CALIFORNIA (AP) – In the nick of time, the consistent Jimmie Johnson has returned.

With only tonight's race at Richmond remaining before the start of NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup championship, Johnson has emerged from his usual midsummer doldrums.

A victory last Sunday night in the suffocating heat at California Speedway followed three top-five finishes in the previous four races and was the culmination of a memorable week for the reigning Cup champion.

In the days leading up to the race, Johnson was inducted in the Hall of Fame at his high school in his hometown of El Cajon, 90 miles from the track. And part of the week in Southern California was spent hosting a golf tournament for celebrities and friends, and raising money for the Jimmie Johnson Foundation.

But the biggest thing Johnson raised was his expectations of a run at another championship.

Johnson is sixth in the point standings, but with his series-leading fifth victory of the season he is assured of going into the Chase at the top of the standings — thanks to NASCAR's tweaks to the stock car postseason.

The sanctioning organization expanded the Chase from 10 to 12 drivers and set up a seeding procedure, awarding 10 points for each win during the "regular season." Once the final Chase lineup is set, each of the drivers will have their overall points adjusted to 5,000 plus the bonus points they have accumulated from those wins.

Everybody among the top 12 at this point, except for ninth-place Clint Bowyer, has at least one win. But the only driver who could match Johnson's five wins is Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, who goes to Richmond with four.

"He's definitely going to be one of the guys to beat in the championship," said Gordon, who goes into Richmond with a 317-point lead over runner-up Tony Stewart, but will find himself behind Johnson by 10 points for the start of the Chase if he doesn't win this week.

"You don't want to give him one point," Gordon said. "But we've still got one race left, and maybe we can get something going there. We'll all find out when we get down to that final race what 10 points means.

"We've gone on some streaks before when 10 points won't mean anything. But everybody is going to step up for those final 10 and you want every point you can get."

Don't bet against Johnson, whose last previous win this season came at Richmond on May 6.

Johnson, who has never finished worse than fifth in the standings in his five previous seasons, has developed the somewhat unnerving pattern of getting off to a great start, slumping at midseason and awakening in time to compete for the title.

It's not a pattern Johnson or his No. 48 Chevrolet team enjoy. This summer was particularly bothersome.

After crashing at Chicagoland and Indianapolis on consecutive weeks in July, finishing 37th and 39th, Johnson found himself ninth in the points, the worst he has been at that time of the season since he began competing full-time in Cup.

Although he did have those four early season wins to fall back on, Johnson was concerned.

"We had great race cars and had bad luck and lost a lot of ground," he said. "And it's easy to have a bad race car and just not run well the following weeks. So, if you get four or five bad races in a row, you can lose a lot of ground, and that's where I was nervous.

"I don't know why the cycle goes like it does. It doesn't matter if it's the 48 car, the 20 car (Stewart), a Roush car, whatever it may be, we all look at our weak points and try to pick those up. We've tried to address the tracks in the summer and what to do in the summer. I think we were stronger this summer than we've been the last few years. We just didn't have the results."

The dominating win at California should serve as a warning to the rest of the Cup competitors that the No. 48 is going to be one of the cars to beat the rest of the way. But Johnson doesn't want to get too sure of himself.

"There is obviously a lot of racing left and a lot of good teams fighting for this Chase," Johnson said.

"But we are hitting our stride at the right time."