With another victory Sunday that widened his lead in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup title chase, Jimmie Johnson already has been crowned champion by some racing pundits even though there are four races left in the season.
“Anyone who says Johnson hasn’t locked it up is crazy,” read one headline after Johnson dominated at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway for his sixth win of the year.
Then call me crazy.
There’s no question that Johnson has the skill, the car, the crew chief (Chad Knaus) and the team (Hendrick Motorsports) to cruise through the remainder of the schedule and earn his third consecutive title — something that’s been done only once before, by Cale Yarborough, and that was 30 years ago.
And it might well be that Greg Biffle, now 149 points behind Johnson, and Jeff Burton, 152 back, will simply play second fiddle to Johnson no matter how well they finish at the final races in Atlanta, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead-Miami.
OK, a 149-point lead with two races left and Johnson is probably a lock. But with four races?
Johnson knows as well as anyone that in auto racing, anything can happen.
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One of a thousand parts on a NASCAR stock car can fail without warning, especially tires. An early crash with one or more of the 42 other cars on the track could quickly end Johnson’s day and tighten the Chase for the Cup playoff.
Consider what’s happened this year alone:
*In March, Johnson went to Las Vegas Motor Speedway primed to win his fourth consecutive race there. Instead, the native struggled all day with handling and finished 29th, two laps down.
*Johnson was the hands-down favorite to win the Coca-Cola 600 in late May at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte, where Johnson has won so many times he calls it “Our House.” This time, though, it was a house of horrors as Johnson’s engine failed and he finished 39th.
An engine failure on a Hendrick car is considered one of the least likely events in NASCAR. But it happened.
*Earlier that month at Richmond, Johnson was running 18th, got collected in an 11-car wreck and finished 30th.
*And in August, Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet had a tire go down at Bristol, Tenn., and got nudged into the wall. He finished 33rd, 18 laps down.
All of which is fresh on the mind of Johnson, who has become an overachiever partly by constantly telling himself he’s the underdog.
“As long as I can stay scared and on my heels and worried about losing this thing, the better this team is going to be,” he said Sunday.
Just mind over matter? Perhaps, if that’s what it takes to help make Johnson competitive. But it’s also a philosophy grounded in Johnson’s past disappointments — including championships that slipped through his fingers in 2003 and 2004.
When the Chase opened Sept. 14 in New Hampshire, Kyle Busch was considered nearly bulletproof. He had eight wins in the regular season, the powerhouse team of Joe Gibbs Racing behind him, and an aggressive, confident driving style.
What Busch and no one else saw coming was a broken sway bar part left him 34th at New Hampshire, and then a broken engine a week later that left him last at Dover, Del.
Two mechanical failures in two weeks on a Gibbs car were considered nearly unthinkable. But it happened and Busch’s title hopes had vanished — after two races.
Johnson doesn’t need a reminder.
“The perfect world is do [well] two or three more times and just lock it up and go to Homestead and hang out, and that would be the perfect world,” he said. “Is that going to happen? Doubt it.”
It might. But anyone who thinks it definitely will is crazy.
Chase for the Cup
%% RK. DRIVER MAKE PTS
1. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 6,073
2. Greg Biffle Ford 5,924
3. Jeff Burton Chevrolet 5,921
4. Carl Edwards Ford 5,875
5. Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 5,831
6. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 5,817
7. Jeff Gordon Chrevolet 5,798
8. Tony Stewart Toyota 5,735
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 5,694
10. Matt Kenseth Ford 5,665
11. Denny Hamlin Toyota 5,653
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12. Kyle Busch Toyota 5,628
5 DOWN, 5 TO GO
D RACE SITE (WINNER)
S14 Sylvania 300 Greg Biffle
S21 Dover 400 Greg Biffle
S28 Kansas 400 Jimmie Johnson
O5 AMP Energy 500 Tony Stewart
O11 Bank of America 500 Jeff Burton
O18 TUMS QuikPak 500 Jimmie Johnson
Sun Pep Boys Auto 500 Hampton, Ga.
N2 Dickies 500 Ft. Worth
N9 Checker 500 Avondale, Ariz.
N16 Ford 500 Homestead, Fla. %%