DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The chase for NASCAR's ace, Jimmie Johnson, is on again for another season tomorrow at the Daytona 500. But that story line might be getting a little stale in a sport that prides itself in drivers trading paint and champions trading places.

A preseason poll of NASCAR's traveling media troops, for instance, made Carl Edwards, the runner-up last year, the favorite to win the 2009 Sprint Cup season points championship.

It could happen that way, based on the fact that Edwards won nine races last year in the No. 99 Ford, more than anybody else, and finished strong with three wins in the season's final four weeks.

For anybody to pick against Johnson, though, denies the historic run that he and the Rick Hendrick Motorsports team are on with the No. 48 Chevrolet.

Johnson has won three series championships in a row, tying Cale Yarborough's streak from 1976-78. If he wins it again, following his pattern of finishing consistently in the top 10 and avoiding disaster, this former kid motocross scrambler from California will have ruled the circuit for a longer stretch than any of the down-home pedal-mashing stars in 50 years of NASCAR racing.

"I feel like we've got a good shot at winning a fourth championship," said Johnson, who still has some serious driving to do to match the record of seven season championships shared by Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. "In my opinion, we should be ranked No. 1, especially if you look at our stats and what we've done over the last three years.

"This is just the hype of the season. This is not what goes on on the racetrack."

On the track, that's where the talking gets drowned out by the roar of the engines and all that matters is results.

The Daytona 500, the biggest race of the year, will be vitally important to every NASCAR team, particularly with the tough economic climate causing some drivers to scramble for sponsors and pare down their competitive schedules.

The NASCAR season, however, is a 36-event meat-grinder that won't stop until the Ford 400 at Homestead in November.

Somewhere on that cross-country run through superspeedways such as Daytona and Talladega, old-time short tracks like Bristol and Martinsville and road courses such as Sonoma and Watkins Glen, Jeff Gordon figures to break through again.

Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, didn't win a race last year for the first time since his rookie season of 1993. His No. 24 Chevrolet is part of an amazing Hendrick superstar team now, along with Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, but there's no chance of Gordon getting lost in the crowd.

He remains one of NASCAR's most watched drivers, with thousands of fans cheering his success and thousands more cheering any pileup that takes Gordon out of a race.

"I hope I get back to winning and the boos get as loud as can be because that's one of my favorite things to hear," said Gordon, who with four wins could move all the way up to No. 3 in NASCAR history behind Petty and David Pearson.

Truth is, there are plenty of new NASCAR looks and attitudes that will take some getting used to this season.

Tony Stewart, a two-time Cup champion in Joe Gibbs cars, is running his own Chevrolet team for the first time in 2009 with Ryan Newman, last year's Daytona 500 champion, as a teammate.

Stewart will be driving the No. 14 car, with rookie-of the year candidate Joey Logano, shockingly young for NASCAR at 18, getting the familiar Gibbs No. 20 Home Depot car that belonged to Stewart for so long.

"I can be an owner four days a week," said Stewart, "but the other three days a week I have to be a driver. That's the only way it will work."

If it works at all, meaning if Stewart manages to qualify for the season-ending Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff format, it might be because Hendrick is providing engines for the new Stewart-Haas Racing team, and because Stewart has grabbed Darian Grubb, a former Hendrick man, as his crew chief.

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NOTE -- Kevin Harvick won the pole for the Nationwide Series race today, edging Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer for the top starting spot. Harvick turned a lap at 180.799 mph in a Chevrolet. Kenseth was second in a Ford with a lap at 180.448, and Bowyer was third in a Chevrolet at 180.097.

Where: Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla.

When: 3:30 p.m. tomorrow

TV: WPGH

On the poll: Martin Truex Jr.