Johnson Widens Point Margin To 86 With Fourth-Straight Victory

AVONDALE, Ariz. — It may not be official, but Jimmie Johnson couldn’t be blamed if he started to celebrate his second-straight NASCAR Nextel Cup title a week early.
Johnson took firm hold of the championship when he won Sunday’s Checker Auto Parts 500.
It was Johnson’s fourth-straight victory and his 10th win this season — the most in both categories since Jeff Gordon won four-in-a-row and scored 13 wins in his 1998 title season. It was the 33rd checkered flag of his Nextel Cup career.
Johnson can clinch the championship with an 18th-place finish at Homestead regardless of what Gordon does. If he leads a lap, that drops to 19th or better and if he leads the most laps, all he has to finish is 21st or better.
“I’m just trying to keep it simple and not get caught up in things,” Johnson said. “I hope I can do that this week. Show up, keep it simple and get in the race car and go. I don’t want to act like it’s our championship yet. We have a nice margin in the points right now, but 400 miles, that’s my goal.
“I have to run 400 miles and go nuts after that.”
Johnson took the lead when he passed Martin Truex, Jr. with 24 laps to go. Once in the lead, he sped off to the win and dealt a crippling blow to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon’s bid for a fifth Cup title.
Gordon finished 10th and now trails Johnson by 86 points with one race remaining.
“It’s over,” Gordon said of his title bid, even though he is mathematically alive for the title. “Unless you lead every lap and beat Jimmie Johnson and win the race, you don’t have a shot at it.
“Those guys are on an unbelievable roll.”
Johnson’s Chevrolet Impala finished 0.870-second ahead of Greg Biffle’s Ford Fusion. Matt Kenseth’s Ford was third followed by Tony Stewart’s Chevrolet and Ryan Newman’s Dodge Avenger.
Gordon was a lap down with 100 laps to go when he pitted early. Meanwhile, Johnson was in the lead, spelling a potential doom scenario for Gordon’s bid for the title.
While Gordon realizes the only way he can win the championship is if Johnson’s team has a major problem in the season finale, Johnson isn’t taking anything for granted.
“With the lead that we have, it’s a nice, comfortable position to be in, but we have to run 400 miles,” Johnson explained. “It takes some of the pressure off, but we have to go out there, run the race and do our own thing. We’ll just go for winning five in a row. I don’t want to act like it’s a championship yet.
“It’s 400 miles; that’s what I have to accomplish. We have to keep it simple for one more weekend.”
Johnson pitted on lap 220 when his Chevy needed tires more than fuel. That was a big break for Gordon, who got back on the lead lap. Johnson’s stop put Truex back in front, but he pitted one lap later.
The green flag waved with 73 laps to go with Ryan Newman’s Dodge in the lead. Johnson’s Chevy was fifth and Gordon was eighth.
Newman’s fuel-only pit strategy gave him the lead, but Kenseth went side by side to wrest the lead from him.
Gordon’s Chevy suffered damage when some hard racing with teammate Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick pushed in the right-front fender, causing his tire to smoke with 50 laps to go.
Gordon got a huge break from the NASCAR officials when they waved the yellow flag for debris with 43 laps to go. Truex and Johnny Sauter stayed on the track while the rest of the competitors pitted. Gordon came out of the pits 12th while Johnson was fifth.
The green flag waved on lap 275 with Truex being chased by Sauter.
Johnson overcame near disaster in a three-wide battle with Matt Kenseth and Aric Almirola, but Johnson was able to split the difference and avoid confrontation. The same couldn’t be said for Gordon, whose wounded fender got rubbed by Sauter with 26 laps to go.
By then, it didn’t matter because Johnson was ready to put an early end to his teammate’s hopes of winning a fifth Cup title.
“We thought the 24 (Gordon) would get some points back on us today,” Johnson admitted.
Gordon entered the race trailing his Hendrick teammate by 30 points but was unable to get his Chevy to adjust to the flat Phoenix oval.
“This car is impossible to adjust once you get it off,” Gordon said of the Car of Tomorrow. “There is no adjustment in it. We’re pretty limited on what we could do.
“It seemed like everything we did to it just made it worse.”
While Gordon’s car got worse the longer it ran, Johnson’s car was the exact opposite. That allowed him to become the first double-digit winner in a single season in nine years.