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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > October > 26 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USNo stopping Johnson in NASCAR
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He’s always there. He’s always lurking when he isn’t streaking. Mostly, to the dismay of his NASCAR brethren, he’s always just several tweaks and bursts away from surging to the front of the pack with his No. 48 Chevy.
That is, when Jimmie Johnson doesn’t have to come from behind. He often has everybody else on the track chasing the sparks from his exhaust pipe.
So it’s always about Johnson, even when he does the rarity by failing to overcome everybody in his speedy path. Such was the case on Sunday at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he nearly did the impossible during the last eight laps. He kept passing folks like crazy. He moved from 11th place, then to 10th place. Finally, with those in the crowd of 80,000 rubbing their eyes, he was battling Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards for a mad dash for the checkered flag on the final lap.
“Man, Jimmie’s magic,” said Edwards, who nervously watched his rearview mirror. He saw the charging Johnson zip by Hamlin with a nifty move in turn 4 for second place. Even so, during a picturesque sundown over the Pep Boys Auto 500, Edwards was in the middle of the infield doing his victory flip. It was his third victory at AMS. More important, it pushed Edwards from fourth to second in the Chase for the Cup with three races left.
It’s always about Johnson, though, because he actually leads the Chase. By a lot. Try 183 points over Edwards.
Not only that, Johnson left town just shy of becoming the 21st century Cale Yarborough along the way to solidifying his legacy. The real Cale Yarborough remains the sole driver ever to manage three consecutive titles in stock car racing’s premier series. He did so during the late 1970s. Now, barring something in the vicinity of the Collapse for the Ages in those final three races of the Chase, Johnson will tie Yarborough’s mark with ease.
Just don’t tell Johnson. “You still gotta race. That’s what we’re here for,” Johnson said. “You’ve got no clue what’s going to happen during those last few races. Until I have that trophy in my hands, I can’t let up.”
You can let up, Jimmie. It’s over, because this was another example of how Johnson and his crew members are almost peerless in their ability to overcome adversity on the fly. In this one, Johnson was doing just fine in the early going after beginning the race from the pole. Then came the 90th lap, when he got a little gas-pedal happy roaring into pit row. The NASCAR police aren’t amused by such things. As a result, Johnson was penalized and forced to re-enter the pit area at regulation speed to drop a lap behind.
It almost didn’t matter since it’s always about Johnson. Well, Johnson and Chad Knaus, Johnson’s brilliant crew chief, who is adept at adjusting. Knaus kept tinkering enough with Johnson’s car during pit stops to help Johnson move from 30th place soon after his penalty to 19th — then to about half of that deficit for most of the race until his scramble at the end.
“I feel like I went 12 rounds with [Mike] Tyson,” said Johnson, smiling after coming that pit-row violation short of his seventh victory of the year. “It just killed us, and we just fought back from that all day long. We made up some ground, but we were only able to get to seventh, sixth, something like that. Cars were pretty much all equal in front of us in speed.”
Nobody equals Johnson in anything right now, especially points.
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