CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- There's nothing in NASCAR quite like a Saturday night race under the lights, a throwback experience that takes drivers back to their early years of running every weekend at local tracks.

So there's something special about the event at Lowe's Motor Speedway Saturday night, which track promoters are trumpeting as the "only night race in the Chase."

"Night brings out an intensity in athletes you simply don't get during the day," said Humpy Wheeler, president of the suburban Charlotte track. "Possibly this goes back to primitive man, whose greater alertness at night often meant life or death. Animal behavior is certainly different in the dark. Sharks, tigers, lions and other big cats hunt primarily at night.

"Ask anyone who has ever hooked a big shark at night if it wasn't a great deal scarier than the same hookup in the daytime."

The analogies might seem a little far-fetched, but there's little doubt that drivers dig the dark.

"Everything seems more exciting under the lights and that goes for the fans and the drivers," said Chase contender Denny Hamlin. "It reminds me of running at the local tracks growing up, and that was some of the most fun I have ever had in a race car."

Wheeler, a sort of modern day P.T. Barnum when it comes to promoting NASCAR, firmly believes that drivers can see the track more clearly and have better focus when racing under the lights.

"With the light concentrated on the racing surface, everything in the background is blacked out and the driver's eyes can focus on the surface itself, which leads to increased racing," he said.

Of course, there's no actual proof to back up Wheeler's theories. But something about the night racing at Lowe's sits well with Jimmie Johnson, who has five wins at the track that shares a title sponsor with him. He narrowly missed out on winning a sixth time in May, when Kasey Kahne beat him in the Coca-Cola 600 -- a race that begins in the day and ends in the night.

So Johnson, who lost valuable points this past weekend when teammate Brian Vickers wrecked him on the final lap at Talladega, will use Saturday night as an attempt to resuscitate his championship hopes.

"It's a great place for us, we just show up and attack it," Johnson said. "We approach the track the same way that we always have. With all the different surface changes, there is still a certain way to drive the track with a certain style in how to get around there.

"I'm just going to show up and treat it like I always have, and hopefully we'll get the same results."

He won this event a year ago in a wild race in which tire problems caused havoc.

The tire that Goodyear brought could not stand up to the increased speeds that had been created when Wheeler smoothed out the track surface. It forced NASCAR to issue a mid-race mandate on the minimum air pressure used on right front tires, and led inspectors to police pit road with a threat of docking points of teams that disobeyed.

Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Elliott Sadler and Kasey Kahne all blew tires while leading, and many drivers said the tire concerns left them too scared to push their cars to the limit, so they instead chose to race at about 85 percent effort to prevent a possible tire failure.

"I need a renewal of my life insurance policy, to tell you the truth," Stewart told his crew when asked late in the race what he needed. "I just can't wait for this thing to be over so I can get out of here and hopefully not be hurt."

A repaving project over the winter fixed any surface problems, and Goodyear has run at least two tire tests this year to help choose the proper compound to use Saturday night.

No one knows what to expect.

"The interesting thing for this race is Goodyear is bringing a different left side tire than the one we used in the Coca-Cola 600 -- we're going to have to adjust to that change," points leader Jeff Burton said. "The new asphalt has now sat for five months so it won't be the same as it was in the spring. We were also able to go to the track and test in the spring.

"This time we are going to Lowe's Motor Speedway with a new tire and a track that has had time to sit, so we have a lot of unknowns going into Charlotte."