Jimmie Johnson (center) took it easy during the race, running seventh, but let loose afterward as he toasted another Cup crown.
(Alan Diaz/Associated Press)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. - The only show of aggression from Jimmie Johnson in yesterday's season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway came when the driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet outsprinted Ryan Newman off of Turn 4 to lead the first lap, which gave Johnson 5 bonus points.
Not that he needed them, really, but just in case.
From that moment, Johnson took a conservative route laid out by crew chief Chad Knaus, a mode with which he had been unfamiliar while winning four of the last five races in the Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship. And while it seemed to go against his pedal-to-the-metal nature to dial it down a notch, Johnson proved that cruise control was better than overdrive in finishing seventh yesterday and thus clinching his second consecutive Nextel Cup championship.
"I'm so proud of this moment," said Johnson, 32, of El Cajon, Calif., who became the 10th driver in NASCAR history to win back-to-back championships after he went on a end-of-season tear, winning four consecutive races in the Chase, to overcome a 68-point deficit to Jeff Gordon and claim the title by 77 points.
"The last four weeks, any time you win four races in a row, especially with what's on the line, is pretty amazing," Johnson said. "I knew we had a top-three car today. We played our cards right at the end of the race. I raced when I needed to, ran in clean air in comfortable positions when I needed to, but what I'm most proud of is the way we attacked this race weekend; Friday winning the pole, Saturday [being] as strong as we were in both practice sessions.
"We made sure we had our bases covered," he added. "It was a balance of putting on a strong performance and finishing the season up right. We would've loved to have won our fifth in a row, but the big prize was the championship."
And Johnson never lost sight of that.
Nor did he lose sight of the leaders, eventual race winner Matt Kenseth, and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon, the only other driver in the 43-car field who had a remote chance of winning the championship. Johnson became the first repeat champion since Gordon (1997-98) with what amounted to a leisurely Sunday drive.
"He ran a smart race, very smart," said Gordon, the owner of record on Johnson's car who finished fourth in the race and runner-up in the Chase after he failed to whittle any more than 9 points off the commanding 86-point lead Johnson took into the season finale. "I mean, he had an 86-point lead, so you can do that. What happened was that they got behind the points, and they knew that they had to be aggressive, and they were. And, man, they just went on a tear.
"And that's where this championship turned around for them and for us. Then they came in here able to just really be conservative and play it easy."
After he built a 68-point lead over Johnson by winning back-to-back at Talladega and Lowe's Motor Speedway, which softened the blow of having a 317-point lead wiped out at the start of the Chase, Gordon seemed on his way to winning his fifth career championship. But Johnson closed within 9 points when he had back-to-back wins at Martinsville and Atlanta.
Gordon figured his overall consistency - he had an average finish of 5.1 in the 10 Chase races - would help him carry the day. But he miscalculated.
"I watch Jimmie on the track, and I'll be honest," Gordon said, "I really thought that as aggressive as they were being, you know, it was going to bite them. And I guess I was just a little bit too confident in the whole consistency thing. I thought, 'That's all right, let them go do that and we'll see what happens.' And man, if they didn't pull it off. So that's just how good they are."
NASCAR officials tweaked the Chase this year by expanding the field from 10 to 12 and by placing a greater emphasis on winning by awarding 10 bonus points for each regular-season victory when the field was set and re-seeded. The intent was to generate more excitement by producing more action among more drivers.
In the end it produced a fight between just two drivers, Johnson and Gordon.
"The format's great, the format's fine," insisted Brian France, NASCAR's chairman and chief executive officer, before yesterday's race. "But when Jimmie Johnson's done what he's done [winning a series-high 10 races and recording 24 top-10 finishes] he's just at a different level and hats off to him."
Said Johnson, "We're in elite company winning two championships - back-to-back championships, which I'm really proud of. But the thing I'm really proud of is that I feel like we're really hitting our stride."
Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
