Jimmie Johnson Falters in NASCAR Chase Opener

Anyone looking for a chink in four-time defending NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson's armor will seize upon his 25th-place showing in Sunday's opening race in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

His finish at the one-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway equaled his starting position -- which was a career worst at the track. But it hardly tells the whole story of an eventful afternoon of more spills than thrills.

Johnson spun out, traded paint and misdiagnosed a wheel problem in the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet before ultimately posting the worst performance of the 12 Chase drivers. It dropped him from second in the standings to seventh, 92 points behind leader Denny Hamlin, who finished runner-up to winner Clint Bowyer.

"We just don't know until the end what type of bonus points you need,'' said Johnson, who started the Chase with 50 bonus points earned for his five regular season wins this year. "The bonus points coming in ... how helpful were those 50 that I had coming in ...

"Only time will tell. But you don't want to get off to this start. If you can hope for something, you want a top 10, and 25th is not what you hope for.''

The day's outcome hardly reflected Johnson's early race demeanor of determination and guts.

Clearly he wanted to send a strong message to a long list of competitors who in the last week have declared him suddenly vulnerable and very beatable.

Johnson didn't hesitate to race three-wide from the opening laps, masterfully playing chicken with his Chevrolet -- and prevailing -- even as his long-time crew chief Chad Knaus cautioned him about being overly aggressive.

At one point, the close-quarters, no-backing-down racing resulted in a harmless tit-for-tat with Hamlin. A costlier setback came with a little less than 100 laps remaining when he spun out while racing alongside fellow Chase contender Kyle Busch.

Johnson's car didn't suffer any substantial damage, however, and he tenaciously fought his way back up front -- running among the top-five but never leading a lap -- only to be convinced he had a loose wheel. He pitted with 48 laps remaining to check on it only to find out the wheel was okay.

Two of the top-five seeded drivers had a rough first go. Tony Stewart ran out of gas while leading with two laps to go and finished only one position ahead of Johnson, who can take heart in one vital statistic.

He finished 39th in this race in 2006, then 13th, 14th, and 24th in the next three Chase races only to reel off six straight top-10 finishes and win the first of his four straight championships.

"We showed up today, we did what we could,''Johnson said. "We had a decent car today and ran in the top-five and top-10 but just didn't end up finishing there.

"We'll go home and get back to work and go after it again next week.''