Barring a dramatic amount of misfortune, Jimmie Johnson is going to win
his sixth Sprint Cup this Sunday. No Credentials has spent a fair amount of
time over the years complaining about his triumphs (he won the 2010 title
shortly after this blog began, and this year’s Daytona 500) and celebrating his
failures (we listed him being eliminated from championship contention as our best thing that happened during a weekend
in 2011), so it makes sense that we come to terms with how great his decade in
NASCAR’s top series has been.
With a Sixth Cup, He’s on the Mt. Rushmore of NASCAR Drivers
I’ve
always discounted the Chase era in terms of the value of the championship
(Johnson wouldn’t have won under the old scoring system in 2007, 2008, or 2010,
which for my money, was a harder feat to pull off), but there comes a point
where you have to tip your cap. This win puts him ahead of David Pearson, and
puts him alongside Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon on the
hypothetical NASCAR Mt. Rushmore.
Almost Every Year He’s in the Hunt for the Championship
With
the exception of 2002 (his rookie year) and 2011, Johnson has entered the final
race of the season with a shot at winning the title. That’s ten out of twelve
years (again The Chase makes that easier, but you’re picking nits if you
discount it entirely). Richard Petty finished in the top three in points
fifteen times in a two-decade span between the ’60s and ‘70s. From 1986 to
1995, Dale Earnhardt went into the final race of the year with either the
championship already clinched or a mathematical chance at the title eight
times. Jeff Gordon has never had a decade long stretch of championship contention
(more on that later).
He’s Entering Rarified Air in Terms of Career Victories
There’s
always been focus on his championship totals, but it’s easy to forget that he’s
won the eighth most races of all time. Jeff Gordon has only won 6 races since
his 38th birthday, but Petty and Earnhardt each enjoyed tremendous
success as they approached their forties. Earnhardt racked up 42 of his 76 wins
during the season he turned 38, while Richard Petty earned 36-checkered flags,
including a modern record 13 victories in 1975. Taking the average of Petty and
Earnhardt and adding that to Johnson’s win total, and that puts Jimmie over 100
wins when he calls it a career.
Johnson Excels in the Big Races
About
the only thing on Johnson’s NASCAR bucket list that is missing is a win during
the Bristol night race (he won there in the spring of 2010 during the day
race). He’s won at all styles of tracks (he can thank Marcos Ambrose for
stalling his car under caution at Sonoma in 2010 for that), and even if the
Chase tracks were rotated, would still have an edge over the competition.
Forget the Crew Chief…the Guy Can Drive
Most
Johnson critics will first point their finger (usually the middle one) at Chad
Knaus, who is widely regarded as the greatest crew chief in NASCAR history.
What they fail to realize is that great drivers have always had a point in
their career where they had a noteworthy crew chief. Jeff Gordon is the prime
example of this. Ray Evernham, who was the Chad Knaus of his day, led his
dominant late ‘90s stretch. Once Evernham left for Dodge, Gordon never was the
same. He only won the 2001 championship without Evernham. Knaus is great, but
it’s Johnson’s exceptional car control that separates him from the rest of the
field.
How Many More Championships Will He Win?
Assuming he captures his sixth title Sunday, he’ll
only need one more to match Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the most all
time. Johnson doesn’t have the same mass appeal that Jeff Gordon has (which in
my opinion, is the reason Gordon stopped being a dominant driver during the
2000s), so it’s not a stretch that the next decade of his career will turn out
to be similar to Petty’s and Earnhardt’s. We’ll predict that he contends for
five more championships, converting three of those chances into titles, finishing
with a record 9 Sprint Cups.
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