Can anyone beat Jimmie Johnson?
Halfway through NASCAR’s ten-race Chase for the Cup play-off with just five of a whopping 36 races to go and it looks like it’s going to be difficult for anyone to deflect Jimmie Johnson and his Hendrick Racing Chevrolet team from winning their third Sprint Cup championship in a row. If he pulls it off, the 33-year old Johnson will become the first man to win three consecutive NASCAR titles since Cale Yarborough turned the trick thirty years ago.
For most of this season Johnson was overshadowed by Kyle Busch who won race after race in each of NASCAR’s Cup, Nationwide and Truck divisions and established himself as the man to beat in one of Joe Gibbs Racing’s trio of Toyotas. But Busch, 23, stumbled badly in the opening three races of the Chase for the Cup, suffering mechanical problems in each race which dropped him to the tail of the twelve drivers who qualified for the championship play-off.
Meanwhile, Johnson finished second and fifth in the first two Chase races. Johnson then won in Kansas at the end of September, survived the traditional Talladega crash-fest the following week and faded to sixth at Charlotte last Saturday night after battling for the lead. More than in any other series, consistency is what it’s all about in NASCAR because every driver all the way down the field earns points and plenty of them, too.
With five races to go Johnson has amassed 5,878 points and leads the championship by 69 points from Charlotte winner Jeff Burton. The 41-year old Burton has raced Cup cars for fifteen years, the last four with Richard Childress’s three-car Chevrolet team. Burton has never won the championship. His best year was 2000 when he finished third while driving one of Jack Roush’s Fords. This year, Burton has been a model of consistency winning only once prior to his thoroughly deserved victory in last Saturday night’s 500-mile race at Charlotte. Burton is one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers and if he could eke-out the necessary points to beat Johnson to the championship he would be widely applauded.
Also in with a chance to beat Johnson is Greg Biffle who won the first two Chase races last month at New Hampshire and Dover. Biffle, 38, drives one of five Roush Fenway Fords and after Charlotte he’s third in points, 86 behind leader Johnson. Biffle came to Cup racing late in his career and has driven for Roush the past six years, finishing second in the ‘05 championship.
Biffle’s team-mate Carl Edwards looked like a serious title threat until he triggered a huge multi-car shunt at Talladega then lost sixteen laps at Charlotte changing an ignition box. Edwards is currently fourth in points, 168 behind Johnson.
With 185 points for a win and 70 for finishing 31st, almost anything can happen. But it’s unlikely that either of fifth or sixth-placed Clint Bowyer or Kevin Harvick (Burton’s team-mates at Richard Childress) or former champions Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, who currently are seventh and eighth, will be able to muster any challenges for Johnson.
Mid-season phenomenon Kyle Busch finished fourth at Charlotte but he’s now 326 points behind in ninth place. Tenth in points at this stage is Dale Earnhardt Jr. who’s had a torrid time recently. Earnhardt was eliminated in a multi-car wreck at Talladega, and then blew a right front tyre at Charlotte. After repairs he returned to the track to finish 36th, forty-five laps behind, gathering as many of those precious points as possible.
NASCAR’s championship epic continues next weekend on the half-mile Martinsville bullring in Virginia followed on October 26 by the high-speed Atlanta Motor Speedway. The season concludes with successive races in November on the Texas Motor Speedway, Phoenix Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway
Filed under: Blogs, NASCAR, Other reports
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Don Capps:
October 20th, 2008 1:29pm
After watching parts of the Martinsville event, Willie Nelson’s lyrics to The Party — “Turn out the lights, the party’s over…” — came to mind. Not sure why it is that I have never been much of a Jimmie Johnson fan, but he has never quite set off much buzz on my part. I don’t dislike him or even doubt his abilities, it is just that I now understand the exasperation many used to get with Richard Petty….
I will be greatly surprised if anyone can overcome the massive points lead that Johnson now has with so few races remaining. I am still unclear as the point of the “The Chase,” but it is not working for me. The Kyle Busch meltdown here at the end would be remarkable even without the format being used.
But, I digress….
Dave Cubbedge:
October 21st, 2008 8:24pm
I’m not a big JJ fan either - maybe it is his sponsor-perfect clean-cut appearance - more than likely it is because he showed up and started winning almost immediately and I’m jealous, but I would gladly take another title for him rather than see ‘the Shrub’ get it.
Funny story - way back in 1980 I went to see the Firecracker 400 (now Pepsi 400) at Daytona. It was my first NASCAR race and before going up to my seat I bought a Petty cap, all bright blue and flourescent pink/orange. About an hour into the race, the folks sitting behind me struck up a conversation, telling me thay knew I was not only a Yankee (by the accent, or lack of one) but also a NASCAR rookie because of the Petty hat. They told me no one rooted for Petty anymore, that he had won too much, and that I should turn my attention to that blue and yellow #2 Wrangler car, driven by this new guy Dale Earnhardt. Boy were they right on the money on all accounts!
Alan:
October 23rd, 2008 10:02pm
Does anyone out there really think that “The Chase” playoff system has been a success? I could do without it! I always enjoyed watching an entire season unfold, with all the ups and downs for the various drivers and teams. The chase clings to that notion that a playoff contest is guaranteed to be more competitive, more hard fought, and simply more important than a regular season meeting, which is the biggest lie in professional sports!
Dave Cubbedge:
October 24th, 2008 1:36pm
I cannot stand ‘the chase’. They didn’t need it to make the series more interesting. If anything, it has screwed up some guys who were having a great season until the end.
It is my hope that the IRL will continue to go from strength to strength and once again become the premier series in the US. I know, hope springs eternal!
Long live the Indy 500!!!
Don Capps:
October 27th, 2008 4:21pm
Dave,
The IRL was never “the premier series in the US.” NASCAR was in the saddle and way down the trail before Tony George created the series in 1994, much less when it hit the tracks in 1996.
I am not sure that even CART ever really held that distinction, to be honest.
By the middle of the 1920s, the idea of there being “the premier series in the US” was already fading due the influence of the International 500 Mile Sweepstakes event at the IMS. When Eddie Rickenbacker (formerly Rickenbacher when he was racing) became the president of both the AAA Contest Board AND the IMS, the International Sweepstakes race simply overshadowed what other events there were in the National Championship. For many, many years, the race at Indianapolis on Memorial Day was the only motor racing that most were aware of in the US. Everything else was basically irrelevant or “small potatoes.”
A very good case can be made for the “Indy 500″ having, overall, an extremely detrimental effect on American racing. You may not like it, but there are those who, despite their interest and enjoyment of the “500,” do not see it as the Alpha and Omega of American racing.