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Jimmie Johnson said it would be easy to change everything to snap his slump, but he knows it would be wrong.

Johnson has fallen from second to ninth in the points during an eight-race stretch that began at Dover. He has finished better than 15th in only two of those races. Flat or blown tires and crashes have conspired to send the defending series champion into a midseason spin.

Thing is, by mid-September he'll likely start as one of the favorites to win the title. NASCAR's revamped points system means such slumps won't hurt a driver.

Previously, the 10 drivers in the Chase for the Championship were separated by five points for each position behind the leader. If Johnson entered the Chase ninth, as he is now, he'd be 40 points behind the points leader.

It's different this year. Even if he finishes ninth this season, he'll start the Chase among the leaders. A change NASCAR made before this season starts drivers in the Chase at 5,000 points, then gives them 10 bonus points for each victory in the first 26 races. Johnson has four wins this season, meaning he can start the Chase with no worse than 5,040 points -- the same as points leader Jeff Gordon, who also has four wins.

Of course, adding two teams to the Chase -- making it 12 -- means Johnson understands not all is as bad as it seems. The trick is to avoid thinking the team has to make major changes.

"I do think that comes into mind with adjusting the car and how aggressive we are on pit stops, the decisions I make with racing people on the track, but if you play too much defense, especially us, we've done this in the past, we just stub our toes," Johnson said. "We're telling ourselves, let's just go in and do the stuff we've been doing and the luck has got to change eventually."

Johnson also said he didn't think the absence of crew chief Chad Knaus has played a role in the slump. Without Knaus, Johnson led 12 laps at New Hampshire on the way to finishing fifth and led 82 laps at Chicago before blowing a tire and crashing. Knaus must miss two more races in his six-race suspension for a rule violation at Infineon Raceway.

STEWART PENALIZED: NASCAR penalized Tony Stewart 25 points and fined him $25,000 for using inappropriate language during his ESPN interview after winning Sunday's race at Indianapolis.

Stewart remains fifth in the season standings with the penalty. NASCAR also fined Joe Gibbs 25 car owner points for the infraction.

An ESPN spokesman called the episode an "unfortunate incident." ESPN does not delay live broadcasts and does not plan to do so with upcoming broadcasts.

DRIVER MUGGED: Busch Series driver Steve Wallace, son of Rusty Wallace, is OK after he was attacked in an attempted mugging Sunday night in Indianapolis. The team said Wallace suffered minor cuts after he was attacked by three men after leaving a convenience store. He'll compete in Saturday's Busch race in Montreal.

NEW TV SHOW: NASCAR officials are working with Fox to develop a prime-time comedy show.

Dick Glover, NASCAR vice president of broadcasting and new media, describes the show as featuring "a dysfunctional race team that is endearing, people that you really like but kind of have their quirks about them."

Glover said a pilot episode could air as early as January.

PITS STOPS: The Busch Series makes its debut this weekend in Canada with its race in Montreal. ... John Andretti will drive the car for Busch points leader Carl Edwards on Friday at Montreal while Edwards is at Pocono. Edwards said he had no problems with his thumb, dislocated a week earlier, in Sunday's race at Indianapolis.

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dlong@news-record.com