BY MONTE DUTTON, AOL

Everyone loves an underdog. Everyone in NASCAR, that is, except for those who follow Jimmie Johnson. And Jeff Gordon. Most fans who worship one also pray for the other.

Many in NASCAR love John McCain, too. The ruling body's political conservatism is legendary and historic. The founder of NASCAR, William H.G. France, was a friend and major contributor to the presidential campaigns of Alabama Gov. George Wallace. The pre-race ceremonies and drivers' meetings held before Sprint Cup races are a who's who of GOP luminaries, from Rudy Giuliani to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Todd Palin.

If Johnson is to be denied his third straight championship, it's going to take quite the "ground game," to borrow a currently fashionable political cliche. NASCAR has points but not polls. It has poles, but they don't mean anything. There's no speculation, no margin for error, in Johnson's 106-point lead over Carl Edwards, who narrowed it in Texas while political counterparts were barnstorming around from Nevada to Colorado to Indiana to Virginia to Missouri. There is no more reliable place for Republicans to preach to their choir than NASCAR races.

NASCAR Nation is comprised of all red states. There are, however, no electoral votes assigned to NASCAR, though the GOP might consider taking it under advisement.

Given the scope of Johnson's lead, the result in Texas wasn't too disquieting. Johnson's average finish for the season is 10.68. At Texas Motor Speedway, where he entered with a 183-point lead over Edwards (185 over Greg Biffle), Johnson was a little off. He finished 15th. Edwards won the Dickies 500 and led the most laps, enabling him to narrow Johnson's advantage to 106. Biffle finished fifth, leaving him 143 points behind. Jeff Burton made little progress and is 212 back.

What would it take for Edwards to hoist up a premature headline "Johnson Defeats Edwards" (a la "Dewey Defeats Truman")? A miracle ... still. Texas was a good break. At the remaining races, on the Phoenix desert mile and the graduated banking of Homestead, Edwards has to keep pressing the advantage and Johnson has to avoid breakdown mode. There are no "swing voters" here. Everything is based on performance. Edwards can't unleash a barrage of negative ads. He has to show strength; there's no way to expose Johnson's weaknesses simply because there aren't any.

Finishing 15th, after spending more than two-thirds of the race off the lead lap, wasn't a disaster for Johnson. It was more like a hiccup.

Edwards, with his eternal optimism and exuberant back flips, is an appealing underdog. It didn't take consecutive victories at Atlanta and Texas to perk him up. Even when his title chances seemed dormant -- after he finished 29th at Talladega and 34th at Charlotte -- Edwards never took his eyes off that twinkling prize in the distance.

But all Johnson has to do is survive. When he languished during the early stages at Texas, television commentators breathlessly hyped all the worst possible scenarios. Johnson doesn't have worst possible scenarios. His greatness is defined both in compiling checkered flags and negating bad breaks. Neither he nor crew chief Chad Knaus panicked, and panic is really the only action that can beat them.

"There are two races left," said Johnson. "I've known all along we were going to have to fight every week for this thing. We had a nice, big points lead, and we still have a great points lead, but in racing anything can happen and usually does. Today didn't go our way; it went the way the No. 99 (Edwards) needed, the No. 16 (Biffle) and those guys. We'll go to Phoenix, one of our great tracks, and do it again next week."

When Johnson said "do it again," he wasn't talking about finishing 15th.

Edwards is fighting the good fight. In the last two weeks, he has scored 385 out of a possible 390 points. He pulled off a marvelous gamble by conserving fuel to win Texas. His is the heady optimism of having nothing to lose.

Said Edwards' crew chief, Bob Osborne: "If the points were closer or we were in the lead, no, we would not have made that type of decision to gamble. We're in a position where we want to make as many points up as we can. Losing the points (had Edwards' car run out of gas) wasn't something we were concerned about."

If Edwards is going to steal this election, though, he's going to have to rely on a major gaffe by his opponent. In this case, sound bites have nothing to do with it. Winning in Texas, he said, was "a good shot in the arm."

"I think we're in a good spot right now," Edwards added. "I don't know who said it, but sometimes it's easier playing catch-up because you have a little fun with it."



FROM DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS

--It's pretty uncommon to see the slowest car on the track take the checkered flag. Judging on the basis of Edwards' performance earlier in the race, though, the victory was no fluke. Edwards led more than half the laps.

--Once again, attendance was off. The alleged figure, 165,000, was laughably exaggerated. It appeared as if there were at least 25,000 empty seats. A sign of the times is the practice of covering up entire grandstand sections with sponsorship banners. If that ploy is designed to make the stands look fuller, it isn't working.

--Everyone knew Edwards could win by going fast. At Texas, he proved he could win by going slow. Any driver will tell you that saving fuel is both hard to do and anathema to the racer's mentality. Just obeying crew chief Bob Osborne's instructions and nursing the car home safely ahead was a sign of Edwards' maturity.

--The Chase is warming up, but the manufacturer point race is already red hot. Chevy has 204 points, Ford 202 and Toyota 201. Then, of course, there's Dodge with a measly 141.

--Phoenix is the only remaining race at a track where Jeff Gordon has ever won, and he didn't win there until 2007. Gordon hasn't gone through a year winless since he was a rookie in 1993.