DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) – He won 10 races last season and his second consecutive NASCAR championship, yet Jimmie Johnson isn’t the marquee driver on his own team.

He’s not even No. 2.

But that’s not important to Johnson, who isn’t after attention or fame. No, the two-time defending champion is chasing history, trying to become only the second driver to win three straight titles. His pursuit begins in Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500.

From the pole.

Take that, everybody.

Not since Cale Yarborough did it from 1976 to 1978 has a driver won three consecutive championships, but Johnson has people believing.

“There are certain sports teams, whether it’s football or baseball, they get on a run and they get momentum,” said Ray Evernham, who failed in his bid to win three straight titles as Jeff Gordon’s crew chief during the 1990s.

“You’ve got to have a good plan, good talent, and you’ve also got to have the right breaks. But I believe if anybody can do it right now it’s that 48 car. It certainly seems like they are starting off right where they left off.”

When Johnson posted the fastest time during qualifying last week, it seemed as if the air had been knocked out of the garage.

Everybody came to Daytona knowing Johnson, the 2006 winner here, would be strong. They had hoped offseason gains would have closed the gap a bit, but Johnson’s dominance made it clear his team would make a strong run for its third straight title.

“I feel very good about where we are, and I know what we’ve done in the offseason has only made us stronger,” Johnson said. “But I still think we have a lot of room for improvement.”

That’s bad news for the rest of the industry, which has grown weary of watching Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports team dominate week in and week out for much of the past five seasons.

But Johnson will have strong competition from within Hendrick Motorsports, which now includes Dale Earnhardt Jr.

NASCAR’s most popular driver instantly became the star of the super team, supplanting four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. When Sports Illustrated recently photographed the four Hendrick drivers together, Johnson was relegated to the back.

“It’s because he was the tallest,” crew chief Chad Knaus reasoned. “They had to stick him behind all those short dudes.”

He has yet to grab the spotlight at Daytona, where Earnhardt has stolen the show.

He won the exhibition Budweiser Shootout last week in his Hendrick Motorsports debut, then won the first of two qualifying races Thursday. It established Earnhardt as the favorite to win the Daytona 500, a victory that would snap a winless streak that is closing in on two years.

“I feel like we got a shot, you know what I mean?” said Earnhardt, trying to become the first to win the Shootout, a qualifying race and the 500 in the same year. “Nobody is boastful enough, I don’t think, personality-wise, to come in here and claim that. I wouldn’t expect anybody to do that.

“But I think we got a great shot.”

He’ll have plenty of help with all four Hendrick cars in the top nine of Sunday’s race. But they’ll be surrounded by three Joe Gibbs Racing entries, setting up what’s expected to be a showdown between NASCAR’s top two teams.

Although anything can happen at Daytona, where the use of horsepower-sapping restrictor plates means the cars run in large packs and drivers can shoot to the front of the field in a matter of seconds, early indications point to a Hendrick or Gibbs victory.

“From what I see on the track, Dale Jr. is real good, the Hendrick cars are good and the Gibbs cars are unbelievably strong,” 2003 series champion Matt Kenseth said. “From sitting back and watching, unless some other people really get their stuff going, I really think it’s going to be somebody out of those couple of groups unless something weird happens.”

That’s not out of the question.

Kevin Harvick never seemed to be in contention in last year’s race, then charged to the front and stole the win from Mark Martin as the two raced to the checkered flag.

In this 50th running of The Great American Race, an unlikely winner would be fitting.

That includes a Toyota.

Led by the three Gibbs entries, the Toyotas have been strong throughout Speedweeks. Denny Hamlin took the Japanese automaker to its first Victory Lane, winning the second qualifying race Thursday.

Pushed to the win by teammate Tony Stewart, they devised a strategy to work with Gibbs newcomer Kyle Busch to end Hendrick’s run. Stewart counseled Hamlin in the closing laps of their qualifying race on how to hold off Gordon, and it was a lesson they hope to use Sunday.

Stewart lost the Shootout to Earnhardt last week when Hamlin was not in position to help hold off the Hendrick charge. But group the entire Gibbs team together in the 500, and Stewart likes his odds.

“I feel we finally have a shot to beat that lineup of four guys that I had to go up against the other night,” Stewart said. “I feel we have three good cars in our camp, they’ve got four good cars on their side. That’s about as even as it gets.

“You give us 3-to-1 odds and it works in our favor just as easy as it does in theirs.”

Stewart, a two-time series champion who is searching for his first Daytona 500 win, has had his heart broken in nine previous tries to win NASCAR’s biggest race. He hates that winning it will depend on teamwork, but knows Busch and Hamlin are all on the same page.

“There’s safety in numbers – and that’s the sad, disappointing part,” Stewart said. “That’s what this race has come down to, not great individual performances, but sheer numbers of strength. I think it’s harder than ever to win because you’ve got to rely on everyone else.

“For an individual, you can’t count on anything. The only thing you can count on is that your teammates will work with you. The disappointing part is our biggest race of the year, you have to rely on someone else for your success.”

If that means a win, Stewart might be ready to make nice, just like his Hendrick rivals.

AP-ES-02-16-08 1141EST