LAS VEGAS - Jimmie Johnson has two wins and a second-place finish in the first three races of the season - the best start in NASCAR history. In the process, he became the 16th driver to win two of the first three races to start the season.

The only reason he doesn't have a big lead in the Nextel Cup Series standings is Matt Kenseth's success. He's got a win, a second and a 15th.

Johnson leads Kenseth by 52 points heading into Sunday's Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

A year ago, seven of the top 10 drivers in the standings after the Las Vegas race went onto qualify for the Chase for the Championship.

Five drivers - Ryan Newman (18th), Tony Stewart (19th), Kurt Busch (22nd), Carl Edwards (23rd) and Greg Biffle (25th) - were in last year's Chase and find themselves playing catch-up.

Johnson joins Marshall Teague (1952), Herb Thomas (1954), Lee Petty (1955), Marvin Panch (1957), Bob Welborn (1959), Jim Paschal (1963), Richard Petty (1969, 1972 and 1973), David Pearson (1976), Cale Yarborough (1977), Darrell Waltrip (1980 and 1989), Dale Earnhardt (1987), Neil Bonnett (1988), Bill Elliott (1992), Jeff Gordon (1997) and Matt Kenseth (2004) as drivers who've won two of the first three races of the season.

SIT-DOWN NEEDED: Stewart and Kyle Busch continued their early-season problems.

They bumped each other a couple times in the final 40 laps, prompting Busch to yell on his radio that Stewart was "trying to kill me."

Busch was penalized for rough driving at the season- opening Daytona 500 for running into Stewart, but the two talked about it a week later at California.

"We need another chit-chat, I guess," Busch said. "I think it was about 40 to go that's the perfect time to get after it. There's no more playing dead. If I aggreviated Tony Stewart for that, I'm sorry. When you get stuck back in traffic, it's hard to get back through traffic.

"If it's because I'm 20 years old and supposed to accept all the blame, I don't know."

Stewart left the track without comment.

BIG SPENDERS: Acording to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the three-day racing weekend was worth about $167 million to Las Vegas. More important, about $106 million of that was non-gambling revenue.

The town used to consider the national rodeo finals as its biggest sporting event, but that 11-day show has clearly been replaced by the NASCAR weekend, according to one executive at Harrah's Casino.

Reach Don Coble at don.coble@morris.com