Scott Dixon and Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti.

Keselowski wins Nationwide event

Brad Keselowski raced to his third NASCAR Nationwide Series victory of the year and ninth overall, easily holding off rival Carl Edwards at Nashville Superspeedway in Gladeville, Tenn.

Keselowski, the series points leader, led 97 laps and finished 1.67 seconds ahead of Edwards. Paul Menard was third, giving Sprint Cup drivers the top three spots.

Keselowski, Edwards, Menard and Michael McDowell also will race today at Pocono in the Sprint Cup event. McDowell exited early after finishing 30th.

Keselowski, also the 2008 Nashville winner, increased his points lead from one to 196.