FanHouse Warmup: Banking 500

Where: Lowe's Motor Speedway, Concord, N.C.
Time: Saturday 7:30 p.m./EST
TV/Radio: ABC, PRN Radio
Twitter: Updates @ FanHouseRacing
Forecast: Mostly cloudy, 40s, 20% rain
Distance: 334 laps (500.1 miles)
Pole Winner: Jimmie Johnson
2008 Winner: Jeff Burton

Carl Edwards may blame last year's loss to Jimmie Johnson in the Chase for the Sprint Cup on a crash at Talladega, but a finish in last year's fall race at Lowe's Motor Speedway provided all the points Johnson needed to win his third consecutive title.

Or, rather, the necessary point.

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Edwards suffered electrical issues early in the 2008 event at LMS that saw his No. 99 roll to a stop on the backstretch. The team got his car fixed in the garage, but he was only able to salvage a 33rd-place finish and earned 67 points in the process.

In his career, Edwards has now averaged a 10th-place finish at LMS. Pending that he would have finished at least 10th, Edwards would have earned 134 points, or 70 more than he did in this race a year ago. The final tally at the end of 2009 campaign between him and Johnson for the title?

69 points.

What, then, does this have to do with Saturday night's race? Despite the fact that -- cue former Arizona Cardinals head coach Denny Green -- the media has pretty much crowned Johnson the champ for 2009 (including yours truly) anything can happen. Silly, stupid things that are completely unexpected. Like electrical problems.

And who knows? A point Johnson misses tonight might be all another contender needs when the smoke settles in Homestead.

Jeff Burton, a.k.a the unofficial mayor of NASCAR, will reach a significant milestone in his long career in the sport when the green flag waves Saturday night.

Burton, the 43-year-old from South Boston, Va., will start his 850th race in the Sprint Cup Series during a season that has been quite a struggle for him and his Richard Childress Racing teammates. Burton is 18th in the standings with just six top-10 finishes in 2009, and tonight's race will mark the one year anniversary of his last Cup win.

As Burton reaches both anniversaries tonight, his hopes have improved after noting this week that he's seeing improvement within RCR.

"I think we've made a swing," said Burton. "I don't think we are where we need to be by any means but if you look at it individually, our teams are starting to run better."

Kurt Busch knows that his team has been decent during the Chase, and obviously he's looking to continue a pretty good run tonight at LMS.

"I feel like this is a great opportunity for us to continue our stretch where we've finished, on average the last few races, in 7.5," said Busch.

In years past, his level of "decent" would likely have been good enough to be in heavy, heavy contention for the title. But coming into tonight's race, he's trailing Jimmie Johnson by some 121 points.

"That's a good average finish, but we're getting beat by better numbers," Busch said. "In years past when Dale [Earnhardt] Sr. was winning championships, or Jeff Gordon, the magic number back then was seven as far as your average finish. With this new Chase format, seven will only get you sixth in points and 121 off the lead."

And he's right. At the moment, Jimmie Johnson is averaging a blistering 3.75 finish. That's tough to beat.