Johnson Has Nextel Cup Title In Grasp
Published: Nov 12, 2007
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AVONDALE, ARIZ. - Jimmie Johnson could have been cautious with his points lead Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway, especially with his only challenger having an average day.
Instead, he was relentless.
He made an aggressive pass on win-starved Martin Truex Jr. with 24 laps remaining in the Checker Auto Parts 500, blew to his fourth victory in a row and 10th of the season, and put a stranglehold on a second consecutive Nextel Cup championship.
"I am terrible at playing defense," said a surprisingly subdued Johnson, who clinched a seventh championship for Hendrick Motorsports, took an 86-point lead over teammate Jeff Gordon and is assured of winning the title if he finishes at least 18th in Sunday's season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead.
"When I am racing with guys like Martin and Matt [Kenseth], as we showed last week [winning at Texas], we can race side-by-side and run 100 percent without crashing each other."
In winning for the 11th time in the four-year history of the Chase - no other driver has more than four victories in NASCAR's equivalent of the playoffs - Johnson sucked the competitive fire out of Gordon, who would have clinched his fifth title last week at Texas under the old points system.
"It's over, you know, it's over," Gordon said dejectedly. "I mean, even if we win, it'll be because they have problems, and we don't want to win it that way. Those guys flat-out killed everybody. … We didn't win the races when we needed to."
Johnson is on the verge of becoming the first driver to repeat as champion since Gordon in 1997-98, and his 2007 season has become strikingly reminiscent of Gordon's dominance in '98.
Gordon tied a modern-era record with 13 victories that year and had a four-race winning streak during the summer. Johnson on Sunday became the first driver to reach double-digit wins and win four straight since then.
"They're just unbelievably good," Kenseth said of Johnson and his No. 48 team. "They're as good as any group I've ever seen, including Jeff in his heyday … when he used to win a championship by over 100 points."
Greg Biffle finished second and Kenseth third after their Roush-Fenway Racing teammate, Carl Edwards, led the first 87 laps before suffering engine failure. Tony Stewart took fourth, while Truex wound up seventh.
Johnson started sixth and ran in the top five during the first half of the race, but he didn't take the lead for the first time (and pick up five bonus points) until the 188th of 312 laps. He led for 31 laps before making a green-flag pit stop for four tires on Lap 219.
Crew chief Chad Knaus opted for track position and called for two tires on Johnson's final stop. On Lap 283, Johnson passed Kenseth for second when Tampa's Aric Almirola, who was running a lap down with overheating brakes and an alternator problem, nearly made contact with Kenseth.
Six laps later, Johnson made the pass on Truex for the win.
"We wanted to be up front leading laps and doing all that, but we didn't do everything until the end," said Johnson, who has set a pattern of coming on late to win races. "With our two-tire stop at the end of the race, our car was really good. The 17 [Kenseth] and 20 [Stewart] had gotten two-tire stops two stops in a row, so it was the right call."
Gordon never had one of the faster cars and developed a tire rub late in the race while banging with Kevin Harvick. A timely caution flag allowed Gordon to stop to correct the condition on Lap 270.
"You can't touch Kevin Harvick, because if you touch him, he's got a short fuse," Gordon said. "He rubbed on me because I was racing him too hard, I guess. I didn't like it either, so I rubbed back on him, and I thought we were going to all wreck.
"That didn't have any effect on where we finished. We were going backwards at that point anyway. We just weren't getting a handle on it. We took four tires hoping that would pay off for us, but traffic was horrendous, and we just couldn't get up there."
Although it was considered a foregone conclusion that the championship was down to Johnson and Gordon coming to Phoenix, it's now a mathematical certainty. Everyone from third-place Clint Bowyer on back was formally eliminated with Johnson winning.
Johnson has put together four wins and six top-five finishes in the nine Chase races and an average finish of 4.8. Gordon has two victories, five top-five finishes and an average finish of 5.2.
"I had a meeting with the guys before [New Hampshire, the Chase opener] and said we need to have an average finish of 9.0 to have a championship," Knaus said. "That was way off base, obviously.
Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994 or afabrizio@tampatrib.com.
