It’s lonely at the top

It’s lonely at the top but five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, the only competitor so far to clinch a spot in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup™, is likely to get some company after Saturday’s IRWIN Tools Night Race (7:30 p.m. ET ABC, Performance Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM Radio) at Bristol Motor Speedway.

 Any driver who exits the 500-lap race with a lead of 97 points over 11th place will punch a ticket to NASCAR’s 2013 postseason.

 The most likely candidates – Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick – enter the season’s 24th race 90 or more points ahead of 11th-place Kasey Kahne. Kahne won at Bristol in March and a season sweep – the first since Kyle Busch in 2009 – would give the Washington driver a third season victory and a virtual lock on the Chase.

 Entering Friday’s Food City 250 (7:30 p.m. ET ESPN, Performance Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM Radio), the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship is still up for grabs. New leader Sam Hornish Jr. holds a 13-point lead over Elliott Sadler followed by Regan Smith, Austin Dillon and Brian Vickers.

 Hornish finished fourth – second-highest of the current championship contenders – when the series visited Bristol Motor Speedway in March.

 A year ago, Timothy Peters led all 204 laps of Bristol Motor Speedway’s UNOH 200 (8 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM Radio) – the first to do so in a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event since 1997. Peters returns to face a field that includes Ben Kennedy, great-grandson of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., who makes his NASCAR national series debut.