Johnson's smooth groove among Vegas revelations

	Jimmy Johnson and Chad Knaus share a friendship that extends beyond their successful partnership on the track. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

The third race of the 2007 NASCAR season on Sunday sure looked a lot like the third race of the '05 and '06 seasons, as Jimmie Johnson took his third-straight checkered flag at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Here are five things we learned in Sin City.

1. The No. 48 team is hitting on all cylinders.

After struggling in the season opener at Daytona, Jimmie Johnson was fast two weeks ago in California, where he finished third, and he was clearly the class of the field in Vegas. Even when his pit crew flubbed a stop midway through the race and Johnson fell to the middle of the pack, he had the power under the hood and the skill behind the wheel to navigate up through traffic and eventually pull away from Jeff Gordon to notch win No. 24 in his still young career.

This offseason I spent a lot of time with Chad Knaus, Johnson's crew chief, for a feature story on Knaus that appeared in SI a few weeks ago. One thing that really struck me was how close Knaus and Johnson have become in the last few years. During this offseason, for instance, a time when most drivers and crew chiefs can't wait to put some distance between them, Knaus and Johnson spoke virtually every day. Knaus even recently purchased a new phone that is text-message friendly; Johnson is a serial text-messenger, and Knaus wanted to enhance his ability to communicate with his driver. This may sound like a trivial thing, but it illustrates just how connected NASCAR's reigning champs are.

"Jimmie is my best friend in racing," Knaus told me. "Actually, our whole team is pretty tight, which has been a big factor in our success."

2. Mark Martin isn't saying it -- yet -- but he's going to be racing at Bristol.

In talking to reporters after the race on Sunday Martin, for the first time, started to back track ever so slightly from his plan for driving only a partial schedule this season. "The plans haven't changed -- yet," Martin said. "Let's just worry about that later."