Jimmie Johnson is poised to win his fourth NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship. (Photo: Getty Images)

Heading into Sunday’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Johnson leads the entire field in the Chase for the Sprint Cup by at least one full race. In all probability, he’ll clinch his fourth title next week at Phoenix International Raceway. But that doesn’t mean he’s in cruising mode now.

“It would be really nice to do that,” said Johnson. “I'm not mentally planning for that. I'm still trying to race this weekend and next weekend as if we're behind in points, you need maximum points, because you just never know. … I feel if we start focusing on an average position where we need to finish, do some things that are different than what the 48 car does, we will set ourselves up for a problem.”

And that means Johnson will be going all out to win again this weekend at Texas, a track where is average finish of 8.500 is far and away the best in the field.

“Right now I'm just trying to keep the blinders on and stay focused on maximum points,” said Johnson. “I'm certainly not going to do stupid things on track, take a lot of unneeded risk. But I've always been a believer of playing offense. Whenever we have played defense, we've done a miserable job. I'm going to keep playing offense, being aggressive, have the momentum going forward instead of trying to hang on wherever I'm at on track, whatever the points situation may be.”

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of ?Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,? and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to