Jimmie Johnson isn’t about to get jobbed by the new Nextel Cup points system.

Yes, six weeks from now he’s going to see what will most likely still be a sizeable lead in the Nextel Cup standings vanish overnight. But it will not be a sneak attack.

Johnson is 232 points ahead after his rout of the rest of the field in the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono on Sunday, and the way his No. 48 Chevrolet has been running lately he might be twice that far in front after the season’s 26th race at Richmond on Sept. 11.

But when he goes back to New Hampshire the following Sunday, the best off he can possibly be is five points ahead of whoever’s in second. And there will be eight other drivers bound and determined to take away the 2004 championship right behind that.

Is that right? Johnson doesn’t think so. “I think the champion is somebody who races all 36 weekends and proves over the long haul that he has the best team,” Johnson says. “We race 36 times a year. I think our points system should reflect that.”

That’s an understandable position coming from someone who, under a points system that was in place for nearly three decades, would as of today be an odds-on favorite to win his first championship.

It’s understandable, too, for Johnson’s fans and for those who don’t like the new Chase for the Nextel Cup format to feel that it won’t be right for Johnson to lose a substantial lead he and his team most likely will have built with an outstanding performance through 26 races.

But even if you don’t think the new system is the right way to pick a champion, it’s not right to say the “Chase” format is unfair. It is, after all, what it is. The old system simply no longer exists.

A lot can happen in six weeks in Nextel Cup racing. Six races ago, Johnson was 58 points behind Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the standings. That’s a net gain of 290 points, meaning that at least mathematically, it’s not a certainty that Johnson will be the one whose lead vanishes after the 26th race.

But given how Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus and the rest of the Hendrick Motorsports-owned team have done this year, it’s hard to imagine them spitting out such a lead in six weeks. A team with 13 top-five finishes in the past 17 races would have to go plumb haywire for that to happen.

Having the lead and a spot in the 10-race “Chase” well in hand allows Knaus to try some things over the next six weeks to see what he might be able to use to his team’s advantage when the championship is really on the line after Richmond.

That’s a nice perk, but Jeff Gordon, who’s second in the standings right now, is right when he says the driver leading after 26 races should get a more tangible reward.

How about this? The leader after 26 races collects a minimum bonus of $250,000 that increases $1,000 for every point he’s ahead by then. Win the “regular season” by 300 points, for example, and you collect $550,000.

But this year’s champion will be with the team in the “Chase” that performs over the season’s final 10 weeks most like Johnson’s team has for the past 41/2 months.

“It’s the same for everyone,” Johnson says. “If we complain about it too much and don’t stay focused, we’ll just be complainers at the end of the year finishing third or fourth.”