by Mike Maruska
11/12/2007
Jimmie Johnson is a robot. A winning robot. Four wins in a row puts him in elite company with names like Gordon, Pearson, Waltrip, Yarborough, Petty and Earnhardt. A lot of people are tired of seeing the same driver and team win each week, but we are watching greatness right now. No matter what your feelings about Johnson, Chad Knaus or Hendrick Motorsports are, this is history. Some people didn’t like the 80’s 49ers, the 90’s Bulls or the 00’s Yankees, but anyone with a marginally objective opinion had to concede that they were dynasties.
The other thing people had to admit was that there were several great pieces to each dynasty, not simply Joe Montana, Michael Jordan or Derek Jeter. Jimmie Johnson is one of those pieces and he is a great driver. In 35 races he has ten wins, 20 top fives and 23 top tens, plus 4 DNF’s. That basically says that if Johnson is on the track he is in the lead pack fighting for wins. There are very few cheap top tens. Johnson tries to make top ten cars into top fives, top five cars into winning cars. Need more numbers? Johnson has six wins in his last eleven races and boasts a winning percentage of 28%. Those are Playstation numbers.
The 86 point lead is the largest entering Homestead since the Chase began in 2004. The lead has also never changed hands after Phoenix. While it’s easy to say Jeff Gordon lost a load of points at Phoenix, the Chase was really lost at Atlanta and Texas. Two 7th place finishes at tracks where Gordon was excellent in the spring really cost him. Gordon squandered 44 and 39 points at the two races. Yes he also won at Phoenix in the spring, but he it’s never been his best track. It’s hard to be too critical of Gordon. He has one finish (11th at Dover) outside the top ten during the Chase. That would have been enough in every other Chase season, but obviously Johnson has raised the bar to ridiculous heights this year.
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Matt Kenseth’s black and yellow paint scheme was clean, simple and looked sharp. It also helps that the #17 car is back in the front and leading laps. He has four straight top 5’s and has led 410 laps during the Chase, including a race high 93 on Sunday. Compare that to 7 top 5’s and only 288 laps led during the season’s first 26 races.
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According to ESPN, Tony Stewart lost 17 spots on pit road during the race. He finished 4th. So if he got average pit stops, does that mean he would have finished -13th? Sorry, I’m not very good at math.
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Nearly all the Open Wheel Immigrants made the race at Phoenix with mixed results. Sam Hornish Jr finally made his Cup debut and finished 2 laps down in 30th. Patrick Charpentier finished 33rd and Jacques Villeneuve was caught up in a crash and finished 41st. AJ Allmendinger did not qualify and Dario Franchitti crashed in the Busch Series. Meanwhile, in his 36th Cup start, Juan Pablo Montoya finished on the lead lap in 17th. Montoya has already exceeded my expectations in year one and now he returns to the place where he made his Cup debut.
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Greg Biffle’s team has shown marked improvement during the Chase. He scored his first 2007 win at Kansas, finished 2nd at Dover and Phoenix and now they head to Homestead. Biffle has a shot next week to win, not because he has momentum from Phoenix (different car different track, different day), but because he’s won the last three Cup races at Homestead. Of course the way things are going, Jimmie Johnson might be able to drive the pace car and win.
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