As Edwards and Stewart Fight to be the New Champion They Reflect on Johnson’s Run
Realistically Jimmie Johnson’s run at a sixth straight championship ended before Phoenix but he was officially eliminated from contention on Sunday afternoon.
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[/media-credit]A new Sprint Cup Series champion will be crown next week in Homestead-Miami, the first time since 2005 that Lowe’s Racing No. 48 won’t be on top. The remaining two drivers who can win the championship are ones who have tried to dethrone Johnson in the past.
Edwards came close in 2008, winning eight races but came up shy by less 60 points in the season ending race, which he won. Stewart was the driver who won the championship in 2005, holding off Johnson who crashed midway through the race. Edwards is looking for his first title, Stewart his third.
They will be the main storyline for the next week but a big story as well is that Johnson is no longer the champion. After their second and third place runs respectively, Edwards and Stewart both said what the 48 team has done has been remarkable, something that most likely will never occur again.
“I haven’t won two straight so I have no clue what five straight feels like,” said Stewart. “I don’t see anybody doing it again. I think it’s been absolutely remarkable to begin with for Jimmie to put five in a row together. And I know this year hasn’t ended up like he’s wanted by any means but I think he goes to Vegas and hold his head up high knowing what they’ve accomplished.”
Johnson will go down as one of the best drivers in the sport. What he and his team have accomplished the last five years has been both fun and frustrating to watch. It’s been impressive and deflating. Everyone knew there would come a day when the streak would be over but the more they kept winning, the more that day seemed to be pushed off.
Now it’s here, someone else will take possession of the head table in Las Vegas. No more golden horseshoe jokes, or thinking they can do no wrong. Even when it looked like Johnson and company were going to lose, such as last year with Denny Hamlin, they always found a way to win. Or when it just didn’t seem possible to win three in a row, they not only did that but backed it up with four and then five.
They have rewritten the history books as well as what is possible. Their competition changed but their ability to win didn’t. The tracks and the cars changed, but their focus didn’t. And the situations changed such as being the point leader to having to win it from behind and they still came out the champions.
As for this year and what has brought that streak to an end, the competition caught up or maybe Johnson just lost, it’s for observers to decide. There’s no denying though that Johnson and his team didn’t go down easily.
They were always there during the regular season. He still dominated races and keeping a steady pace in the points. The only difference between 2011 and years past is that Johnson was dominating but he wasn’t winning. He only had one victory entering the Chase, then earned his second at Kanas. Even then, it still seemed like it would be enough to get them to the top.
Never a team to count out, everyone watched and waited to see when the 48 team would kick it up a notch and start whipping everyone’s tails. They never did, instead it was Edward and Stewart who pulled away from the field. Now they get to fight for the trophy that Johnson hasn’t let go of since 2006.
It is unlikely that Johnson’s feat will ever be matched. Except maybe by Johnson himself, believes Edwards. Moving forward he’ll still be known as five-time but instead of wondering how many championships he could win in a row, now it’s about how many he could win total.
Sure, they’re down this year, still hoping to finish in the top five in points to keep their another one of their streaks alive. But just as unlikely as it is to see another driver come along and win five titles in a row, it’s unlikely to think that Johnson will never win another one. A sixth is still possible, as is a seventh, which would match Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Johnson would love nothing more than to do so.
He noted Sunday that he’ll reflect on his five titles in the off-season as he and crew chief Chad Knaus try figure out how to be better going into 2012.
“I just think it’s amazing,” said Stewart. “You understand why people didn’t want him to win a sixth one but at the same time, I’ve said it from day one, how do you knock down a guy that’s going out and doing what he’s supposed to do and doing what we all if we could trade places with him would do it in a heartbeat go out and win five in a row. I think you have to tip your hat to him.”
Stewart says that it’s remarkable that at the top level of NASCAR Johnson and his team were able to do what they did. They should have pride in that accomplishment, Edwards agreed. He also noted though, that Johnson will never quit and will keep trying to do what no other driver has ever done and add to his legacy.
