Johnson trying to get in gear

INDIANAPOLIS — Jimmie Johnson doesn’t have a playoff spot locked in as the seven-time NASCAR champion prepared for rain-drenched Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the final race of the regular season.

Johnson is in a 48-race losing streak headed into the Brickyard 400 and his Hendrick Motorsports team has been inconsistent all season. It’s put him up by just 19 points over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman in the battle for the 15th position on the playoff grid. That should be enough to get Johnson into the playoffs, but a surprise race winner could jumble the final berths.

“We’ve had a tough year,” Johnson said Saturday. “It’s been extremely frustrating and extremely difficult to live through, but we are all still very eager to turn it around and know that we will.”

His last victory was at Dover on June 4, 2017.

NASCAR moved the regular-season finale this year to Indianapolis as officials from the sanctioning body and the track

tried to make the Brickyard a bigger draw. The race has struggled for much of the last decade in its traditional summer slot in part because of heat, lack of ontrack action and low stakes. As the 26th race on the schedule, though, the show has increased meaning because it will finalize the 16-driver playoff field.

But expectations have been doused, first by the NFL scheduling a home game across the city for the Indianapolis Colts, then a torrent of rain that disrupted all activities at the Brickyard.

All activity was washed out both Friday and Saturday, including Cup qualifying. The field was set by points with Las Vegan Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr., the so-called “Big 3” this season, lined up first through third.