Johnson hopes to finish what he starts at Talladega

Jimmie Johnson's rough driving at Talladega the last time out didnot set well with many of his fellow drivers, who accused him of over-driving at the stock-car tour's biggest track.

Not that Johnson doesn't have a car that can run up front atTalladega, but he just can't seem to finish. Last October, he slammedinto the back of Elliott Sadler in the front of the field andtriggered a multicar melee only 50 miles into the race.

Johnson's 31st was another dismal finish, after a 20th and a 37thin his previous two runs.

Blame it on bump-drafting, the pop that drivers give each other,ostensibly to pick up a little speed on the straights. At Daytona,NASCAR tried some unusual and not-so-well-defined "no-bump" zones.This time, NASCAR has made teams weaken their bumpers to make themthink twice about bump-drafting.

So what does Johnson expect in the Aaron's 499 on Sunday?

"It's going to be good racing, and we're all going to adjust towhatever the rules are," he said. "I feel very good about the raceobviously, since we won the Daytona 500. I'm excited about the newcar we've had to build [because his Daytona winner is in DaytonaUSA]. Hopefully, it will be better than what we had at the 500.

"NASCAR put a good rule in place, with all the bumping and side-drafting that took place at Daytona. I think we should see arelatively calm race at Talladega. At Daytona, it is much narrower,so you didn't have four-wide racing. Talladega is much wider, and thefour-wide and five-wide racing is what starts some of the wrecks.

"We will just have to see what takes place. We just want to be assmooth and calm as we can."

Johnson lost the Nextel Cup points lead to Matt Kenseth onSaturday night at Phoenix.

One of the men who is still struggling mightily this season isRyan Newman, who is 22nd in the standings after crashes in three ofthe first eight races.

Newman nearly beat Johnson at Daytona, missing a last-lap run onlywhen Casey Mears chose to help push Johnson the final miles.

Since then, Newman's season has gone downhill, and Talladega isnot his favorite track.

"Even though we crashed out at Phoenix, I had a smile on my facebecause that's one of the first times all year we've been competitiveenough to pass cars and move up on runs," Newman said. "We had a carthat was easily a top-10 car, and in the right situation it couldhave been top-five. I don't think it was the fastest car on thetrack, but it showed a lot of highlights for us."

Newman and crew chief Matt Borland have been spending a lot oftime on their 2004 Intrepid and not as much on the 2006 Charger.

"I don't think the Intrepid was the sole reason we didn't performwell," Newman said. "If we'd taken the Charger, we would havestruggled the same or worse, who knows?"