As drivers, fans, media and others alike look back on the past five years and prepare to celebrate a new champion in a week, there were be many more thoughts on Johnson’s run. It’s one that while it might have grown tiring to watch, was respected and amazing to see happen.
Or as Johnson tweeted Sunday night, “It’s been one hell of a run.”
Sam Hornish Said He Wouldn’t Regret Running Stock Cars, Saturday Makes It Worth Wild
For Sam Hornish Jr. there’s just something about Phoenix. The former open wheel driver scored his first career IndyCar win at the jewel in the desert in March of 2001 and on Saturday afternoon he did the same in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.
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[/media-credit]It comes after he scored his first career Sprint Cup Series top 10 at Phoenix and after he started his first Cup and Nationwide races at the track. But it was also the place that the first time he saw it in a stock car he hit everything but the pace car. Saturday though, he was repeatedly praised and congratulated on his accomplishment.
“I can’t hardly believe it,” said Hornish. “It’s been a great day.”
Hornish’s win didn’t come by surprise or late race strategy. The No. 12 Alliance Dodge was in contention all day, leading 62 of 200 laps on their way to victory lane. Running a partial schedule with Penske Racing, team owner Roger Penske says that Hornish been humbled the last 12-18 months. Coming from the IndyCar Series where he’s won races and championships, it hasn’t been the same in NASCAR.
Part of it, says Penske, was his fault for putting in Cup Series before he was ready. Hornish was never given time to learn the craft, instead thrown right in with the big boys. He’s found a comfortable home though running in the NNS with crew chief Chad Walter and Penske’s working on putting together a deal for the team to run the full season in 2012. But on Saturday it wasn’t about the future, Hornish was living in the present and experiencing the feeling of being a winner again for the first time in many years.
“I don’t know if I was always as optimistic as Roger is,” said Hornish about his NASCAR potential. “I look back at 2008, I feel I had a great opportunity in 2008 and what happened that year was I had been so accustomed to being first all the time that when I came over I didn’t know how to take a 15th.”
There have been many learning curves for Hornish. He short and unaccomplished Cup career left many with doubt about his venture into the stock car world. Criticized on a weekly basis and insulted by five-time champion Jimmie Johnson could have scared Hornish away. But Penske told Hornish not to beat himself up and Hornish for his part kept after it, even though he too questioned his career move.
Not racing every weekend in 2011 also got to Hornish. Realization of just how much he wanted to run every lap he possibly could hit home as he longed to learn everything he could. A large part of his time has been devoted to testing for Penske and helping the full-time teams of Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski, who he beat on Saturday.
“This what I wanted,” said Hornish, who said he was glad that he’s stuck it out. “I came over here not because there’s more money or anything like that, it was because I was interested, I got a opportunity to run some Nationwide races throughout 2007 and after doing that I got to see there was something different out there and something that challenged me again.”
It’s been a big challenge that Hornish acknowledges and knew he would face. For the Defiance, Ohio native he would be just that, defiant to failure and instead used every situation he could to build his character. It all led him to Saturday in Phoenix when he beat some of the best in the business. Afterwards Hornish seemed at a loss for words when talking about his journey and those who helped him get there.
“I got a lot of people to thank and my dad’s probably one of the biggest ones,” said Hornish. “He kept telling me even through a tough season like this season, ‘Do you love doing it?’ and I said ‘Yeah, I love being in the racecar.’ He said ‘Well, keep doing it then.’”
Blessed is how Hornish describes himself. Emotional as well was Hornish and Penske, who said there would be a lot more of Hornish celebrations in the future. Keselowski, who again finished second to a Penske driver scoring this first win, said the same about his teammate’s bright future.
“Huge, huge day for Sam,” said Keselowski. “Sam has paid a lot of dues in this sport and it’s good to see him have some success. Obviously he’s gone two or three years at the Cup level had a couple times when he was close to getting that win and today he was able to get it done. Might be at the Nationwide Series but you have to start somewhere. This looks like a good fit for him.”
